Answer: Carbon dating is a method of finding the age of a fossil or an old object by measuring the amount of radioactive carbon-14 left in it.
Living organisms take in carbon-14 along with ordinary carbon. After death no new carbon is taken in, and the carbon-14 present decays at a fixed rate (half-life about 5730 years). By measuring the proportion of carbon-14 left in a sample, its age can be calculated.
Use: to find the age of fossils of plants and animals, and of archaeological objects such as bones, wood and charcoal, which helps in the study of evolution.