Olive tree rewrites classical history
Submitted by coldrum on Monday, 15 May 2006 Page Views: 1377
DiscoveriesA burnt olive tree has helped to resolve a controversy over dating key events in the Mediterranean that took place more than three millennia ago. The new dates would change the chronology of the Minoans, Greeks, Cypriots and others by a century, realign history and raise questions about the Egyptian chronology and the genesis of Classical civilisation.The rewriting of the history of the Aegean has come in part from an elaborate study of charcoal and seed samples from a number of sites dated to between 1700BC and 1400BC, and partly from a single olive tree. The gnarled stump was found in a volcanic rock layer on the Greek island of Santorini (Thera).
During the second millennium BC, it was the site of a massive eruption that blasted ash and rock for many miles around, burying many thriving civilisations in the Mediterranean, including Crete's famed Minoans.
With the help of the tree, researchers report today in the journal Science that they can now tell when this eruption occurred, enabling them to know just how old these Bronze Age cultures were and how they were connected to other cultures in Egypt and the Near East.
More: The Telegraph
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