500,000 year old cranium found at Atapuerca, Burgos

Carbon-14 dating is the standard method used by scientists to determine the age of certain fossilized remains. As scientists will often claim something to be millions or billions of years old (ages that do not conform to the Biblical account of the age of the earth), Christians are often left wondering about the accuracy of the carbon-14 method. The truth is, carbon-14 dating (or radiocarbon dating, as it’s also called) is not a precise dating method in many cases, due to faulty assumptions and other limitations on this method.

Carbon has a weight of twelve atomic mass units (AMU’s), and is the building block of all organic matter (plants and animals). A small percentage of carbon atoms have an atomic weight of 14 AMU’s. This is carbon-14. Carbon-14 is an unstable, radioactive isotope of carbon 12. As with any radioactive isotope, carbon-14 decays over time. The half-life of carbon 14 is approximate 5,730 years. That means if you took one pound of 100 percent carbon-14, in 5,730 years, you would only have half a pound left.

Carbon-14 is created in the upper atmosphere as nitrogen atoms are bombarded by cosmic radiation. For every one trillion carbon-12 atoms, you will find one carbon-14 atoms. The carbon-14 that results from the reaction caused by cosmic radiation quickly changes to carbon dioxide, just like normal carbon-12 would. Plants utilize, or “breath in” carbon dioxide, then ultimately release oxygen for animals to inhale.


contenderministries.org...

reply to post by slugger9787


Thank you for posting this information slugger9797, I just read recently that someone has proof that the carbon 14 dating is all wrong that using that method makes things much older then they are, who knows, everyone has an opinion, can there be proof one way or another, I highly doubt it.

This thread seems to have turned into one big advertisement for spanish tourism. Are people going to start talking about the 500,000 year old skull yet?
If i start first will i be bombarded by a list of "Good things about spain"?

If so i'm good.

reply to post by TechUnique


You are right, but since we are getting posters from Spain that is a good thing, but I would like to get back on topic..

looks cool. Probably something ape-like. Features are not quite human.

Is definably ape-like. Strong canines.

[edit on 2-8-2010 by Gorman91]

Isn't there a school of thought that says the carbon 14 testing is not reliable and that it could be off by many thousands of years and in a lot of cases could even be dead wrong?

I seem to remember that. So.. how can they be sure how old this skull is? It seems knowing this as scientists they should say not that it's 5000,000 years old but that it may possibly be as old as 500,000 years according to one type of dating process, with the understanding this date is not carved in stone.

As for Spain, I'll go when they prefect the universal translator.

They may not have used Carbon 14 here in this instance however. A common practice in determining the age of bones is to use a process called Paleomagnetism.

en.wikipedia.org...

Howdy folks

A quick search on Google Scholar will give you several links to the scientific studies that relate how the dating is done for that site.

They are using U series and ESR dating not carbon-14. The materials in the site are far to old to use C-14 which cannot date correctly past around 60k years ago.

U-series and other radiometric dating systems are given a summary review at this wiki site. More detailed answers can be googled

Radiometric dating systems

A preliminary report on dating the layers at the Spanish site

The site

This is an earlier report of the top layers with ages from 200-380k years

The fossils found in the different layers arae dated by obtaining dates of the layers above, below and matrix in which the fossil is recovered. They can compare these dates to similar fossils that have been previously dated.

Adding another link

2009 publication on the site







[edit on 3/8/10 by Hanslune]

reply to post by Hanslune


Thanks so much for information and links, when I was looking for these things a few days ago they were all in Spanish for the most part..

Originally posted by JohnPhoenix
Isn't there a school of thought that says the carbon 14 testing is not reliable and that it could be off by many thousands of years and in a lot of cases could even be dead wrong?

I seem to remember that. So.. how can they be sure how old this skull is?

Because they DIDN'T carbon date it!

Carbon dating only works to 50,000 years. Anything older can't be carbon dated and they wouldn't have tried. Depending on the site, they use a number of other dating techniques and would (or should) have had it sampled and dated by several labs to "triangulate" the data.


paleo.cc...

However, I call into question the accuracy of this testing process also.

In dating important specimens, the labs I know of use more than one method.

500,000 years old?
A majority of the scientists could not even accurately calculate the number of seconds they have been alive, much less the number of years something has been dead.

Whatever the age, the guy (or gal) that was the proud user of this skull must've had excellent teeth. No signs of tooth decay



[edit on 3-8-2010 by Jelonek]

Originally posted by Jelonek
Whatever the age, the guy (or gal) that was the proud user of this skull must've had excellent teeth. No signs of tooth decay

They surely must have had better teeth then we have today, no soda with acid, fluoride in the water and toothpaste, chemicals and preservatives in their food, they more then likely had a more natural diet.

Just noticed that the picture they show (of a skull) is not the material they found -- which is only the cranium (top of skull.)

It's most likely to belong to Homo Erectus though it has some of the features of Neanderthals

With the changes in hominid timelines (and the adding of Homo heidelbergensis and others to homo sapiens), this could add weight to the argument that types of homo sapiens have been around BEFORE the Neanderthals.

But that skull... don't know where it came from but I'm fairly certain that isn't the first skull they found. It's too new (unless it's a reproduction... and it could be). There should be some interesting arguments about whether it belongs to homo sapiens or homo antecessor (also found in the area of Spain) (archaic humans at TalkOrigins.Org)

Originally posted by Aquarius1
July 28, 2010

It is the second complete cranium to be found at the site.

A 500,000 year old complete cranium has been recovered from the Atapuerca side at Sima de los Huesos de Atapuerca in Burgos. It’s the second complete cranium to be found at the site which shows the presence of Homo Antecessor in the region.

Sources at the Atapuerca Foundation say that once the practical entire cranium has been recovered the meticulous reconstruction of the bones will be undertaken during the winter.

www.typicallyspanish.com...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/10f538df71cc.jpg[/atsimg]

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Very interesting that they are finding sculls that are intact in that region, I will be interested to see the complete skelton when they assemble it this winter sometime.

reply to post by Byrd


Thank you for the find, did not notice, it was the only picture I could find when I put the thread up.