| View previous topic :: View next topic |
Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
|
|
 |
|
If there's a chronology problem in the first millennium AD, then where does that leave radiocarbon dating? Or vice versa?
Presumably, the radiocarbon dates match the dates provided by the soft science scholars, like paleographers, philologists, and linguists. Or at least they're close enough for everyone to get along.
But if there are no Dark Ages, and if the first millennium was 700 years shorter (like Gunnar Heinsohn says), then none of the hard-science dates should match the soft-science dates.
Right? I feel like I'm missing something.
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
You're missing the adjustment tables.
I haven't checked lately but there used to be a system for converting carbon dates to actual dates. This was found to be necessary early doors because for a few hundred years carbon-14 molecules weren't decaying at the same rate as their brothers and sisters everywhere else in the universe. They have not informed us as to why because carbon is one of the 'dumb' elements in the Periodic Table.
Though not so dumb as to have a whole branch of academia, organic chemistry, devoted to studying it.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
|
|
|
|
I'll look into it and try to figure the adjustment tables out.
But on first blush, it seems like if you have to add an adjustment, it is because you are getting multiple dates from the raw test. And you have to adjust them because they don't agree with your paleography or your philology or whatever.
You know that Julius Caesar was 2,000 years ago, therefore if the date doesn't say 2,000 years ago, you need an adjustment.
But that's 100% circular. Or am I still missing it?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Boreades
In: finity and beyond
|
|
|
|
The Hallstatt Plateau
This was something I stumbled on by chance. At first glance, you might wonder : "What's that, something to do with Hallstatt in Austria?" If you did, don't worry, I thought the same; but we'd both be wrong. It’s a chuffing great big (and euphemistically named) problem in Radiocarbon Dating.
| The Hallstatt Plateau is a term used in archaeology that refers to a consistently flat area on graphs that plot radiocarbon dating against calendar dates. Radiocarbon dates of around 2450 BP (Before Present) always calibrate to ca. 800-400 BC, no matter the measurement precision. |
Eh? Run that by me again?
- Apparent 'gap' in archaeological record between 7th and 3rd centuries BC
- Lack of deposition of fine metalwork between Late Bronze Age and La Tène.
- Difficult to account for disappearance of fine metalwork
- It is impossible to sensibly resolve the radiocarbon dates of any samples whose true ages lie between 400 and 800 BC. |
But why?
It appears that c.800 BC, something went BANG and chucked loads of Carbon 14 into the atmosphere, thereby screwing the whole methodology of carbon dating. It seems to coincide with the start of what is called the Bronze Age Collapse, or The Greek Dark Age, when Greek culture and trade apparently stopped working for c.400 years.
I wouldn't mind so much. Except I'd always thought Radiocarbon Dating was somehow more reliable than the opinion of Orthodox Archaeologists. There are endless academic papers (and careers) based on complex explanations of why the Greek Dark Age consisted of the Greeks stopping everything for c.400 years, and then starting again, exactly where they left off, as though nothing had ever happened.
The truth might be much simpler.
The Greek Dark Age had to be invented (or used to explain away a gap) as a consequence of the Greek chronologies. Which in turn had been forced to mesh with what was regarded as the more authoritative Egyptian chronologies. Even though the Egyptian chronology was fundamentally flawed. But nobody realised that until much later. But by then all the textbooks had been written and academic reputations (and “facts”) firmly established.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
|
|
|
|
|
I know what I'll be asking AI about for the next several hours
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
As I understand it, they were finding all the dates were out by c. 500 years so, since they knew the real historical dates and carbon dating was a very young science, it was agreed the carbon dates must be systemically askew for a reason that would presumably emerge as the 'more research is needed' flag was run up the flagpole.
Since carbon decay specific to that era was of no conceivable interest to chemists, that research was never undertaken and the tables could take care of the anomalies.
It may be so entrenched by now that the adjustment is done routinely at the lab, hence the historians and archaeologists get their dates without asterisks and there isn't anyone left in their ranks that would know there were any to begin with. And both science and the humanities can travel serenely on.
Though if this is true, and I'm not swearing to it, then the chemists should be royally shafted for breaking the Uniformitarian principles of the chemical universe (and science generally) and not doing anything about it. The historians and archaeologists can be acquitted of dereliction of duty.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
Dear Mr Boreades
The first hundred pages of Revisionist Historiography is devoted to this problem.
Yours sincerely
M J Harper
Author
Revisionist Historiography.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Pete Jones
Site Admin
In: Virginia
|
|
|
|
While Ive read Mick's book and I remember that he uses Peter James' Greek Dark Ages book as the jumping-off point, I don't remember the details.
Just to take a stab, it seems that the radiocarbon daters have a mainstream chronology in hand, and they know where/when different artefacts are SUPPOSED to come from. But when they date things that they think are 400-800BC, they can get no difference. So far, so good (I hope).
So the Halstatt Plateau is interpreted by them as an INCREASE in Carbon-14, which caused their nice Carbon Curve to stop mapping onto their nice mainstream chronology.
