Page 63 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol I - Abraham to Coal

this fleeting world / beginnings: the era of foragers tfw-3

Carbon Dating

Carbon 14 (hereafter C 14) was developed by the
American chemistWillard F. Libby at the Univer-
the material life of our ancestors, it can occasionally give sity of Chicago in the ’50s, for which he received
us tantalizing glimpses into their cultural and even spiri- the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. C 14 dat-
tual lives. Particularly revealing are the astonishing artis- ing provided an accurate means of dating a wide
tic creations of early human communities, although variety of organic material in most archaeological
precise interpretations of artifacts such as the great cave sites, and indeed in most environments through-
paintings of southern France and northern Spain remain out the world.The method revolutionized scien-
beyond our grasp. tists’ ability to date the past.It freed archaeologists
The second major type of evidence used to study early from trying to use artifacts as their only means of
human history comes from studies of modern foraging determining chronologies, and it allowed them
communities. Such studies must be used with caution for the first time to apply the same absolute time
because modern foragers are modern; their lifeways are all scale uniformly from region to region and conti-
influenced in varying degrees by the modern world. Nev- nent to continent. Many older archaeological
ertheless, by studying modern foraging lifeways, we can schemes were overturned with the advent of C 14
learn much about basic patterns of life in small foraging dating. Today it is possible to date sites...well
communities; thus, such studies have helped prehistorians back into the late Pleistocene [Era] with reliable
interpret the meager material evidence available. and accurate chronologies.
Recently a third type of evidence, based on compara- Source: Hudson, M. (n.d.). Understanding Carbon 14 dating. Retrieved September
8, 2004, from http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/natsci/vertpaleo/aucilla10_1/
tive studies of modern genetic differences, has provided Carbon.htm
new ways of studying early human history. Genetic stud-
ies can determine degrees of genetic separation between
modern populations and can help us estimate both the cal, and genetic evidence yields types of information that
age of our species and the dates at which different pop- differ from the written sources that are the primary re-
ulations were separated by ancient migrations. search base for most professional historians.Archaeolog-
Integrating these different types of evidence into a co- ical evidence from the era of foragers can never give us
herent account of world history is difficult not only be- the intimate personal details that can be found in written
cause most historians lack the necessary expertise and sources, but it can tell us much about how people lived.
training, but also because archaeological, anthropologi- Integrating the insights of these different disciplines is one

Modern Era
■ <1% of human history
■ 68% of population

Agrarian Era
■ 4% of human history
Modern humans in Eurasia Modern humans in Australia Modern humans in Americas
■ 20% of population

100,000 bce 40,000 bce 10,000 bce 0 1750 ce
12,000 bce