Santorini eruption radiocarbon dated to 1627-1600 B.C.
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.
Friedrich
Walter L
WL
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus, C.F. Moellers Allé 1120, Denmark. walter@geo.au.dk
Kromer
Bernd
B
Friedrich
Michael
M
Heinemeier
Jan
J
Pfeiffer
Tom
T
Talamo
Sahra
S
D001106:Archaeology; D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes; D000076145:Greece, Ancient; D049690:History, Ancient; D031658:Olea / Q000254:growth & development; D018707:Volcanic Eruptions
D002250:Carbon Radioisotopes