You know why a scientist brought a Geiger counter to a party? He didn't want to date any minors, as he knew that the less radioactive material you find in whatever you're trying to date, the older it is! ( 0:12 ) >:P
Initially thought the title was "Why Scientists are cooking ancient pot" and mentally pictured a bunch of guys in lab coats passing around a large neolithic blunt while drawing cave art on the lab walls. Only slightly disappointed as this was pretty good also. Suggest we get scientists on my option as well, would be totally tubular dude!!
Archaeologist here: This method is very rare to be used by us. It is inaccurate within a few centuries (worse than c14), it is a lot of effort to recover ceramic this way (can not be exposed to sunlight) and if you have some decent pots usually dating by the shape and ornaments is a lot more accurate.
not an archaeologist, but it sounds like this would be more useful for dating brick structures? since it would be unlikely to have been heated a second time and you can grab bricks that were in the back rows not exposed to the sun and with an easily readable depth and exposure? or am i totally off base?
@@mcgrawnelson4722 A lot of ancient bricks were made with straw or other bio matter that can be carbon-14 dated. You would also have to be sure that the structure was not destroyed by burning it, which would tell you the date it was destroyed instead of when the brick was made
Ahhh finally a subject I am familiar with. This is actually one of the few scientific methods we archaeologists use. Interestingly we can achieve much better estimates (atleast in certain areas and eras) of when a certain piece is to be dated if we use stylistic analysis. Methods like radiometric dating or carbon dating is only really helpful if we need a rough estimate, because a piece cannot be put into context with other founds.
Everyone on this channel deserves awards for educating us about the world. Props to John and Hank Green for saving a generation of students on their AP exams
“The less radioactive material you find in whatever you’re trying to date, the older it is.” Are you telling me I should go out with someone twice my age?
Hey if you do. Hopefully if youtube is still alive and we made it to space to planets that have water on it. It would be awesome if your channel did videos on other planets in the future
Sounds very similar to the way Stars are measured; through luminosity, density, spectroscopy and the such- through seeing the makeup of the star to verify whether the star is full of heavy metals or light elements to justify the age of the star through the peaks of said wavelengths being emitted; in similarity to how the scientists calculate the age of the clay pot based on the amount of light being emitted through the release of electrons by the electron traps.
Yet another great way to get information out of all those potsherds, I guess! An interesting bit of science, very nifty :D Oh, I might as well go for the joke - also illuminating!
You are not the only one who was somewhat disappointed to find out that they weren't talking about how scientists were smoking ancient pot. But still they do mention this ancient pot a lot don't they... 👀
This is amazing if you really think about how this can be used You can use this one process to find out exactly when a group of people started firing clay pottery, a good sign of permanent habitation; but also when the last fire they ever built died out, marking the end of life in a particular area for one reason or another
As my advisor, an archaeological ceramicist, liked to say, "We love to torture pot sherds. Chip 'em, scrape 'em, bake 'em, and dissolve them in acid. That's how we get them to give up their secrets."
Archeologist here: Yeah this is expensive, hard to do due to the conditions it needs to be found in, and wholly inefficient when kt comes to dating pottery. Just comparing art styles and crafting methods, as well as which layer in the dig a pot was found in works a lot better, is faster, and most often preferred. Thermoluminescent dating is much more efficient when used to date ancient tools and sites (its a method used by West and South African archeologists studying the paleolithic for example) but its still incredibly fallible as the sample *needs* to be uncontaminated and even then it might need to be cleaned by experts (that means measuring out individual grains of sand, it's not for the faint of heart).
Chikin Nuggits Spectroscopy refers to a wide range of techniques, each with their own uses and limitations. “How many electrons are trapped in the crystal structure of this material?” Isn’t really a question that can be answered by those methods, and its one of a limited set of properties that changes in a relatively predictable pattern with time. The preferred method of dating old stuff with physical measurements tends to be radioisotopic dating, but that doesn’t work here because the time when the mineral itself was formed, and thus new radio isotopes stopped being added, is not relevant to us. So, the method best method available may well be this one, finicky and destructive as it may be.
