BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates

Subject: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: GUEST,Mrr at work
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 12:58 PM

Check out this news... apparently European History is going to have to be thoroughly revised now that they have dated the eruption of Thera precisely... fascinating! Much more of a Middle Eastern influence than they/we would probably wish to admit...

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: MMario
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 01:03 PM

And when they find remains of the giant chickens of the Picts and Chufles that theory will be vindicated as well!

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 01:27 PM

The researchers used radiocarbon dating to figure out the ages of the tree rings and learned that the eruption was between 1627BC and 1600BC. This is a century earlier than some archaeologists had thought.

27 years is quite a substantial chunk of a century. I'm not convinced by the Guardian article, but I'm sure it's poorly reported.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 01:58 PM

It's a battle between carbon daters and interpreters of pottery styles and inscriptions. My bet is on the daters to be right for they are backed up by Greenland ice data and some more evidence.

You could also call it a battle between historians and physical scientists. Historians just hate it if physical scientists who study for instance the Greenland ice core and have not the slightest idea about Egypt and Minoan culture try to tell them that their dating of the Thera erption is bound to be wrong.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 01:58 PM

Records show that at least some of the giant chickens were exported to Greece to a group called "Kappa Phi Sigma" or as we would know it today, "KFC". The group apparently wanted to test the viability of the chickens in warfare in the Mediterrenean area. Partial records show that some of the chickens WERE taken to "Ther..." where they were to be "anointed" with "aromatic oils". Why is this is of interest is that the chickens were sent to Ther... between 1627 and 1600 BCE.

Have any large chicken bones been found on Thera?

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: John Hardly
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 02:01 PM

Records show that giant chicken tasted just like dinosaur.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 02:05 PM

Now Now, we're not going to be silly, and take over this thread with that nonsense.

Besides, everybody knows giant Chicken tasted more like DoDo*.












* Which was actually a species of pidgeon. Really.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: MMario
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 02:17 PM

my apologies for the thread drift.

Carbon dating accurate to within 27 years is a significant improvement over previous methods.   I remember studies where the footnotes would indicate the dating was only accurate to + or - something like 125 years. Unlike the tv shows where you'll hear things like "Carbon dating shows this man died during the last week of june of 1844"

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 02:48 PM

It's not the carbon dating I have a problem with; it's that there would be a significant shift in attitude regarding the interaction of cultures over a what could be as little as 73 years (36.5 if there was similar wriggle-room on the previous estimate).

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 02:56 PM

It is not just carbon dating it is wiggle-matched carbon dating that's what makes the error margin smaller.

Wiggle match dating

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: MMario
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 02:58 PM

from the articles - it appears that under the old dates there would have been some overlap in the existance of several of the cultures; but useing the new dates the cultures didn't exist at the same time and thus could not have traded information or goods.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 03:19 PM

Archaeologist Peter Warren of the University of Bristol, U.K. "This chronology has been constructed by hundreds of expert Egyptologists over many decades....
(at least for the Late Bronze Age) we would have to forget about serious study of the past and relationships between peoples."

Which is why they are not likely to give it up quickly. The doubts, however, are not new. Physical scientists have since long doubted the eruption date.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 03:34 PM

Stuart Manning has studied some hundred tree samples from the Agean and dates the eruption to 1660-1613.
The olive tree researchers date the eruption to 1630-1600.
Very old trees from Ireland and California point to a succession of extremely cold and wet summers in the 1620s.
Claus Hammer (Denmark) has studied the Greenland ice core (you can count the years fairly exactly there) and has found signs of a very big eruption in 1644 BC.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 04:40 PM

Around 1500 BC the Mediterranean Island of Santorini exploded, there has been some archaeological evidence linking and supporting the biblical Exodus of the Jews from Egypt at the same time. James Cameron has done a documentary on this, and it is well worth watching.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 05:53 PM

Dave-tam

The whole point. If the new data on when Santorini (a.k.a. Thera, the same eruption) erupted is correct, the volcano went off a little before 1600 BCE, 100 years earlier than previously thought by those who try to link it to the Exodus.

