21st Century Dating Technique that Does NO Harm to Objects

Ohmygoddess!  This is truly exciting to this archaeology geek (geekess?)

Press Release
Public release date: 23-Mar-2010
Contact: Michael Bernstein
m_bernstein@acs.org
415-978-3504 (Meeting, March 21-25)
202-872-6042 (After March 25)
American Chemical Society

New method could revolutionize dating of ancient treasures
SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2010 — Scientists today described development of a new method to determine the age of ancient mummies, old artwork, and other relics without causing damage to these treasures of global cultural heritage. Reporting at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they said it could allow scientific analysis of hundreds of artifacts that until now were off limits because museums and private collectors did not want the objects damaged.

"This technique stands to revolutionize radiocarbon dating," said Marvin Rowe, Ph.D., who led the research team. "It expands the possibility for analyzing extensive museum collections that have previously been off limits because of their rarity or intrinsic value and the destructive nature of the current method of radiocarbon dating. In theory, it could even be used to date the Shroud of Turin."

Rowe explained that the new method is a form of radiocarbon dating, the archaeologist's standard tool to estimate the age of an object by measuring its content of naturally-occurring radioactive carbon. A professor emeritus at Texas A&M University College Station, Rowe teaches at a branch of the university in Qatar. Traditional carbon dating involves removing and burning small samples of the object. Although it sometimes requires taking minute samples of an object, even that damage may be unacceptable for some artifacts. The new method does not involve removing a sample of the object.

Conventional carbon dating estimates the age of an artifact based on its content of carbon-14 (C-14), a naturally occurring, radioactive form of carbon. Comparing the C-14 levels in the object to levels of C-14 expected in the atmosphere for a particular historic period allows scientists to estimate the age of an artifact. Both the conventional and new carbon dating methods can determine the age of objects as far back as 45,000 to 50,000 years, Rowe said.

In conventional dating methods, scientists remove a small sample from an object, such as a cloth or bone fragment. Then they treat the sample with a strong acid and a strong base and finally burn the sample in a small glass chamber to produce carbon dioxide gas to analyze its C-14 content.

Rowe's new method, called "non-destructive carbon dating," eliminates sampling, the destructive acid-base washes, and burning. In the new method, scientists place an entire artifact in a special chamber with a plasma, an electrically charged gas similar to gases used in big-screen plasma television displays. The gas slowly and gently oxidizes the surface of the object to produce carbon dioxide for C-14 analysis without damaging the surface, he said.

Rowe and his colleagues used the technique to analyze the ages of about 20 different organic substances, including wood, charcoal, leather, rabbit hair, a bone with mummified flesh attached, and a 1,350-year-old Egyptian weaving. The results match those of conventional carbon dating techniques, they say.

The chamber could be sized to accommodate large objects, such as works of art and even the Shroud of Turin, which some believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, Rowe said. He acknowledged, however, that it would take a significant amount of data to convince museum directors, art conservators, and others that the new method causes no damage to such priceless objects

The scientists are currently refining the technique. Rowe hopes to use it, for instance, to analyze objects such as a small ivory figurine called the "Venus of Brassempouy," thought to be about 25,000 years old and one of the earliest known depictions of a human face. The figurine is small enough to fit into the chamber used for analysis.

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Funding for this project is provided by the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training, and Texas A&M University.

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

Most Ancient Civilization Started in Bulgaria?

