04-30-2017, 03:35 PM
the Forbes article talks about a process specific to determining the age and genus left in specs of soil dating back some tens of thousands of years ago.
Yes, but not through DNA testing alone. When anthropologists study a cave, which as Carey has pointed out is protected from decomposition and erosion by weathering over time, they have layers of sediment which they use for dating purposes. Read the Forbes article, it's in there. If tools used by humans are found in a specific layer of sediment, that determines humans were present Immediately before the layer was deposited. The sediment or soil may then be tested for human DNA. If positive, it indicates humans occupied the cave at that time.
If it is already known a cave or an area was occupied by humans, the DNA testing provides no additional information, or dating of the DNA without sediment layers.
On the fifth day - the scientists who studied the rivers - were forbidden to speak - or to study the rivers. -Jane Hirshfield's poem on creation
Yes, but not through DNA testing alone. When anthropologists study a cave, which as Carey has pointed out is protected from decomposition and erosion by weathering over time, they have layers of sediment which they use for dating purposes. Read the Forbes article, it's in there. If tools used by humans are found in a specific layer of sediment, that determines humans were present Immediately before the layer was deposited. The sediment or soil may then be tested for human DNA. If positive, it indicates humans occupied the cave at that time.
If it is already known a cave or an area was occupied by humans, the DNA testing provides no additional information, or dating of the DNA without sediment layers.
On the fifth day - the scientists who studied the rivers - were forbidden to speak - or to study the rivers. -Jane Hirshfield's poem on creation
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”