Entire sets of links between ancient Greek, Egyptian, Judaic, and whoever the "mysterious others" were who did lots of things attributed to the Egyptians that the Egyptians weren't around to have done - goes up like a plume of pumice. Along with it, lots of dates in Juadaic history that are pegged on correlations with Greek and Egyptian written histories will need to be restudied.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 05:57 PM

Thats what makes History so fascinating John

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: autolycus
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 06:12 PM

Whenever you hear anyone talk of "the verdict of history", beware, and refer them, if possible, to this thread.


   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 06:55 PM

I myself think the verdict of history is "Guilty as charged!"

It wouldn't be the first time historians and those sorts of people had to rethink dates.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 28 Apr 06 - 10:50 PM

I think it is a question of mating scientific evidence, with interpretations of history by archaeologists using artifacts and written evidence. The more we look the more we find.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 09:21 AM

Fascinating! Thanks for all of the links and info.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 10:43 AM

It's the same old story- people don't always write down clearly with precise dates and unbiased viewpoints what happens to them...if they write at all; but nature and physical forces operate without bias, and the evidence they leave, once interpreted, can often clarify details in a way that no SWAGs* can ever manage.


Piecing together 'history' from human remains and pottery and ambiguous 'records' is a fine project, but it must always be refined by clear data from the physical sciences. I am always amused by those who get their professional egos mixed up in their research and 'reject' new findings instead of just trying to integrate them.




*Sophisticated Wild-Ass Guesses

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: freda underhill
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 11:03 AM

Apart from the dating issue, its interesting to see the nature of the society that was wiped out. According to this article about The Minoans in their society the wealth was spread pretty liberally, there seems to have been no inequality along gender lines, and the gods were all female. (pity about that volcano..)

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 11:07 AM

Recalculating pre-historic, and even early historic dates is not new. When I studied ancient Near East history, there were two chronologies in use, depending on the view of the particular historian, which were about two centuries +or- apart. I don't know if that is still true, as that was over 40 years ago, whether one has prevailed or there is another, different time-line in use now.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Sorcha
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 05:00 PM

Yes..depends on which calender somebody is using....

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 06:08 PM

"I myself think the verdict of history is "Guilty as charged!""

perhaps that should read "Guilty as changed!"

;-P

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 08:35 PM

Well, it's not as though you could hope to find a piece of paper with a note "1627 BC" written in ball point pen. My father once tried that. He had an antique clock he'd repaired. Then, as a joke, he wrote, "owned by G. Washington" inside in modern pencil. He used to point it out to people who had no idea that a graphite pencil had not yet been invented back then.

On a serious note I have a question about this whole controversy that does not hinge on the dating. The article says that some of the cultures could not have coexisted because of a hundred year difference. Isn't that an awful short time for a culture to rise and fall?

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: heric
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 08:44 PM

Ah, but that's where the volcano comes in!

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: heric
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 08:51 PM

("[T]he new timeline indicates that these civilisations [Crete, Cyprus and in Greece] may have been more tightly linked with cultures of the Levant, which today includes Israel, Lebanon and Syria. The cultures were contemporaneous with Egypt's Second Intermediate Period — when northern Egypt was controlled by a Canaanite dynasty with links to the Levant — instead of the subsequent New Kingdom.") -from The Age

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 29 Apr 06 - 10:53 PM

The duration of a "culture" is really quite variable, but 100 years is actually a fairly long time for some of the notable recent ones. The real point though is not how long the civilization lasts, but how long the gap between two civilizations may have been.

Many cultures that last for fairly long times can be pretty much destroyed and disappear during a rather brief time, only sometimes due to invasion or natural catastrophe. An existing culture that's been reasonably stable for a long time, but that hasn't had much influence on anyone else can "rise to influence" within the period of one conquerer's active military career, i.e. within 20 years or less. The starting and ending points of many cultures are "abrupt," so far as their impact on others, or their influence over wide areas, are concerned.

Minor things like plague, typhus, typhoid; a blight in the corn crop - or the potatoes; a "benign" visitor with the measles or a "righteous" one with a bonfire; or the trivial change in political/religious leaders and changes in rites and practices; a single ambitious politician or general; a select assassination or two; or even something as trivial as a little volcano, can cause abrupt passages from one culture to a new one with a distinctive and different personality.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 03:24 AM

Yes, its entirely possible and actually probable that if a volcano erupted and wiped out one culture, another culture would develop from the very fertile land left behind.

