Carbon dating is not the final word, and a site in Ohio proved it to me

I spent 3 summers helping at a dig near the Great Serpent Mound, and we kept getting radiocarbon results that clashed with the soil layers. The lab said a charcoal sample was 500 years older than the pottery right next to it, but the stratigraphy was clear as day. I've seen too many folks treat those dates like gospel, but that mismatch taught me to trust context over a single number. Has anyone else had a lab result that just didn't fit the field evidence?

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the_simon2d ago

Honestly, that mismatch doesn't surprise me one bit. Ngl, I've seen labs get too confident in their calibration curves and ignore the fact that old wood can sit around for centuries before it gets burned. A charcoal sample from a big, old tree could easily be 500 years older than the actual fire that cooked your pottery, so the lab isn't wrong, but the date is still off for the moment you care about. That's the thing nobody brings up, it's not always the stratigraphy that's off, it's the material you're dating. You need to pick short-lived stuff like seeds or twigs for the best shot, not a chunk of old growth. Trusting the soil layers over a single weird number is the right call, every time.