How can one reliably date a carved stone item or structure?
score:-5
First of all, carbon dating is a highly inexact science to begin with. If you submit identical samples to different labs you will get widely differing results. Also, all labs I know of require the submission to describe where the sample came from and provide an estimated age of the sample. In fact, a lot of labs not only require you to estimate the age of the sample, they require you to justify your estimate. Obviously, this is not scientific. A scientific measurement is "blind", meaning the tester does not what the result should be ahead of time; carbon dating does not fall into this category.
As far as stratigraphy is concerned, infiltrated remains, the kind of error you describe are always a concern. Usually any kind of single piece of evidence is not sufficient to date an object; an overwhelming and diversified set of evidence is necessary. For example, if a bone is found in a tomb, that is not enough to date the construction of the tomb, because the bone could have been placed in the tomb long after it was constructed.
There is no way to date a stone carving based on just the stone itself, because the chemistry of the situation is too variable and too complex. For example, moisture and temperature fluctuation will have a big effect on how a stone weathers. So, one excavated stone might look brand new, and another one very ancient and degraded.
Usually stone carvings are dated either on the basis of style or on the archaeological context they are found in.
Upvote:-3
The surface of a stone gradually changes with exposure to air.
Carved surfaces will show less "patina".
Try to estimate rate of change in the patina.
Upvote:6
A lot of crafted items can be reasonably dated by how they were made, and what they were made of. How readily available a given material (in this case, stone) is can be influenced by a lot of factors: trade, weather, societal conditions, affluence in different social tiers, etc. The item's time period of origin can be narrowed down by substances found in adjacent sediment deposits and carbon dating of these substances left in the deposits on the object itself.
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