Archaeology: Absolute dating of the Bronze Age eruption of Thera (Santorini)

Stratospheric Ozone destruction by the Bronze-Age Minoan eruption (Santorini Volcano, Greece)

The role of volcanogenic halogen-bearing (i.e. chlorine and bromine) compounds in stratospheric ozone chemistry and climate forcing is poorly constrained. While the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo resulted in stratospheric ozone loss, it was due to heterogeneous chemistry on volcanic sulfate aerosols involving chlorine of anthropogenic rather than volcanogenic origin, since co-erupted chlorine was sc...

Santorini eruption radiocarbon dated to 1627-1600 B.C.

Precise and direct dating of the Minoan eruption of Santorini (Thera) in Greece, a global Bronze Age time marker, has been made possible by the unique find of an olive tree, buried alive in life position by the tephra (pumice and ashes) on Santorini. We applied so-called radiocarbon wiggle-matching to a carbon-14 sequence of tree-ring segments to constrain the eruption date to the range 1627-16...

Cambridge World Archaeology European Societies in the Bronze Age

Dating the Aegean Late Bronze Age with Radiocarbon*

When Cadogan wrote ‘Dating the Aegean Bronze Age without radiocarbon’ (1978), this writer agreed completely with the view that the absolute dating of the Aegean Late Bronze Age was already established. Correlations with Egypt and other parts of the eastern Mediterranean seemed secure, and virtually all Aegean prehistorians felt that radiocarbon dates could be ‘tested’ by comparison with the Aeg...

Zoned, birefringent garnets from Thera Island, Santorini Group (Aegean Sea)

A garnetite that occurs locally in phyllitic schists exposed by the Santorini caldera consists mainly of euhedral garnet crystals showing alternating isotropic and birefringent lamellae. X-ray diffraction revealed two garnets with unit cell dimensions a of I2.o52:ko-oo2 and I~'984-ko-oo5 A, corresponding respectively to almost pure andradite and a granditic phase. Mean compositions determined b...