4 ms·

An ancient solar flare illuminated the start of the Viking Age

53 points by diodorus 3y ago

aussieguy1234 3y ago
As an Aroura photographer, I know that these storms are fleeting and don't last long. Maybe the sky was illuminated for one night. But not long enough to make a serious impact to a centuries long campaign.
- brabel 3y ago
  If you read the article, the flare just helped them pinpoint exactly in which year certain artifacts they found were made. And then they could reconstruct the years below and above in the archeological record. There is nothing to do with the flare itself influencing the Vikings somehow.
- uoaei 3y ago
  aurora...
ggm 3y ago
I believe that the various layer/boundary processes like dendrochronology, soil profiles, C14, ceramic luminescence, geomagnetic change, kinda-sorta line up and so people can use remarkably 'different' inputs, to put an archeological site into a context in time which at least to some approximation "lines up" with other evidence. So if you find a tooth which dates from one kind of ring mark to date X, and a wooden artifact to date Y, and soil profile to date Z and they have distinct periods, you can start to tell a story about how they co-relate. I like the ones which say "the bone marks say they were a metalworker (heavy use of hammer changing ligament anchor points)" combined with "the tooth enamel had to be laid down in puberty in the black sea" combined with "we found it in a layer in scandenavian bogs which we know date to this time" to say: Metalworkers were mobile from the black sea right up to the arctic circle, at this time.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
irrational 3y ago
> And then, on June 8, 793, a group of marauders attacked a small island off the northeastern coast of Great Britain… With that description, the Vikings entered the annals of medieval history I had no idea it was dated that precisely. I don’t suppose there is a June 8 “holiday” in any of the Scandinavian countries?
- hvs 3y ago
  It's from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A.D. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery, dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter. Siga died on the eighth day before the calends of March. "sixth day before the ides of January" is assumed to be a scribal error because of other sources and because Vikings wouldn't raid in January. So, it's assumed to be June, "the ides" is the 13th, and the 6th day before it, presumably, would be the 8th. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/657/pg657.html https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/657/pg657.html
  - awb 3y ago
    What does “dragons” refer to here?
    - Archelaos 3y ago
      Dragons.
    - michaelsbradley 3y ago
      Probably plasma-related phenomenon, e.g. a high current, Z-pinch aurora induced by the solar flare.
    - irrational 3y ago
      There is a documentary about Viking dragons called “How to train your dragon”.
jgilias 3y ago
Vikings did Vikinging a full century before Lindisfarne on the eastern shore of the Baltic. There’s Salme ships on Saaremaa dated to around 700 AD, as well as the Scandinavian settlement in Grobina, Courland with its start dated to 650 AD. There are also Vendel age Scandinavian finds deeper in Courland along the rivers, such as seeming trade outposts and such. Sure, maybe that doesn’t count as it’s primarily Gotlanders, and the lands in question were not Christian, but Scandinavians learned to sail around, trade, fight, and colonize long before Lindisfarne.
toss1 3y ago
>> the sun has on several occasions, about once every millennium and a half or so it appears, sent flares in our direction with enough energy to make measurably more carbon-14. >>The solar flare in 775 and a slightly weaker one in 993 with a distinct carbon spike How strong were these in relation to the Carrington Event? If these occur roughly every 1.5 millenia, how 'rough' is that repetition? We're at almost 1.25 millenia today, and our technology is massively vulnerable to a Carrington level event...

53 points by diodorus 3y ago

As an Aroura photographer, I know that these storms are fleeting and don't last long. Maybe the sky was illuminated for one night. But not long enough to make a serious impact to a centuries long campaign.

brabel 3y ago
If you read the article, the flare just helped them pinpoint exactly in which year certain artifacts they found were made. And then they could reconstruct the years below and above in the archeological record. There is nothing to do with the flare itself influencing the Vikings somehow.
uoaei 3y ago
aurora...

ggm 3y ago

I believe that the various layer/boundary processes like dendrochronology, soil profiles, C14, ceramic luminescence, geomagnetic change, kinda-sorta line up and so people can use remarkably 'different' inputs, to put an archeological site into a context in time which at least to some approximation "lines up" with other evidence. So if you find a tooth which dates from one kind of ring mark to date X, and a wooden artifact to date Y, and soil profile to date Z and they have distinct periods, you can start to tell a story about how they co-relate. I like the ones which say "the bone marks say they were a metalworker (heavy use of hammer changing ligament anchor points)" combined with "the tooth enamel had to be laid down in puberty in the black sea" combined with "we found it in a layer in scandenavian bogs which we know date to this time" to say: Metalworkers were mobile from the black sea right up to the arctic circle, at this time.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

irrational 3y ago

> And then, on June 8, 793, a group of marauders attacked a small island off the northeastern coast of Great Britain… With that description, the Vikings entered the annals of medieval history I had no idea it was dated that precisely. I don’t suppose there is a June 8 “holiday” in any of the Scandinavian countries?

hvs 3y ago
It's from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A.D. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery, dragons flying across the firmament. These tremendous tokens were soon followed by a great famine: and not long after, on the sixth day before the ides of January in the same year, the harrowing inroads of heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter. Siga died on the eighth day before the calends of March. "sixth day before the ides of January" is assumed to be a scribal error because of other sources and because Vikings wouldn't raid in January. So, it's assumed to be June, "the ides" is the 13th, and the 6th day before it, presumably, would be the 8th. https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/657/pg657.html https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/657/pg657.html
- awb 3y ago
  What does “dragons” refer to here?
  - Archelaos 3y ago
    Dragons.
  - michaelsbradley 3y ago
    Probably plasma-related phenomenon, e.g. a high current, Z-pinch aurora induced by the solar flare.
  - irrational 3y ago
    There is a documentary about Viking dragons called “How to train your dragon”.

jgilias 3y ago

Vikings did Vikinging a full century before Lindisfarne on the eastern shore of the Baltic. There’s Salme ships on Saaremaa dated to around 700 AD, as well as the Scandinavian settlement in Grobina, Courland with its start dated to 650 AD. There are also Vendel age Scandinavian finds deeper in Courland along the rivers, such as seeming trade outposts and such. Sure, maybe that doesn’t count as it’s primarily Gotlanders, and the lands in question were not Christian, but Scandinavians learned to sail around, trade, fight, and colonize long before Lindisfarne.

toss1 3y ago

>> the sun has on several occasions, about once every millennium and a half or so it appears, sent flares in our direction with enough energy to make measurably more carbon-14. >>The solar flare in 775 and a slightly weaker one in 993 with a distinct carbon spike How strong were these in relation to the Carrington Event? If these occur roughly every 1.5 millenia, how 'rough' is that repetition? We're at almost 1.25 millenia today, and our technology is massively vulnerable to a Carrington level event...