In 1946, Willard Libby (1908–1980) developed a method for dating organic materials by measuring their content of carbon-14, a radioactive isotope of carbon. For this discovery, Libby received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960.

How was radiometric dating discovered?

Radiometric dating methods were developed in the twentieth century, and have revolutionized Quaternary Science. In 1902, physicists Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy had discovered that radioactive elements broke down into other elements in a definite sequence or series, through the process of nuclear fission.