These megafauna included the mammoths, mastadonts, and ground sloths. Paleontology is a branch of the biological sciences. Paleontologists are interested in helping reconstruct ancient environments and determining how plants and animals have changed over the last hundreds of millions of years. During the Pleistocene, much of the earth was covered with ice. All living things take in carbon.
Some carbon contains small amounts of energy, or radiation.
At death, the amount of radioactive carbon begins to decay at a constant rate. These measurements can tell us how old the once-living material is, up to 100,000 years ago. The older the material, the less radiation there is left to release. Bone, wood, cloth, shell, and other materials can all be C-14 dated. Site A location, place.