Can a age of a person be detected using fossil bones?how?
(1) The age of a recent fossil (max 50 000 years, i think) can be detected by measuring the amount of or Carbon 14 present. Living organisms take in Carbon 14 from the atmosphere constantly through respiration. Carbon 14 decays slowly into Nitrogen 13 by beta decay, so that living organisms have an equillibrium or intake and decay of Carbon 14. Once we die, we stop taking in Carbon 14, but it keeps decaying slowly. By measuring the concentration of carbon 14 in a fossil we can estimate how long ago it died. After a long period of time, the amount of carbon 14 left is so small, that it cannot be detected. It that case, the fossils are often dated by other methods, such as the age of the rock it was found in or something like that. . (2) It is very hard to estimate the age at which a person died when all we have left from them is their fossil. It CAN still be done, though, for Human fossils and recent hominid fossils. This is usually done rather arbitrarily, based on the size of the bone
