radiocarbon dating• Palmer originally specialised in acoustics but became interested in the physics of the Earth and in measuring ages by radiocarbon dating.• This is the basis of conventionalradiocarbon dating.• Just as dramatically, radiocarbon dating has shown that the Neolithic was introduced to Britain at least 1500 years earlier than previously believed.• The samplepreparationprocedures are the same as those used for radiocarbon dating, care being taken to avoid contamination.• But several factorsaffect the accuracy of radiocarbon dating.• The principles of radiocarbon dating are fairly straightforward, but in practice there are many problems.• All of the caveats that apply to radiocarbon dating apply to its use in authentication.