A date given as BP is a date before 1950. BC means before Christ (although nowadays BCE is used, meaning before the Common Era). CE (Common Era) is used instead of the old term AD, meaning Anno Domini, or after the birth of Christ.

What does BP stand for dates?

Before Present Before Present (BP) years, or years before present is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred before the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s.

What is ad BC BCE and BP ages?

Dates can be expressed as AD, BC, BCE (before common era), and BP (before present). The accepted way to represent C-14 ages is in terms of years BP, where the year 1950 is used as the present. (1950 is the date that the calibration curves were established.

How do you read blood pressure dates?

The present in BP is set at 1950, as this was close to when radiometric dating began to be used. Therefore a date like 3000 BP means 3000 before 1950 AD: in other words 1050 BC. As with AD and BC, the use of lower case bp usually means the date is uncalibrated, and upper case means calibrated.