I doubt if the Exodus was linked in any way to the eruption. I also do not think that Egypt deserves half the credit it has been given. In fact, I think alot of Greek culture was appropriated from others. I think we need to look toward Mesopotamia for the culture that exerted the greatest influence in the region.

Just a guess.

It will be interesting to see if this discovery has any bearing on history or if it will just be swept under the carpet and considered insignificant.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 03:32 AM

Does this fit?

From a Washington State University website:

"But the Hittites are perhaps one of the most significant peoples in Mesopotamian history. Because their empire was so large and because their primary activity was commerce, trading with all the civilizations and peoples of the Mediterranean, the Hittites were the people primarily responsible for transmitting Mesopotamian thought, law, political structure, economic structure, and ideas around the Mediterranean, from Egypt to Greece. So the Hittites are the great traders in the culture built by the Sumerians and adopted and modified by later peoples. Because of the Hittites, when the Hebrews migrated to Canaan under Moses they found a people, the Canaanites, who were, culturally speaking, Mesopotamian."

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: autolycus
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 06:59 AM

BillD - that's a very human problem. We can all find it difficult, once we have a view or an understanding of something, to amend our view/understanding if new facts come into our consciousness. Depending on a variety of factors. including our psychology, we'll be more or perhaps less ready to release our grip on our old thought and integrate the new info. Especially if we have some sort of investment in our existing outlook.


   There is another problem. According to Trager's People's Chronology (1990,1992),there were two volcanic eruptions on Thera, close to each other in time.

   The one in 1520 BCE "destroyed all life on the island." The other, 1470 BCE, "is far more violent (than the first)...and emits poisonous vapours thatc destroy the Minoan civilization....". Aside from the obvious apparent contradiction of Trager's two statements (how come he doesn't say of the first that it destroyed the Minoans), we are still left with two eruptions.


   On another hand, this news is not thoroughly revelatory. Hellemans and Bunch's Timetable of Science(1988) asserts the explosion took place in 1628 or 1645 BCE, the 1628 date "according to tree-ring dates from the United States and Ireland".

And how intriguing that this latest scientific proof through carnon dating is not being accepted at once, for example by an Egyptologist, as reported in the Daily Telegraph. (Carnon dating? Don't know what I was thinking.)


johnontheSunsetCoast raises an interesting perennial for me. namely his reference to the Near East. I remember talk of that. If Lebanon,Israel, Saudi Arabia etc. is the Middle East, where WAS the Near East, and what, in terms of EAST do we call the Indian/Pakistan/Bangladesh etc. area, which isn't either Middle or Far East?




   Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 08:06 AM

Then, as a joke, he wrote, "owned by G. Washington" inside in modern pencil. He used to point it out to people who had no idea that a graphite pencil had not yet been invented back then.

Actually, the graphite pencil- ie a piece or rod of graphite in a case or binding to support it, and to keep hands clean- had been devised soon after the discovery of Graphite in Cumbria, in the 1560's, and was widely used by artists, including Michelangelo's studio

The modern Graphite-and-Clay pencil was patented by a French officer in 1795.

Pedant? where?

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 08:12 AM

There is evidence in present day coastal Massachusetts of small Phonecian cave like structures and writing.

(speaking of carnal dating :), Linda is really hot!


The BC eruption possibly thinned out civilizations to the point where virtually all the rich history of prior civilizations such as the ancestors to the ancient Egyptians were wiped out. Climate change can be shockingly sudden yet long lasting.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:04 PM

A couple of years ago I had a holiday on Crete. I went on a bus trip to Herakleion and Knossos - hoping to learn something about the Minoans, Myceneans etc. As far as I could tell, the archeological museum at Herakleion was full of very interesting exhibits - but I couldn't see much of them because of the struggling, polyglot mass of leisurewear clad bodies between me and said exhibits. We then went on to Knossos and had a similar experience, but this time in the open-air ... I gave up and did some botanising around the ruins instead.

Perhaps, one day, some future archeologist will find modern Crete sunk below the waters of the Med. under the sheer weight of tourists. I wonder if the associated base-ball caps, trainers, shorts and track-suit bottoms will provide reliable dating evidence?

