New Technique Provides Accurate Dating of Ancient Skeletons

Eurekalert ^ | June 17, 2018 | European Society of Human Genetics

[SunkenCiv]

Interest in the origins of human populations and their migration routes has increased greatly in recent years. A critical aspect of tracing migration events is dating them. However, the radiocarbon techniques*, that are commonly used to date and analyse DNA from ancient skeletons can be inaccurate and not always possible to apply. Inspired by the Geographic Population Structure model that can track mutations in DNA that are associated with geography, researchers have developed a new analytic method, the Time Population Structure (TPS), that uses mutations to predict time in order to date the ancient DNA.

Dr Umberto Esposito... TPS can calculate the mixtures of DNA deriving from different time periods to estimate its definitive age. "This introduces a completely new approach to dating. At this point, in its embryonic state, TPS has already shown that its results are very similar to those obtained with traditional radiocarbon dating. We found that the average difference between our age predictions on samples that existed up to 45,000 years ago, and those given by radiocarbon dating, was 800 years. This study adds a powerful instrument to the growing toolkit of paleogeneticists that can contribute to our understanding of ancient cultures, most of which are currently known from archaeology and ancient literature," says Dr Esposito.

Radiocarbon technology requires certain levels of radiocarbon on the skeleton, and this is not always available. In addition, it is a delicate procedure that can yield very different dates if done incorrectly. The new technique provides results similar to those obtained by radiocarbon dating, but using a completely new DNA-based approach that can complement radiocarbon dating or be used when radiocarbon dating is unreliable.

[VaeVictis]

Oh, well this is cool. I never have really liked radiocarbon dating. Too many assumptions and too little that could be used as verification. Even the article states:

However, the radiocarbon techniques*, that are commonly used to date and analyse DNA from ancient skeletons can be inaccurate and not always possible to apply...... Radiocarbon technology requires certain levels of radiocarbon on the skeleton, and this is not always available. In addition, it is a delicate procedure that can yield very different dates if done incorrectly.

Too bad they are balancing this new study out using radiocarbon dated samples. If your equation has (2+2=500), then all other work based on that will also be wrong.

[Red Badger]

I dated a skeleton once.

her name was Boney..............................

[SunkenCiv]

There's a lot of incoherent inchoate animus directed at radiocarbon dating, none of is of any importance.