Why would it be difficult to date an item that was only 12 years old using carbon dating?
Answers
Answer:
The principle of carbon dating lies in the fact that the radioactive isotope of carbon -12 which is Carbon-14 has a finite but moderately large half life value.
And so, due to this fact it is used to predict the age of death of any organic matter because organic matter often speeds up the radioactivity of Carbon-14 atoms in the body or the skeleton.
And, hence it can be used a naive tool to measure ages like thousands or tens of thousands of years.
However, due to this much larger value of half life of carbon-14 decay atoms, it can't be used efficiently to predict out that the item could perhaps be just 12 years old, also another factor is straight away due to the fact that decay process is enhanced only after a long time of death of that particular organic matter.
Hope this helps you and might clear your other doubts as well ! ｡◕‿◕｡
you can also refer to wikipedia to refer more about this, in that article I remember there's much more elaboration over the mathematical analysis as it goes on in calculation of age using first order chemical kinetics.