On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 21:20:18 -0800, Elizabeth Miller
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I have a book by a USC scientist named Craig Stanford called The Hunting
>Chimp -- I imagine if Chimps can hunt and eat monkeys and the like early
>  humans could also figure it out. Why don't they just isotope the
>Australopithecus afarensis bones anyway?
>
>Liz


It would be impossible to date the remains with radioisotopes,
unfortunately.  Usually only volcanic deposits can be dated in this manner
(with the exception of 14C used for organics, but this is only reliable to
about 40,000 years - anyway, the australopithecus remains are no longer
organic).  To get a date on a fossil, lots of techniques have to
 be
employed, including the isotopic dating of any nearby volcanic material,
analyzing biostratigraphy, using paleomagnetics, and assigning the fossil a
relative age among all of these.  It's actually really hard to come up with
a good age.  :/  (sorry for the long ramble, I am studying geology and
evolutionary anthropology at college so this interests me a lot =]).

-Elizabeth