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Science 13 September 1974:
Vol. 185. no. 4155, pp. 943 - 944
DOI: 10.1126/science.185.4155.943
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Articles

Attempt to Date Early South African Hominids by Using Fission Tracks in Calcite

D. Macdougall 1 and P. B. Price 1

1 Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley 94720

Calcite crystals extracted from marrow cavities of bones found in hominid-bearing breccias from Makapansgat and Swartkrans were studied for fossil tracks. The absence of the expected numbers of tracks in these and in calcites from Beds I and II, Olduvai Gorge, combined with the results of laboratory heating experiments, indicates that track annealing has occurred at ambient temperatures and precludes the widespread use of calcite for fission track dating.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)