I thought that we couldn’t carbon date bone fossils because fossilization replaces the organic material with dissolved minerals. I was also under the impression that the R/C dating of the Shroud of Turin was of questionable value due to a fire that occured in the cathedral around the time that the tests indicated as the age of the Shroud.
As post #6 says, carbon 14 dating is only possible to about 50,000 years ago. Typical fossils run to millions, or hundreds of millions of years old. Even fossils younger than 50,000 years, if they have no actual bone left, must be dated by methods other than carbon 14.
This article lists at least 18 other radio-metric methods, besides carbon 14, for dating more ancient materials.
An example is Uranium-Lead dating.
There have been claims that the repair portions sewn or woven (I dunno which) into the cloth after some fire damage centuries ago were the only bits used for the carbon dating. They weren’t. However, see the wiki-wacky-pedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_of_Turin#Radiocarbon_dating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbon_14_dating_of_the_Shroud_of_Turin
the RC dating paper’s abstract:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v337/n6208/abs/337611a0.html
If the carbonized portions of the cloth (iow, right at the point where the newer and older were joined) had been used, it *could* result in skewed results — but if so, the skew would be toward an *older* than actual date, rather than the reverse (iow, it would appear older, not younger than actual).
The samples were taken instead from the corners, which are image-free and basically just plain cloth, which minimizes damage and takes material from a part where no one is going to look anyway. :’)