But it might just be that the Carbon is perfectly flat because time hasn't changed at all (the chronology has added phantom years). The expected Carbon curve disappears (because it is measuring a single moment in time)?
But if you don't realize that time has "stopped", an unchanging amount of Carbon will look like an increase because the time-side of the equation isn't moving?
I just exhausted the small portion of my brain that can think abstractly about numbers.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
|
You've got the picture except that the time when time stood still varies depending on the academic history and archaeology of different areas. It can be as short as three hundred years or as long as seven hundred, and may be applied en bloc anywhere in the general period 500 to 1500 BC.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
|
|
|
|
| Pete Jones wrote: | I'll look into it and try to figure the adjustment tables out.
But on first blush, it seems like if you have to add an adjustment, it is because you are getting multiple dates from the raw test. And you have to adjust them because they don't agree with your paleography or your philology or whatever.
You know that Julius Caesar was 2,000 years ago, therefore if the date doesn't say 2,000 years ago, you need an adjustment.
But that's 100% circular. Or am I still missing it? |
I think what you are missing, is that tree ring dating could provide precise calendar years before radiocarbon dating. This meant that Willard Libby could test his emerging 14C methods, against dated wood samples, that were provided by AC Douglas who had used tree ring dating, to provide construction dates for Native American ruins.
The key bit was the testing against the wood samples. These days they also use things like coral, to get the calendar dates.
(Whether you consider that circular or not, is a valid question, that surely could be looked into.....)
This was found to be necessary early doors because for a few hundred years carbon-14 molecules weren't decaying at the same rate as their brothers and sisters everywhere else in the universe. They have not informed us as to why because carbon is one of the 'dumb' elements in the Periodic Table.
|
Wow, I had always assumed that carbon-14 molecules decay at a steady rate, and it is the carbon in the atmosphere that varies. This fluctuation in the atmosphere, is what makes carbon-14 dating so very difficult.....
What am I missing?
Please go on.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
|
|
|
|
I am returning to this vexed question. (Though admittedly lacking a basic understanding of the science.)
| AI Overview wrote: | | Carbon dating adjustment tables—known as calibration curves—convert raw radiocarbon measurements into actual calendar years. |
Seems straightforward enough.
| This is necessary because the amount of Carbon-14 in the Earth's atmosphere fluctuates naturally over time. |
Not straightforward at all. The amount of Carbon-14 is not at issue. It is the rate of decay that is being measured.
Why, indeed. Carbon-14 is Carbon-14. Here, there, now, then. Why is 'adjustment' necessary?
| All living things take in Carbon-14 while they are alive. When they die, the Carbon-14 decays at a steady, predictable rate (its half-life of 5,730 years). |
Like I said...
| However, because the atmosphere's Carbon-14 levels were different in the past (due to changes in the sun and Earth's magnetic field), a raw radiocarbon "age" does not match the calendar year exactly. |
Yes it does. Exactly. It doesn't matter how much Carbon-14 is around, it's decaying at the same rate. Half every 5,730 years.
| Standard International Curves. Scientists adjust these dates using internationally agreed-upon datasets based on tree rings, corals, and lake sediments. |
I will accept tree rings. You can count 'em and that doesn't need recourse to carbon molecules. Though for various reasons tree rings are not ideal. Corals and and lake sentiments are more... uncertain. I suspect the presence of a bogus list.
| The standard curves are updated periodically: |
Why do they need updating? The past hasn't changed, has it? I sense a need for some urgent re-evaluation being needed for reasons outside nuclear physics and chemistry.
IntCal20: Used for the Northern Hemisphere (terrestrial).
SHCal20: Used for the Southern Hemisphere.
Marine20: Used for marine environments. |
Another bogus list presentiment. Apparently the southern hemisphere doesn't have any water. Apparently our two hemispheres have different atmospheres or different Carbon-14 histories.
| How to Convert Dates: Instead of using basic paper tables, scientists use specialized computer software. |
That is strange. I remember when a table was issued. It's all that was needed. You looked at, say, 7-8,000 BC, and you were told to add such and such number of years to get the chronological date. Now you have to ask a boffin to do it for you.
| The most popular program is OxCal, which translates raw data into probabilistic calendar dates. If you have a raw radiocarbon age (e.g., 3000 ± 30 BP), you can use the OxCal Online Program to apply the IntCal20 curve and find the exact calendar date range. If you have a specific raw radiocarbon age and location of your sample, I can help you understand the calendar date range it corresponds to. |
Now you have to ask AI. All this may be entirely kosher but for some reason they're making it more and more difficult to get an overview of the system itself.
I can tell you (from memory) that in the days when we could look at the single conversion table, it was only 3-10,000 BC that needed adjustment -- the bit where secular chronology was all wrong. And carbon-dating was not done for anything beyond either 30,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 BC (it either moved over time, or I have forgotten) -- when they've got everything wrong.
But now... who can say? Careful ignoral can flourish undisturbed.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
The Library Index 
FAQ 
Search
Register
Profile 
Log in to check your private messages 
Log in 
