NCJ Number
123905
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 34 Issue: 5 Dated: (September 1989) Pages: 1196-1205
Date Published
1989
Length
10 pages
Annotation
The radiocarbon (14C) method is an isotopic dating technique by which age can be assigned to organic materials, including human bone. Natural and anthropogenic anomalies in 14C activity in the biosphere over the last few centuries can be used as an isotopic tracer to assign human bone samples with high degrees of probability to one of three temporal periods within the recent past.
Abstract
This article illustrates the use of the 14C method to analyze human bone in five forensic science cases and to assign each piece of evidence to one of these periods. Additional criteria that might be applied to evaluate any method of assigning age to a modern bone include environmental variables, support of results by a recognized corpus of scientific data, costs of the analysis, and the availability of results. Although 14C analysis met and exceeded the environmental and scientific support criteria, its substantially greater cost and lengthy time to obtain results are somewhat detrimental to the use of the method. With the 14C method the cost is between $300 and $400, and the length of time is at least 21 days. In addition the analysis is a destructive technique which requires consumption of the bone evidence. 17 references, 4 figures, 2 tables. (Author abstract modified)