ASI to set up dedicated carbon dating lab at IIT Gandhinagar

Gandhinagar, 24 March 2014

Soon there will be a lab for carbon-dating at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is shelling out fund for setting up this laboratory.

The proposed laboratory will use modern chemical analysis and carbon dating tools to determine the antiquity of the relics recovered during digging. The budget for the establishment of proposed laboratory is still being finalised. In the absence of a few facilities in the country it had to wait for years to get the scientific results for its relics. Presently, the ASI sends the samples for determination of date to Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad and Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow. Determination of dates costs about Rs 50-60 thousand per sample in India.

Radiocarbon dating (or simply carbon-dating) is a radiometric dating technique that uses the decay of carbon-14 to estimate the age of organic materials, such as wood and leather, up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years, said a senior archaeologist from the ASI.