@@razordrive3238 I think specifically, you can find ppt concentrations of C14 using mid infrared cavity ring spectroscopy, and others have used forms of mass spectroscopy to do the same. I think there is some research using Raman scattering as well. THis may provide some insights for the kinds/magnitudes of trapped materials in the sample as well with that kind of sensitivity. Granted these are pretty expensive techniques relative to torching it as described by the video, but the stickler in me likes to preserve things for as long as possible lol
@@fatmouth007 even this method is expensive, you need the equipement, specialised technicians, proper environment to collect the sample etc. The cheapest and most widely used method is just comparing, with the pitfall being that there needs to be a collection (or a nb of them) as a reference, otherwise you need to turn to other methods that still aren't necessarily absolut dating (dating smt in the same layer, dating a layer above or bellow the pottery layer, etc). It's really tough to get funding for fancy dating in archeology 😭😭
@@9gagHasMySoul Ai yai yai we can't win! 😭 Let's hope someone in the future gets a nice NSF grant for this to build a library or something. I feel like it would be great to do more NDT in the future. Anywho, thank you and Razor for your thoughts and perspective :D
Very cool explanation. I knew that thermoluminiscence was a thing but did not know how it was done. Also 200,000 years is all the paleohistory of Humankind (Homo sapiens), so it's a very convenient limit.
Dude, I dig it! I really appreciate it, it's highly informative! Does pressurization ever produce, or effect/alter results at any stage including unearthed? & on another side note, these archeologists seem to me like Forensic Wizards. We're all pretty fortunate for some of the strategic methods they relay. I really need to watch this twice. I was curious about element residues the containers may have been used for? If traces would still be there without the reheat? If reheating could positively effect a reappearance presence even though it wasn't present at the time of conception with &or without a glaze. It just got thinking. Thanks & take care!
Thought about it further, & I suppose that's timeline pertinent being that plastic could prove preserving for an extended period of time along with environmental conditions. I don't tune in regularly, but I enjoy you guys. You've all got good eyes & minds :)
Very cool, but given that the vast majority of ancient pottery was relatively low fire by wood or similar plant based fuel, I have to wonder why C14 dating wouldn't work as low fired clays tend to be porous and often suck up carbon during the firing process.
hi a new subscriber. For the TEM image, you shouldn't just cite the author, u could still easily squeeze the journal name, issue and year for easy searching. wouldn't take too much space.
0:34 this is exactly why i always wondering why scientist use C-dating to estimate how old a fossil is, i mean, the C has started decaying since the time it was formed isn't it? Then how do scientist detect how old a fossil is if they didn't know when the carbon was incoorperated into the fossil's body?
Carbon 14 is constantly being created in the atmosphere therefore allowing the levels to be reasonably consistent with some minor fluctuations (that can be corrected) throughout time and most. Life forms being carbon based have a simmilar ratio of carbon isotopes to the atmosphere around them while they are alive, dead things don't really have a way to take in any more carbon so any change in the ratio of the 2 isotopes can be stributed to the decay of carbon 14.
If only ancient potters knew about the Big Bang and had a concept of Plank times.They could have simply used those 2 facts and made a universal calendar and used that to put dates on their pots and saved us a lot of trouble for only getting ballpark dates.
Why do you need different samples to test how readily electrons get trapped? Can't you use the same samples you used for measuring the amount of light emitted? I mean if you need to heat it anyway to reset the clock why not use the samples you had already heated up?
We did this in class, well ki d of. We were looking at hiw hot they pot had been fired at, not age. It was also fun because it helped me win an argument with my stepdad.
200,000 years is a decent marker for more recent things, but how many years is the error? If it's like 10% then it's okay but not really great. If it's within a few hundred years it can go from awesome to really bad, depending on how recent it was fired. But if you're looking at within tens of years or .1%, it's pretty amazing stuff
This is true, Black Body Radiation emits light of all frequencies depending on temperature, but that is not the effect this video is talking about. For the temperature used there is no visible light from Black Body Radiation (it becomes barely noticeable at around 600°C).
