Carbon dating is perhaps one of the most important discoveries of the last 100 years in science. It has allowed us to accurately date the progress of humanity. A lot of people think carbon dating allows us to date anything in the history of the Universe, that is not true. Carbon dating only works on things within the past 50,000 years. One of the best methods of carbon dating is when you have charcoal leftover from a fire pit found at an archaeological site because Carbon 14 is released from plants when set on fire starting that degradation of the Carbon 14 into Nitrogen 14. Kind of like starting a stopwatch.