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I once tried to look into this and came away thinking it was all very circular (tree rings calibrated to archeology used to calibrate radioisotopes used to cali
by nonbel 9y ago
I once tried to look into this and came away thinking it was all very circular (tree rings calibrated to archeology used to calibrate radioisotopes used to calibrate tree rings). There seemed to be a lot of room for cherry picking which data was "good" vs "corrupted" until everything matched up.
Also it seemed to rely a lot on calibrating to the "known" date of ancient egyptian artifacts, which were in turn originally dated using the bible. Ie, if a radioisotope date from an artifact with a "known" date disagreed with that, it would be rejected.
I remember this guy being an important player:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Justus_Scaliger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Justus_Scaliger
Maybe I am just remembering it wrong or didn't look hard enough...
- paulryanrogers 9y agoIIRC, Egyptian sources were used because the consistency of Nile River flooding meant their calendars are likely the most accurate.
- nonbel 9y agoInteresting, but I don't really follow how flooding would be any more helpful than the seasons in general.
- dotancohen 9y agoThe answer is the same as my bank is demanding from me. Deposits. Regular, periodic deposits.
- nonbel 9y agoI still don't get it. Why would that help you keep a calendar when you already have the seasons?
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- dotancohen 9y agoWe can today verify certain dates by looking at the deposit records.
- nonbel 9y agoSorry, but here is what I was responding to: >"the consistency of Nile River flooding meant their calendars are likely the most accurate" You seem to be talking about something different now.
- paulryanrogers 9y agoBecause of the flooding the harvest was very consistent every year. And taxes and purchases were therefore very consistent. This provides a set of records based on the solar calendar, not subject to the whims of changing rulers.
- nonbel 9y agoThis seems pretty dubious to me. In fact I'd think they would have less need for a good calendar since the proposed extremely regular harvests would happen regardless.
- paulryanrogers 9y agoIt's not about the calendar itself so much as the purchase and tax records that corroborate that with timelines and other evidence.
- masklinn 9y agoIt lets us correlate their calendars with our own.
- 9y ago
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- abritinthebay 9y ago> Maybe I am just remembering it wrong or didn't look hard enough... From what you wrote, it's both.
- IncRnd 9y agoTo someone less knowledgeable in that field, why do you say that?
- abritinthebay 9y agoBecause they not only showed a poor recollection of what he did read (misremembering) but they showed less understanding of the topics involved than a 10 minute Wikipedia binge would provide (looking hard enough)?
- IncRnd 9y agoI was hoping for some specificity.
- nonbel 9y agoAnother thing is I remember is a problem with people citing their sources. It was one of those topics with tons of BS making it hard to get to the actual data. Since you seem to know a lot about it, can you pick one artifact (I don't think it should matter much which one) and outline all the data available for it?
- abritinthebay 9y agoThis is literally something a basic Wikipedia page covers in excruciating detail with multiple sources. Like... really basic research would get you further along in your studies. I see what you mean by “didn’t look hard enough”. Please start there, I think you’ll see see more detail than I could hope to provide in one HN comment.
- nonbel 9y ago
- olavk 9y agoI think you are mixing up some things. Tree-ring dating (dendrochronology) is certainly not depending on other methods of dating. It is based on the patterns of tree rings which is known for more than 10000 years back. For dating a find more confidently you can combine dendrochronology with other methods, but dendrochronological dating is not itself depending on other methods. The bible is certainly not involved, and I would love to see your source for this idea. Your Wikipedia link does not say anything like what you are stating.
- nonbel 9y agoThe way I remember is that 1 year -> 1 tree ring is more like an ideal than reality. You can have a series of cold summers with no growth or warm winters with continuous growth. Either can lead to many years -> 1 ring. Or you can have multiple warm/cold periods in one year in which case you can have 1 year -> many rings. As a result the samples that are used for dating need to be carefully chosen, and this has not been done independently of the other sources of data. I also remember it was difficult to find the raw tree ring data (all the images they tried). What was available was only some final data on ring widths, this made me question their assessment that alignments of the various tree ring datasets could just be due to chance similarities.
- olavk 9y agoWho are "they" in this story? You are making some vague references here.
- nonbel 9y agoSorry, don't remember anyone specific. I do remember there were only actually a few people/labs who seemed to be in control of the raw data though. Perhaps start here: http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/itrdb.htm http://web.utk.edu/~grissino/itrdb.htm
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