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Four Millennia Old Noodles Found In China
mollten writes "According to BBC News, the world's oldest noodles have been found at the Lajia site in China. Carbon Dating has found the remains to be over 4000 years old." From the article: "Prior to the discovery of noodles at Lajia, the earliest written record of noodles is traced to a book written during the East Han Dynasty sometime between AD 25 and 220, although it remained a subject of debate whether the Chinese, the Italians, or the Arabs invented it first ... Our discovery indicates that noodles were first produced in China."
They found four noodles.
It's the same thing. If you ever feel like giving them up forever, try some of the recipes here http://mattfischer.com/ramen/
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
...despite radiocarbon's vulnerability to contamination...
In most cases, contamination of C14 samples can come from one of two places: either newer material is introduced or older carbon is absorbed from the matrix. If newer material was introduced (either by the archeologists, or by natural processes), then the date will come out more recent, thus the noodles are older than the dates suggest. On the other hand, older material is generally introduced from the sediment matrix itself, and that is fairly easy to control for. Why does everyone have such problems with radiocarbon dating? The method has been shown to work, and has been correlated with other methods, such as dendrochronology and archeomag dating. Relax.
Rhapsody in Numbers