Gunnar Heinsohn: Archaeological Strata vs Tree-rings: proposal for an experiment
an answer to Michael Baillie
Tree-ring-daters do not agree on the number of years that can be substantiated for the 1st millennium CE. The majority is convinced that they have 1,000 characteristic rings that prove the 1,000 years required for a millennium, confirmed down to the last second by C14. Therefore, they are convinced that scholars living after the year 1000 CE had all the instruments available to construct the chronology from 1-1000 CE as dendro-chronologists find them in their textbooks. The full 1,000 year time-span did not go unchallenged. A minority of painstakingly careful tree-ring-counters is convinced that there are only 782 years between 1 and 1000 CE that can reliably be proven by distinct tree rings. Heribert Illig and his followers have settled for 703 years. Thus, there is no such thing as a dendro-chronological consensus.
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See also: A Carbon-14 Chronology
Mainstream Chronologies face major problems whenever they mix the artistry of dendrochronology with the science of radiocarbon dating.
These problems initially arise because numerous procedures in dendrochronology are based upon subjective human intervention:
Sample selection: which trees should be sampled out of the population?
Sample taking: which part of the tree should be sampled?
Missing rings: which rings should be deemed missing?
Double rings: which rings should be deemed double rings?
Triple rings: which rings should be deemed triple rings?
Sample rejection: which samples should be rejected?
Crossdating: how accurate does the crossdating have to be?
Site Master: how many samples are adequate based upon species and climate?
Bridging: how many rings must overlap based upon species and climate?
Bridging: how many samples are used to confirm a bridge?
Bridging: how accurate does the crossdating have to be?
Chronology: how many samples are adequate based upon species and climate?
Mixing: how are different species mixed into a chronology?
However, these initial problems are further compounded whenever dendrochronology is used to calibrate radiocarbon dating.
Go to the site of Malaga Bay for the full article