Does no one watches the video before making a comment anymore? I get the ones making a joke about the title but how one comes to a ShiShow video and comments the most bizarre and unrelated things I don’t understand. Please watch the video so we all can have reasonably meaningful discussions about the topic at hand.
Further proof that scientists are actually really good at dating.
You know why a scientist brought a Geiger counter to a party? He didn't want to date any minors, as he knew that the less radioactive material you find in whatever you're trying to date, the older it is! ( 0:12 ) >:P
I'm ashamed I didn't catch that joke before the video started 🤣🤣
😂😂
“...”
Nice one
"Heating the daylights out of it" is the absolute best way to describe that process
That's how scientists describe things.
Initially thought the title was "Why Scientists are cooking ancient pot" and mentally pictured a bunch of guys in lab coats passing around a large neolithic blunt while drawing cave art on the lab walls. Only slightly disappointed as this was pretty good also.
Suggest we get scientists on my option as well, would be totally tubular dude!!
100% agree with your suggestion.
@drew pedersen: th-cam.com/video/68vv1sIyaMs/w-d-xo.html
Archaeologist here: This method is very rare to be used by us. It is inaccurate within a few centuries (worse than c14), it is a lot of effort to recover ceramic this way (can not be exposed to sunlight) and if you have some decent pots usually dating by the shape and ornaments is a lot more accurate.
+
not an archaeologist, but it sounds like this would be more useful for dating brick structures? since it would be unlikely to have been heated a second time and you can grab bricks that were in the back rows not exposed to the sun and with an easily readable depth and exposure? or am i totally off base?
Kratoast God_of_pumpernickel_rye this is a good addition, thanks for bringing this up. Maybe OP will come back to answer you, now I’m curious as well.
@@mcgrawnelson4722 A lot of ancient bricks were made with straw or other bio matter that can be carbon-14 dated. You would also have to be sure that the structure was not destroyed by burning it, which would tell you the date it was destroyed instead of when the brick was made
Would also, I think, be useless for dating cookware. Though it might be interesting to find out the last time a clibanus was used for baking.
I know it's not really science per se, but I'd love a "sci-show Archeology" covering all news in any Anthropology, Archeology or Paleontology
Ahhh finally a subject I am familiar with. This is actually one of the few scientific methods we archaeologists use. Interestingly we can achieve much better estimates (atleast in certain areas and eras) of when a certain piece is to be dated if we use stylistic analysis. Methods like radiometric dating or carbon dating is only really helpful if we need a rough estimate, because a piece cannot be put into context with other founds.
Everyone on this channel deserves awards for educating us about the world. Props to John and Hank Green for saving a generation of students on their AP exams
Breaking news: scientists smoke pot.
That is pretty lit.
Ancient*
Lol take my like
And prob do their best thinking while......
Sounds like a New Age diet craze.
"I only eat organic produce lightly boiled in 1,000+ year old clay pots sourced from the finest ancient ruins."
Talk about a Paleo Diet!!!
Don give the Karens any ideas!
Reminds me of mummy brown.
@@sujimtangerines nice
That's why Tom Cruise has not aged in the past 30 years.
When scientists wanted to cook pot, I didn't think they did it literally.
What vegetable can you add to a pot of water to make it lighter?
Leeks!
Reading that hurt me inside. 👍
🤣🤣🤣 nice!
booooooo
Aghhh
That is a Chemistry Nobel Prize winning level Pun. It certainly gets reactions.
“The less radioactive material you find in whatever you’re trying to date, the older it is.” Are you telling me I should go out with someone twice my age?
Experience that fine aged wine :p
Not how half-life works, but who am I to question how you justify your daddy issues.
Go forth, and knock their rocks off.
well you can only live with them for your half life
@@AlexAzureOtaku: Half life, half wife.
@Q: I suggest a reading of Ben Franklin's _In Praise of Older Women._
The older the better apparently....
I hope to one day have a channel this big dedicated to marine biology
Hey if you do. Hopefully if youtube is still alive and we made it to space to planets that have water on it. It would be awesome if your channel did videos on other planets in the future
I dunno, the premise sounds a little fishy to me.
I hope your dream comes true. I will check it out.
Alexander Townsend thank you!
Check out Nautilus Live it’s not in the style of this channel but it’s still pretty cool.
Not the type of pot I thought they were cooking, but still not disappointed...
Wow, I checked out your channel and am surprised you don't have way more subs!
Freddie M TH-cams algorithms are based on money just like everything else in life 😢
Archeologist: "how do we figure out how old this pot is?"
Scientist: "I dont know? Set it on fire I guess"
Sounds very similar to the way Stars are measured; through luminosity, density, spectroscopy and the such- through seeing the makeup of the star to verify whether the star is full of heavy metals or light elements to justify the age of the star through the peaks of said wavelengths being emitted; in similarity to how the scientists calculate the age of the clay pot based on the amount of light being emitted through the release of electrons by the electron traps.
ooooo interesting
Chernobyl pottery be like 'look at me glowing, I must be 200k years old'
I love how producers focused on his voice. Love it
This video really Lights up my knowledge more. Watching this is making people Brighter. This video is on Fire.
Heyo!!! SR Foxley is back! Large & in charge
If you have trash just leave it in the ground for 2000 years and it’ll be really valuable
We already do
@@andrewwagner6851 Literally do this for 3.5 million tons of garbage per DAY
We already have non-biodegradable trash in landfills.
Came to thinking the title said "Why Scientists are cooking pot."
This is cool too though.
Me too, to which I replied, because even scientists like to catch a buzz now and then lol
Yet another great way to get information out of all those potsherds, I guess!
An interesting bit of science, very nifty :D
Oh, I might as well go for the joke - also illuminating!
I slightly missread the title :D
“Why scientists are smoking pot” Lmfao
You are not the only one who was somewhat disappointed to find out that they weren't talking about how scientists were smoking ancient pot. But still they do mention this ancient pot a lot don't they... 👀
Lol
Those ancient pots probably have a lot of seeds and stems in ‘em anyway...
Well, We Do Have A Scientist Smoking Pot -- Elon Reeve Musk. :D
I think that the photo taken by Jongleur100 was taken in a restaurant in Madeira Island, I love that restaurant and its surroundings.
Neat! This is actually something I've always wondered about!
@scishow#the best learning platform for all future scientists!! 👍👍👍👍👍❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
This is amazing if you really think about how this can be used
You can use this one process to find out exactly when a group of people started firing clay pottery, a good sign of permanent habitation; but also when the last fire they ever built died out, marking the end of life in a particular area for one reason or another
I am so happy to see Stefan again.
Thank you for this video
As my advisor, an archaeological ceramicist, liked to say, "We love to torture pot sherds. Chip 'em, scrape 'em, bake 'em, and dissolve them in acid. That's how we get them to give up their secrets."
This is super helpful info, thanks so much
Scientists are now cooking ancient pot. They have now came up with a method to get the infinite spin on beyblades
Neat! Thanks for uploading!
We can find out when the ancient potter LAST fired the artifact.
thank you
Interesting thing I haven't heard/done in us it's awesome ❣️ guys
Alternative headline, "Scientists now burning ancient pot for fun"
They have a hunger for knowledge 😁🤣
Hilarious
As a potter, I had wondered how they did this.
Can you use this technique for dating lava flows?
Fascinating
Wow! This is bonkers!
What about cookware? If a pot was used to cook, won't it show the pot's most recent date of use rather than it's date of manufacture?
Genuinely never knew that. Wow.
I definitely need to resort to other dating methods. Who knows how long it’s been since I last got all fired up?
