title: Santorini eruption radiocarbon dated to 1627-1600 B.C.
abstract: Precise and direct dating of the Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) in Greece, a global Bronze Age time marker, has been made possible by the unique find of an olive tree, buried alive in life position by the tephra (pumice and ashes) on Santorini. We applied so-called radiocarbon wiggle-matching to a carbon-14 sequence of tree-ring segments to constrain the eruption date to the range 1627-1600 B.C. with 95.4% probability. Our result is in the range of previous, less precise, and less direct results of several scientific dating methods, but it is a century earlier than the date derived from traditional Egyptian chronologies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus, C.F. Moellers Allé 1120, Denmark. walter@geo.au.dk
authors.forename: Walter L
authors.initials: WL
authors.lastname: Friedrich
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kromer
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Friedrich
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heinemeier
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pfeiffer
authors.forename: Sahra
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Talamo
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D000076145:Greece, Ancient; D049690:History, Ancient; D031658:Olea / Q000254:growth & development; D018707:Volcanic Eruptions
chemical_list: D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes