Methods of dating

The fossil record of primates begins in the latest Cretaceous period, so primate palaeontologists are interested in techniques of dating applicable over the past 70 million years. Fossil bones themselves are rarely datable with any precision, and these are mainly of late Pleistocene or Holocene age. In general, it is the geological materials with which they are found that are dated. For this reason, dating usually begins with an attempt to order past events, and to relate fossils to rock layers that can themselves be dated. Once this is done, the ages of fossils can be estimated by determining the ages of rocks that lie lower and higher in a stratigraphic section.