No, this isn’t about finding someone special. Our comrades who stick more to the dirt than the word may benefit from a new technique for dating pottery and other fired objects, which scientists believe may be able to yield accurate results back to 10,000 years. It’s being said that it does for ceramic what radiocarbon dating does for organic materials:
A team from The University of Manchester and The University of Edinburgh has discovered a new technique which they call ‘rehydroxylation dating’ that can be used on fired clay ceramics like bricks, tile and pottery.
Working with The Museum of London, the team has been able to date brick samples from Roman, medieval and modern periods with remarkable accuracy.
They have established that their technique can be used to determine the age of objects up to 2,000 years old – but believe it has the potential to be used to date objects around 10,000 years old.
How does it work?
The method relies on the fact that fired clay ceramic material will start to chemically react with atmospheric moisture as soon as it is removed from the kiln after firing. This continues over its lifetime causing it to increase in weight – the older the material, the greater the weight gain.
An added bonus? It should be able to root out forgeries.