Spent 2 hours trying to carbon date a piece of charcoal from my backyard fire pit

So I found this chunk of charcoal near an old stone foundation on my property in rural Ohio. I thought it might be from the 1800s or something. Grabbed a test kit I ordered online and spent 2 whole nights recording data, only to realize it was probably from a campfire I had last summer. The lab results came back with a big error message. Anyone else accidentally mix up modern trash with old artifacts?

2 comments

2 Comments

josephf103d ago

Ha! That's amazing. You basically spent two nights proving you burned some hot dogs and marshmallows. I gotta hand it to you though, that's a lot of effort just to confirm you know how to use a fire pit. Labs hate it when you send them last week's trash instead of actual archaeology. They probably flagged your sample as "modern organic material, no further analysis required." At least you didn't try to carbon date a McDonald's receipt or something.

briannguyen3d ago

Carbon dating kit for a backyard fire pit? Those test kits need a specific lab setup, theyre not something you just order online. You probably got a fake or a chemistry set.

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