Replies

Flaming Conservative: "Carbon dating is a joke."

Honest Nigerian: "So how do you KNOW how old those fossils and bones are?
Does anyone have solid evidence to begin with?
Or, is someone making assumptions, or accepting premises which are not provable?"

Here again is that link to Radiometric Dating, A Christian Perspective, by Dr. Roger C. Wiens.

It lists many dozens of different methods for determining ancient ages, from counting tree rings & ice cores to radioactive half-lives and thermoluminescence dating.
Every method has its strengths & limitations and sometimes several methods can be used on the same materials, each confirming the others.

So this article doesn't tell us which methods were used to arrive at 9.7 million years, nor does it mention if that age is in any way controversial.
Another article says:

"The teeth were unearthed in a layer of sediment next to the skeletal remains of an extinct horse-like animal, and this helped with the dating process.
...In a press conference, the Mayor of Mainz, Michael Ebling, said the discovery could lead to a complete overhaul of what we currently believe to be true about human origins. "

OOOOOKaaaaay.

Btw, many years ago (no not 9.7 million!) I lived in Mainz, a wonderful old city.
Iirc, their museum has a copy of the original Guttenberg Bible.