
5. Gaining understanding of the atomic structure of matter (middle to
late 1900's)
This
knowledge is significant for anthropology because it made possible the
development of absolute-dating techniques. The initial dating method,
Carbon 14, introduced in the late 1940's, was joined by a series of
procedures that permit the reasonably accurate calculation of how long
ago extinct humans lived and provide a temporal context for the study
of human evolution.
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