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:30 PM

Donuel told us:

There is evidence in present day coastal Massachusetts of small Phonecian cave like structures and writing.

In what way were the structures and writing like small Phonecian caves?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 01:54 PM

When Thera erupted, could it be possible that the ancient "sea people" who appeared suddenly in the near east possibly be refugees from that disaster?

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Naemanson
Date: 30 Apr 06 - 07:52 PM

Re: The Pencil - That is not common knowledge and Dad's joke made sense because of that. Not many addicted to pedantry in northern Maine. :)

In 1974 I spent several weeks on Crete... well actually I was sitting on a Navy ship in a bay on 1/2 standby. It seems the Arabs and Israelis were shooting at each other again and we had to be ready to rescue the Americans who might get stuck in the cross fire. I never did get to go ashore.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Santa
Date: 01 May 06 - 11:15 AM

I recall (vaguely) a number of television programmes than suggested, at some stage and to varying amounts of posturing, that the generally accepted sequence of dates for the Egyptian rulers just didn't withstand critical scrutiny. I think it was John Romer who pointed out that one ruler's tomb had been very carefully constructed around another of later date. Whether any other available reconstruction of the sequence was any better, is open to some doubt.

This is perhaps what is behind any classicist's reluctance to accept specific dates for Thera. Changing one date could have a catastrophic effect on the edifice. It may be better for historians to carry on with the existing assumptions until enough evidence has come through, than throw a whole series of babies out with the bathwater.   No doubt there are junior historians beavering away at their theses, hoping to make their name by reconciling this particular date with all the other information previously regarding as pointing in another direction altogether.

It is worth pointing out that scientific interpretations have been known to change with time. Less rapidly than historical ones, no doubt, but it still might be better to take the carbon dating as just one more piece of evidence.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: paddymac
Date: 01 May 06 - 09:11 PM

The discussion regarding abrupt changes of or within cultures brings to mind Joseph Campbell's notion that mythologies (a significant element of what I think we refer to as culture) exist to help people adapt to/with the environment (primarily natural, but also cultural as with emigrant/imigrant communities)) in which they exit. Heavy stuff, but fascinating too.

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: paddymac
Date: 01 May 06 - 09:13 PM

Glad I don't have to depend on my typing skills for a living. "exit" should be "exist."

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 May 06 - 06:00 AM

In the latest Smithsonian magazine, an article titled Dinosaur Shocker reports that an archeologist believes that remnants of soft tissue have been found in fossil remains of a 68 million year old (carefully dated) T. Rex skeleton recently recovered from Montana..

While this doesn't change history, it is a bit of a shock, since it has been so generally believed that all the soft tissue decays and/or disintegrates as the bones fossilize that apparently nobody ever thought to look.

There's also the minor point that the "looking" requires the destruction of small pieces of the fossil, which in most cases the scientists who have a fossil are reluctant to do.

While this rather startling development offers, in the view of a few scientists, an opportunity to learn more about extinct creatures, a small and rather vocal group of non-scientists known as "young earth theorists" have latched gleefully on the arcaheologists reports to declare that:

"Since everybody knows that soft tissue rots rapidly this proves that the dinosaurs are no more than a few thousand years old and neither is the earth." (Paraphrased of course.)

Sometimes it doesn't really make much difference what the evidence is, if people are determined to believe a particular history.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 02 May 06 - 01:01 PM

Nothing like a single datum to brighten your whole day...

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 May 06 - 02:10 AM

From the same source as the dinosaur above:

Shifting Ground in the Holy Land: Archaeology is casting new light on the Old Testament
By Jennifer Wallace, Photographs by Robert Wallis

Smithsonian magazine, May 2006

An interesting discussion of competing attitudes about archaeology, too convoluted to benefit from my comment, but available for reading by anyone interested.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Rewriting prehistory - new dates
From: Fibula Mattock
Date: 03 May 06 - 10:16 AM

Ahhh, the date of Thera under scrutiny yet again, shock (not), horror (not). All this quibbling over 100 years or so... The Egyptian chronology is fairly tight, and C14 has its flaws, so it could go either way, so hey, nothing much resolved, eh? Everyone's a winner! :)