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Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating was developed in the late 1970s. Remembering back to a time before AMS dating was available to archaeologists is a bit like trying to remember how we ever survived without desktop computers, email or automatic teller machines. My own particular interest in AMS dating was an inevitable offshoot from my long-established interest in chronometric hygiene, or 'getting the dates right'. In this paper I attempt to illustrate that accurate dating matters, by discussing some examples of AMS dating projects with which I have been involved over the last six years or so. In relation to these projects, AMS has given us the ability to date sites which we could not before. It has enabled us to provide more detailed stratigraphies when datable materials are rare. It has allowed us to date materials we could not date before, such as rock art pigments. It has been able to provide indications of the degree of site disturbance in the absence of other obvious forms of evidence. And it has allowed us to assess claims for the antiquity of particular material cultural types and faunal introductions. (author).