Ancient sentinels and the secrets locked away in their tree-rings

The explosive eruption of the volcano Thera on Santorini more than 3,400 years ago buried the Minoan settlement on the island in a layer of ash and pumice more than 130 feet (40 meters) deep. The effects of the eruption were felt as far away as Egypt and what is now Istanbul in Turkey.
New analyses that use tree rings could settle the long-standing debate about when Thera erupted by resolving discrepancies between archeological and radiocarbon methods of dating the eruption, according to new University of Arizona-led research.
“It’s about tying together a timeline of ancient Egypt, Greece, Turkey and the rest of the Mediterranean at this critical point in the ancient world - that’s what dating Thera can do,” said lead author Charlotte Pearson, an assistant professor of dendrochronology at the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
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