Are there other methods of dating artifacts besides carbon dating?

I found a few: Uranium-Thorium, Amino-Acid Racemization, and Dendrochronology.

URANIUM-THORIUM DATING

Uranium-thorium dating, also often referred to as thorium-230 dating, uranium-series disequilibrium dating or uranium-series dating, is a radiometric dating technique commonly used to determine the age of carbonate materials such as speleothem or coral. Unlike other commonly used radiometric dating techniques such as rubidium-strontium or uranium-lead dating, the uranium-thorium technique does not measure accumulation of a stable end-member decay product, instead calculating an age from the degree to which equilibrium has been restored between the radioactive isotope thorium-230 and its radioactive parent uranium-234 within a sample.

Because uranium is soluble to some extent in all natural waters, any material that precipitates or is grown from such waters also contains trace uranium, typically at levels of between a few parts per billion and few parts per million by weight. In contrast, thorium is not soluble in natural waters under conditions found at or near the surface of the earth and so materials grown in or from these waters do not contain usually contain thorium. As time passes after the formation of such a material, the uranium-234 in the sample decays to thorium-230, with a half-life of 245,000 years. The thorium-230 is itself radioactive with a half-life of 75,000 years and so instead of accumulating indefinitely (as for instance is the case for the uranium-lead system) it instead approaches equilibrium with its parent isotope. At equilibrium, the number of thorium-230 decays per year within a sample is equal to the number of uranium-234 decays per year in the same sample.

Uranium-thorium dating has an upper age limit of somewhat over 500,000 years, defined by the half-life of thorium-230, the accuracy with which we can measure the thorium-230/uranium-234 ratio in a sample, and the precision to which we know the half-lives of thorium-230 and uranium-234. Note that to calculate an age using this technique the ratio of uranium-234 to its parent isotope uranium-238 must also be measured.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-series_dating
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AMINO-ACID RACEMIZATION

Amino acids belong to the group of carbon compounds that have four different groups of atoms attached to a central carbon atom. The tetrahedral arrangement of the groups makes the molecule asymmetrical as a whole. Such molecules exist in two forms. Although chemically identical, one is physically the mirror image of the other. A simple illustration of this is a pair of gloves. They have the same size and shape, but one fits only your right hand, the other only your left.

A solution of one form of such a compound twists a beam of polarized light to the left; the other kind rotates it to the right. When a chemist synthesizes an amino acid from simpler compounds, he gets equal amounts of both forms. Each form cancels out the effect of the other on polarized light. This is called a racemic mixture, when both left-handed and right-handed amino acids are equally present in the mixture.

When amino-acid compounds are formed in living plants or animals, they come in only one form, usually the left-handed, or l- (for levo-) form. If such a compound is heated, the thermal agitation of the molecules turns some of them inside out, changing the left-handed form to the right-handed (the dextro form). This change is called racemization. Continued long enough, it produces equal amounts of the l- and d-forms. It is of special interest because it relates to living things, as does radiocarbon dating.

At lower temperatures, racemization goes at a slower pace. How much slower depends on the energy it takes to invert the molecule. It follows a well-known chemical law, known as the Arrhenius equation. If the amino acid is cooled more and more, the reaction goes slower and slower until, at ordinary temperatures, we cannot see it changing at all. But we can still use the equation to calculate how fast it is changing. It turns out that it would take tens of thousands of years for a typical amino acid to approach the racemized state, when both left-handed and right-handed forms of the amino acids are present in equal quantities.

The idea for dating by this method is this: If a bone, for example, is buried and left undisturbed, the aspartic acid (a crystallized amino acid) in the bone is slowly racemized. We dig up the bone a long time later, extract and purify the remaining aspartic acid, and compare its degree of polarization with that of pure l-aspartic acid. Thus we can estimate how long ago the bone was part of a living creature.

The decay curve is similar to that of a radioactive element. Each amino acid has its own characteristic rate of decay, just as uranium decays slower than potassium. However, note this important difference: Radioactive rates are unaffected by temperature, whereas racemization, being a chemical reaction, is markedly dependent on temperature.

Source: Awake! 9/22 1986

For another article on Amino-Acid Racemiztion see: http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-023.htm
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DENDROCHRONOLOGY

Dendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the method of scientific dating based on the analysis of tree ring patterns. This technique was invented and developed during the 20th century originally by A.E. Douglass, the founder of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research which resides at the University of Arizona. This dating technique can give dates in exact calendar years for wood.

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology
For indepth info see source link.

If the artifact is found in a lake, then you may be able to use varves to date it. In many places, the rate of stream flow varies with the seasons. This causes a change in the sediment that is deposited into lakes. This causes thin layers of sediment to be deposited on the lake bottom. These layers are called varves. Each one represents a year of sedimentation. So, if you find an artifact on the bottom of a lake, you may be able to count the varves surrounding and overlying the artifact to determine how long it has been in the lake.

Absolutely,
To put it very briefly: If an artifact is found in the contect of a scientific excavation, it can be dated with a great amount of certainty. Startigraphy allows an archaeologist to look at the artifact as if from the day it was deposited, because stratigraphic anaylsis lets you see what other artifacts laid on the same plane as it. If you find a coin (for example) with a date on it and you can put the nail you found (for example) on the same stratum as it, you can date them to approximately the same period. The general rule is that all artifacts can work there way up to the surface, but they can't work their way down, so in this way you can arrive at a terminus anti-quem.