Radiocarbon Age Calculation for Cellulosic Textiles

The uncalibrated year shown here is **not a date** and must never be reported as one. Atmospheric carbon-14 has varied substantially over time, so a conventional age has to be converted through a calibration curve such as IntCal, which frequently maps a single radiocarbon age onto several disjoint calendar ranges — and the resulting probability distribution is rarely symmetric about the value shown. The uncertainty here is counting statistics only and excludes laboratory and calibration uncertainty, which usually dominate. Contamination is the practical hazard with textiles: conservation treatments, consolidants, adhesives, later repairs and even handling introduce modern carbon, and pretreatment chemistry is what determines whether a result means anything. Dating significant objects is specialist laboratory work.