Originally posted by quintar
wow...
10 million years old???
Certainly. Mammals have been around since the Jurassic.
I remember reading recently on another thread that Carbon dating is limited in how far it can go back to determine how old something is.
That's correct -- and it can only do dating on organic things. You can't date fossil bones that have turned to stone, rocks, statues, buildings, etc, etc.
They date by the sediment layers AND by other radiographic techniques that use elements with longer half lives. There's quite literally dozens of ways of getting at the date, and with an important fossil they'll use several to make sure they have a good ballpark date.
Ethiopia seems to be the source for many primates, and some of the oldest hominid fossils are found there.
[edit on 23-8-2007 by Byrd]