Sr Foxley is like the queen Elizabeth of Sci show
Archeologist here: Yeah this is expensive, hard to do due to the conditions it needs to be found in, and wholly inefficient when kt comes to dating pottery. Just comparing art styles and crafting methods, as well as which layer in the dig a pot was found in works a lot better, is faster, and most often preferred. Thermoluminescent dating is much more efficient when used to date ancient tools and sites (its a method used by West and South African archeologists studying the paleolithic for example) but its still incredibly fallible as the sample *needs* to be uncontaminated and even then it might need to be cleaned by experts (that means measuring out individual grains of sand, it's not for the faint of heart).
Why dont you guys use Spectroscopy instead of destroying your sample?
Chikin Nuggits Spectroscopy refers to a wide range of techniques, each with their own uses and limitations. “How many electrons are trapped in the crystal structure of this material?” Isn’t really a question that can be answered by those methods, and its one of a limited set of properties that changes in a relatively predictable pattern with time. The preferred method of dating old stuff with physical measurements tends to be radioisotopic dating, but that doesn’t work here because the time when the mineral itself was formed, and thus new radio isotopes stopped being added, is not relevant to us. So, the method best method available may well be this one, finicky and destructive as it may be.
@@razordrive3238 I think specifically, you can find ppt concentrations of C14 using mid infrared cavity ring spectroscopy, and others have used forms of mass spectroscopy to do the same. I think there is some research using Raman scattering as well. THis may provide some insights for the kinds/magnitudes of trapped materials in the sample as well with that kind of sensitivity.
Granted these are pretty expensive techniques relative to torching it as described by the video, but the stickler in me likes to preserve things for as long as possible lol
@@fatmouth007 even this method is expensive, you need the equipement, specialised technicians, proper environment to collect the sample etc. The cheapest and most widely used method is just comparing, with the pitfall being that there needs to be a collection (or a nb of them) as a reference, otherwise you need to turn to other methods that still aren't necessarily absolut dating (dating smt in the same layer, dating a layer above or bellow the pottery layer, etc).
It's really tough to get funding for fancy dating in archeology 😭😭
@@9gagHasMySoul Ai yai yai we can't win! 😭
Let's hope someone in the future gets a nice NSF grant for this to build a library or something. I feel like it would be great to do more NDT in the future.
Anywho, thank you and Razor for your thoughts and perspective :D
Very cool explanation. I knew that thermoluminiscence was a thing but did not know how it was done. Also 200,000 years is all the paleohistory of Humankind (Homo sapiens), so it's a very convenient limit.
Nobody :
Scientist : *HMM THOUSANDS YEARS OLD POTS VERY INTERESTING*
I thought it's because they taste delicious, but I guess I learned something new today.
Dude, I dig it! I really appreciate it, it's highly informative! Does pressurization ever produce, or effect/alter results at any stage including unearthed? & on another side note, these archeologists seem to me like Forensic Wizards. We're all pretty fortunate for some of the strategic methods they relay.
I really need to watch this twice. I was curious about element residues the containers may have been used for? If traces would still be there without the reheat? If reheating could positively effect a reappearance presence even though it wasn't present at the time of conception with &or without a glaze. It just got thinking.
Thanks & take care!
Thought about it further, & I suppose that's timeline pertinent being that plastic could prove preserving for an extended period of time along with environmental conditions.
I don't tune in regularly, but I enjoy you guys. You've all got good eyes & minds :)
Interesting!
"President of Space." Is that anything like the Queen of Outer Space?
Very cool, but given that the vast majority of ancient pottery was relatively low fire by wood or similar plant based fuel, I have to wonder why C14 dating wouldn't work as low fired clays tend to be porous and often suck up carbon during the firing process.
YAY SCIENCE!
Is that also how dosimeters for measuring radioative exposure work?
so how long has it been
Dammit Jim, I told you not to heat your ancient Mesopotamian pottery in the off microwave!
what about emperor of space? is that title still available?
A suggestion for an episode. Why is white meat, ( pork, chicken etc), more tender than dark meat like beef or venison?
I think I read about this in one of Alton's books, but I'd love a video on it!
I have a physics B.S. and I like history. This video blows my mind.
1:28 Lattice and tomahto salad.
Remarkable technology , Makes me wonder what will be possible in this field in say 200 years from now !