We'll see if more is published on this in the future. I am open to the idea of older civilizations than those in the "Fertile Crescent" (which sort of includes ancient Egypt). Not all of our current assumptions about how everything developed and when it developed are necessarily correct, as we are finding out daily! However, for now, I'm taking this "assertion" (it's not really a report) with a grain of salt. What I do know is that the Varna, Vinca and other cultures in Bulgaria demonstrated a great skill with metallurgy at a very early age. Photo: Varna burial, c. 4600 BCE. Standart News November 3, 2009 Krastina Marinova Most Ancient Civilization Was in Bulgaria An ancient civilization, older than the Egyptian, existed in the lands of the coastal city of Varna, reveals the most recent scientific research of a team of archaeologists in Germany. Vladimir Slavchev from Varna Archaeological museum is part of that team. According to this large-scale study, the most ancient civilization in the world lived in the lands between Mangalia to the north and the Kamchiya River valley to the south. All the following societies imitated the local way of life. The old society from the region near Varna set the beginning to all kingdoms, scientists maintain. The burials of noble men and luxury objects unearthed in the famous Necropolis support that opinion. Over 200 valuable objects, among which are 2,000 golden beads, part of Varna's oldest treasure will be displayed in an exhibition in New York. Where and when will this exhibition be in New York??? More about Varna: Wikipedia

Who is Right About the Thera Eruption?

Compelling evidence from two different fields of study yield contradictory dates for the famous eruption of Thera, which destroyed the ancient Minoan civilization. One says 1613 BCE; one says sometime after 1530 BCE. Who is right? Could both be right - I mean, were there two eruptions that, over time, were combined in popular memory at the time into one eruption (the second, larger one resulting in the collapse of the Minoan civilization?) Or were previous "experts" (many were adventurers who could hardly be classified as archaeologists in the sense we use the term today) who dug up so much of Egypt in the 19th and early 20th centuries wrong about their timeline? The stakes about who is right - and who is wrong - are enormous. If the 1613 BCE date is right, much of Egyptian history needs to be adjusted by about 100 years - and that causes LOTS of problems in terms of dating some of the most famous (and not so famous) finds in Egypt and, indeed, because of spill-over in dating, in other ancient civilizations throughout the Mediterranean and beyond which are gauged by developments in Egypt! Thera volcano in 1613 BC December 3, 2008 Two olive branches buried by a Minoan-era eruption of the volcano on the island of Thera (modern-day Santorini) have enabled precise radiocarbon dating of the catastrophe to 1613 BC, with an error margin of plus or minus 10 years, according to two researchers who presented conclusions of their previously published research during an event on Tuesday at the Danish Archaeological Institute of Athens. Speaking at an event entitled "The Enigma of Dating the Minoan Eruption - Data from Santorini and Egypt", the study's authors, Dr. Walter Friedrich of the Danish University of Aarhus and Dr. Walter Kutschera of the Austrian University of Vienna, said data left by the branch of an olive tree with 72 annular growth rings was used for dating via the radiocarbon method, while a second olive branch -- found just nine metres away from the first -- was unearthed in July 2007 and has not yet been analysed. The researchers said both olive tree branches were found near a Bronze Age man-made wall, giving the impression that they were part of an olive grove situated near a settlement very close to the edge of Santorini's current world-famous Caldera. The two trees were found standing when unearthed, and apparently had been covered by the Theran pumice immediately after the volcano's eruption. According to the two scientists, other radiocarbon testing from archaeological locations on Santorini and the surrounding islands, as well as at Tel el-Dab'a in the Nile delta in Egypt, corroborate the dating based on the olive tree. On the other hand, as the two researchers pointed out, archaeological evidence linked with the Historical Dating of Ancient Egypt indicate that the Thera eruption must have occurred after the start of the New Kingdom in Egypt in 1530 BC. The two researchers said their find (olive tree) represents a serious contradiction between the results of the scientific method (radiocarbon dating) and scholarly work in the humanities (history-archaeology), with both sides holding strong arguments to support their conclusions. The radiocarbon dating places the cataclysmic eruption, blamed for heralding the end to the Minoan civilisation, a century earlier than previous scientific finds.

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Some Christian fundamentalist groups link the date of c. 1513 BCE - that is, the putative date of the great eruption of Thera that blew up 2/3rds of the island in its violence - with the Exodus from Egypt, with at least some of the "ten plagues" being explained by natural phenomenon associated with the cataclysmic eruption of Thera's volcano.