Bones, Rocks and Stars The Science of When Things Happened

by Turney, Chris

• ISBN13: 9781403985996
• ISBN10: 1403985995
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-13
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

"What is the Turin Shroud? When were the Pyramids built? Where are the branches on the human family tree? Why did the dinosaurs die out? How did the Earth take shape? With questions like these, says Chris Turney, time is of the essence. And understanding how we pinpoint the past, he cautions, is crucial to putting the present in perspective and planning for the future." "In eleven chapters, each focusing on a famous dating controversy (from the existence of King Arthur to the last Ice Age), Turney reveals the legwork behind the headlines. Drawing on years of professional experience, most recently with the celebrated "Hobbit" skeleton of Indonesia, Turney explains how written records, carbon, pollen, tree rings, constellations and DNA sequencing can help archaeologists, paleontologists and geologists to "tell the time". We ignore or misunderstand these techniques and their results at our peril, he concludes."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

Chris Turney did the radiocarbon dating on the recent "Hobbit" fossil and is a geologist at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He lives in Australia.

Table of Contents

List of figures and tables	viii
List of permissions and figure sources	ix
Acknowledgements	xi
Introduction	1	(134)
1 The ever-changing calendar	5	(7)
2 A hero in a dark age	12	(18)
3 The forged cloth of Turin	30	(16)
4 The pyramids and the bear's groin	46	(16)
5 The volcano that shook Europe	62	(15)
6 The Mandate from Heaven	77	(11)
7 The coming of the ice	88	(16)
8 The lost worlds	104	(15)
9 And then there was one	119	(16)
10 The hole in the ground	135	(11)
11 Towards the limits of time	146	(13)
Epilogue: Time's up for creationism	159	(9)
Further reading	168	(8)
Index	176