Scientists were able to date the Vikings’ presence on the North American continent to exactly 1021, thanks to dated cosmic radiation, and traces they traced to pieces of wood. .
It has long been known that Scandinavian sailors were the first Europeans to land there, around the year 1000, long before Christopher Columbus, who landed further south and nearly five centuries later.
To this day, the only known site of their occupation is Anse aux Meadows, a bay on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland, where the foundations of eight wooden frame structures remain.
But as research published in Nature on Wednesday noted, traditional carbon-14 dating over the last century was more than inaccurate and lasted more than 250 years. However, they all point to brief and sporadic occupations of the place, according to archaeological remains and the “Saga”, semi-legendary texts recounting the Viking epic.
The team, led by Michael Dee and Margot Kuitems, professor of isotope chronology and archaeologist at the Center for Isotopic Research at the Dutch University of Groningen, each crossed the hoop using the original method.
The Earth is constantly exposed to cosmic radiation, “which constantly produces carbon-14 (a heavier form and much rarer than carbon atoms) in the upper atmosphere,” Margot Kuitems told AFP. This form of carbon will “enter the carbon cycle, which is taken up by plants through photosynthesis.”
Sometimes the radiation is much stronger: these cosmic radiation “events” suddenly increase the carbon-14 levels in the atmosphere.
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A study in Japan isolated two such “events”, in 775 and 993, whose traces remained on trees of known age. The sudden rise in carbon-14 is found at the relevant date in its growth rings, the circles we see on cut trunks and which help determine the age of the tree.
Using a mass spectrometer, Margot Kuitems’ team searched for traces of event 993 in three woodcut samples taken from the Anse aux Meadows site. Canadian experts have determined that these pieces were machined there with iron with iron tools.
“When we measured the concentration of carbon-14 in a series of dark circles, we found a sharp increase in one of them, and we believe it corresponds to the year 993,” the scientist said. Then it is enough to count the number of rings between the ring of “cosmic events” and the last one before the bark, to determine the date on which the tree was felled. Answer: year 1021.
The measurements were successful for two pieces of wood, which scientists could even identify as one tree felled in the spring, and the other in the summer.
The Center for Isotopic Research is at the forefront of this original method of archaeological dating. He signed the first study on the subject in 2020, precisely from archaeological structures in southern Siberia, using cosmic event 775.
According to me. Kuitems, there is currently a “consensus” to explain this peak of cosmic radiation with ‘solar events, such as solar storms’.
Another high point in AD 660 was recently confirmed and can serve as a time marker thanks to continuous improvements in mass spectrometer accuracy.
pcl / fmp / cbn
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