1:17 Ah yes, The Wet Wonder, the Moist mystery of Mohenjo-Daro, the Pool that Ruled. Haven't seen it in a while.
What about items use for heat cooking?
Damn science is the most powerful tool for creating an environment that is very useful for you.
Science is so cool! 😃
I was actually curious about dating rocks and pottery.
I do want to be president of space but I really like my hat
Earth Science is everywhere ✌🏻
I now want to see a video on quantum spin, and the Stern-Gerlach experiment.
Gotta confess that I thought that this episode was going at an whole other way
What about pots found in burnt down houses? Wouldn’t they be dated to the time of the fire that burned down said house?
hi a new subscriber. For the TEM image, you shouldn't just cite the author, u could still easily squeeze the journal name, issue and year for easy searching. wouldn't take too much space.
0:34 this is exactly why i always wondering why scientist use C-dating to estimate how old a fossil is, i mean, the C has started decaying since the time it was formed isn't it? Then how do scientist detect how old a fossil is if they didn't know when the carbon was incoorperated into the fossil's body?
Carbon 14 is constantly being created in the atmosphere therefore allowing the levels to be reasonably consistent with some minor fluctuations (that can be corrected) throughout time and most. Life forms being carbon based have a simmilar ratio of carbon isotopes to the atmosphere around them while they are alive, dead things don't really have a way to take in any more carbon so any change in the ratio of the 2 isotopes can be stributed to the decay of carbon 14.
How did the clay pot lose its job?
It was fired!
If only ancient potters knew about the Big Bang and had a concept of Plank times.They could have simply used those 2 facts and made a universal calendar and used that to put dates on their pots and saved us a lot of trouble for only getting ballpark dates.
Why do you need different samples to test how readily electrons get trapped? Can't you use the same samples you used for measuring the amount of light emitted? I mean if you need to heat it anyway to reset the clock why not use the samples you had already heated up?
SR Foxley 💦
If in doubt: Fire
4:19 was i the only one who saw that face on the left
AYYYY LMAO
Neat!
What about when they used it in cooking?? Does that not count or is that the last time it was hot that we look for?
We did this in class, well ki d of. We were looking at hiw hot they pot had been fired at, not age. It was also fun because it helped me win an argument with my stepdad.
Hi
Everyone hows your day
I've always wondered how they determined age of artifacts
200,000 years is a decent marker for more recent things, but how many years is the error? If it's like 10% then it's okay but not really great. If it's within a few hundred years it can go from awesome to really bad, depending on how recent it was fired. But if you're looking at within tens of years or .1%, it's pretty amazing stuff
Join us next time to see scientists test an ancient crack.
not to be a stickler or anything but...
isn't *ANY* object capable of giving of light if heated enough.. ?
This is true, Black Body Radiation emits light of all frequencies depending on temperature, but that is not the effect this video is talking about. For the temperature used there is no visible light from Black Body Radiation (it becomes barely noticeable at around 600°C).
At 400ish degrees, the *heat glow* is not present. The beginning of glowing red heat - about 540 C.
Black body radiation can be emitted by all objects, but it isn't effected by the age of the object.
#scishow squad like here👍👍👍👍
Chin reminds me of Daniel Day Lewis.
Would like to see a demo not cartoon 3🤔😊GreaT explanation
Does no one watches the video before making a comment anymore? I get the ones making a joke about the title but how one comes to a ShiShow video and comments the most bizarre and unrelated things I don’t understand. Please watch the video so we all can have reasonably meaningful discussions about the topic at hand.
I cooked some ancient pot once. With brownie mix. 😂
4:20 face in the rock (left)
1000 BC: Yo man, I just made a hella hot pot...
2020 AD: wanna bet?
The weirdest Timeline
It's too bad that we don't have a non destructive variant on this. Like heating/Iradiating a small area without having to damage the piece first.
Notice the use of crafter instead of craftsman
So, this is assuming we know how many electrons were left after the last firing?
hence the sample being split to test one and use the other as a control