Tell Ancient World Timelines From Just Looking at These Tree Rings
Archeologists might have a way to update ancient world timelines using more careful radiocarbon dating.
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00:00Our stories of the ancient world might undergo some major revisions thanks to a precise new
00:07way to analyze tree rings. According to Cornell University, radiocarbon dating has been a
00:12powerful tool for nailing down the dates of ancient events. Tree rings contain carbon-14,
00:18which is an isotope that decays over time because of radiation from space. This makes
00:22the isotope a natural clock, according to the French news service RFI. And since trees
00:27can grow a new ring every year, their radiocarbon data is measured against ancient artifacts
00:32to estimate the age of these artifacts. The problem is that nature is full of variation.
00:37Cosmic radiation from space changes from year to year, and tree growth changes with the
00:41seasons. For decades, radiocarbon dating has been based on trees from the entire northern
00:46hemisphere, but archaeologists from Cornell found subtle differences between trees in
00:50Germany and ones in Turkey. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, could help
00:55reconstruct a more accurate history of civilizations in the Mediterranean, and it could resolve
01:00debates about important events from a volcanic eruption in Santorini, Greece to the burial
01:05of King Tut.