I'd like to know how one could possibly get an accurate date on an inorganic rock. Surely this has to be an estimate...since the rock itself is surely much older. Based on the layer it was found?
Anyway, 500,000 years sounds like bunk.
The axe looks identical to those found round California, chiselled by Indians...er, Indigenous Peoples...about 250 years ago. I guess human technology didn't change much over 499,750 years.
They probably just used hand-axe typology to date it--lots of other securely dated handaxes with similar design cluster in dates around 500K, so they assign this one a date of 500K. Of course this is an article for the public so they don't talk about how it was dated since most people don't really care about such esoteric info.
Most dating techniques are estimates, even dendrochronoloy (tree-ring dating), which is why in most professional publications you will see a +/- associated with a date and often a lot time spent talking about how a particular site is dated.
Maybe from the strat in which it was found, ant other or ganic "stuff".
And quit calling me shirley! </airplane reference
It was dated by a contemporaneous voicemail Dan Rather located regarding the date of manufacture.
Plus, it had the ingraving "To F.F. from W.F. Love! 500,000 B.C." on one side.
Seriously, I believe the dating came from its position in relation to the now non-existant river system that had been previously dated.
That's what I was thinking. You'd expect the housing industry would be much further ahead if it were 500,000 years old.
I suspect that it is a typo...one too many zeroes. Most anthropologists put the start of homo sapiens at between 120,000 to 500,000 years ago (I know, big window). So either this axe belonged to an earlier hominid or those sapiens characters jumped from East Africa to the midlands much more promptly than anyone has guessed before. If I am right that there is one too many zeroes, that puts it at 50,000 years old, which coincides nicely with the begining of the early upper paleolithic era...which certainly seems to fit the design of the axe...and it would fit the migratory models.
"I'd like to know how one could possibly get an accurate date on an inorganic rock. Surely this has to be an estimate...since the rock itself is surely much older. Based on the layer it was found?
Anyway, 500,000 years sounds like bunk."
My guess is they used the layer it was found in to date it.
There are some pretty sophisticated new testing methods of dating around now though.
I have visions of archeologists running around with a little sack of old museum stuff....and planting it. Hey, it's good for a big grant!!
It is