Because of this relatively short half-life, radiocarbon dating has a useable range of ~ 300 to ~ 50,000 years (Briner, 2011; Guilderson et al., 2005).

How far can radiocarbon date?

C (the period of time after which half of a given sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years, the oldest dates that can be reliably measured by this process date to approximately 50,000 years ago, although special preparation methods occasionally make accurate analysis of older samples possible.