Since there are practical limits to the age range of the method, most samples must be younger than 50,000 years and older than 100 years. Most samples require chemical pre-treatment to ensure their purity or to recover particular components of the material.

What is the age limit for which carbon-14 dating is useful?

about 50,000 years old Carbon-14 dating is a way of determining the age of certain archeological artifacts of a biological origin up to about 50,000 years old. It is used in dating things such as bone, cloth, wood and plant fibers that were created in the relatively recent past by human activities.