Answer: Carbon 14
Explanation:
In the geological time scale, the Holocene is the time of the Quaternary Period of the Cenozoic Era of the Phanerozoic Eon, which began about 11,500 years ago and extends to the present, where mankind has developed. For this period, the best way of determining the age of fossil bones is via Carbon-14. The carbon-14 technique is widely used in archeology and anthropology, to determine the approximate age of the various artifacts. It was developed by Willard Frank Libby (1908-1980) in 1946, which earned him the Nobel Prize for Chemistry of 1960.
Most of the carbon present on Earth is composed of a mixture of two stable isotopes: 98.9% carbon-12 and 1.1% carbon-13. However, natural carbon samples always contain traces of a third isotope, the radioactive, carbon-14, which emits β- radiation and has a half-life of 5,730 years. Carbon-14 is present on Earth at a ratio of one to every 1012 atoms, with 1 g of carbon having approximately 14 DPM (disintegrations per minute), this tiny amount of radiation, however, can be easily detected using modern techniques.
