On Tue, 12 May 2009 18:23:06 -0400, Steve wrote:
to answer your question, carbon dating could give you a precise age of the
material, but don't know that it is quite worth it.

Only if it's really old and was originally part of a living thing. And
even then, "precise" is a relative term. Wikipedia seems to say that
for samples less than 10,000 years old, dating to within 40 years either
way is considered reasonable.