If it was the Baglers who threw one of their own men into the well did they want to poison the drinking water well of their enemy or did they just want to dispose of him? It is amazing the detail that comes from DNA and combining it with historical texts the story can come alive in your mind.
I believe that the assault on the castle was a successful raid, but was not aimed at holding the fort, so as they left they tossed a body down the well to help weaken the defenders and the local people who lived there
I look with hope for the discovery of the remains of a substantial funeral pyre on the coast of southern Sweden; dating to the early sixth-century and containg weapons with inscriptions suggestive of one called Beowulf. ". . . þæt wæs god cyning!"
Very good summary of some fascinating research. A small note: Old Norse saga means 'history, story' and "the sagas" vary a lot in contents. Whereas Sverre's saga is a near-contemporary account of the events it describes, many other sagas describe legendary events occurring centuries or even millenia before they were written. (There's even a "Saga of the Troymen" based on Greek sources!) It is primarily these texts that have been attacked for their perceived unreliability and lack of historical source value.
Wiggle matching is notoriously subjective and this is a very pat result. The castle was only pulled down 65 years later; the well apparently its only water supply. There are some rather obvious queries to be made and to be answered here for this to make it to the other side of anecdotal. I'd love it to be true - and that is exactly why I'm skeptical.
Always good to be sceptical. I'd like to have seen more material dated and more comparisons, but there is apparently a paper on the way which deals with medieval Trondheim and the local reservoir effect (Seiler et al., in preparation)
It's a phenomenon called the 'marine reservoir effect', which means that the carbon circulating in the ocean is often older than terrestrial carbon, so the ratio of C12 and C14 absorbed into a person who eats a lot of seafood will look different to someone who ate entirely land based foods. You have to correct for this to reach the right age, and also have a working model of local reservoir effects, which can differ from place to place.
What an archeologist/historian dream of joining old stories and sagas with modern science to understand the past better!!! Thank you for this article and your other work. It is such a treat to learn about these sorts of discoveries.
If there isn't a textbook of case studies of using DNA tech or other modern tech to understand previous civilizations, then someone ought to write that!
I have wondered before how interesting it would be to compare stories/songs/myths like this across languages with modern NLP to see if we can't find ones that might be taking about the same events. No one person could possibly be well versed in even a modest fraction of the histories or languages of the past to be able to find many of the gems that are probably hiding in plain sight.
What are the principles that are used to adjust for a marine based diet?
No textbook yet afaik, David Reich's book is probably the best, but the field moves so fast that noone wants to spend years writing a book that will be out of date.
You probably could do that comparative approach now at great scale. Comparative mythology has been around for nearly 200 years, but a lot more could be achieved yes.
The adjustments are due to something called the 'marine reservoir effect', meaning that the ocean contains carbon which is older than carbon on the land. Roughly about 400 years difference sometimes more or less. If a person or animal eats a lot of seafood the carbon 14 ratios will be skewed and give an older date. To correct it you need information about the reservoir effects in that area and build a calibration curve to provide a more accurate date
Thank you so much for this Substack. No end of interesting archaeology news and information. I am very grateful for it.
V kind of you to say, I'm delighted you enjoy it!
If it was the Baglers who threw one of their own men into the well did they want to poison the drinking water well of their enemy or did they just want to dispose of him? It is amazing the detail that comes from DNA and combining it with historical texts the story can come alive in your mind.
I believe that the assault on the castle was a successful raid, but was not aimed at holding the fort, so as they left they tossed a body down the well to help weaken the defenders and the local people who lived there
I look with hope for the discovery of the remains of a substantial funeral pyre on the coast of southern Sweden; dating to the early sixth-century and containg weapons with inscriptions suggestive of one called Beowulf. ". . . þæt wæs god cyning!"
Intellectually stimulating post!
Very good summary of some fascinating research. A small note: Old Norse saga means 'history, story' and "the sagas" vary a lot in contents. Whereas Sverre's saga is a near-contemporary account of the events it describes, many other sagas describe legendary events occurring centuries or even millenia before they were written. (There's even a "Saga of the Troymen" based on Greek sources!) It is primarily these texts that have been attacked for their perceived unreliability and lack of historical source value.
Wiggle matching is notoriously subjective and this is a very pat result. The castle was only pulled down 65 years later; the well apparently its only water supply. There are some rather obvious queries to be made and to be answered here for this to make it to the other side of anecdotal. I'd love it to be true - and that is exactly why I'm skeptical.
Always good to be sceptical. I'd like to have seen more material dated and more comparisons, but there is apparently a paper on the way which deals with medieval Trondheim and the local reservoir effect (Seiler et al., in preparation)
Fingers crossed! I'll look forward to it.
“Calibrating for that marine diet, the radiocarbon date was re-estimated at 1153–1277 (92.9%) cal AD”
Why does a 20% sea food diet equate to ~200+ years of carbon dating?
It's a phenomenon called the 'marine reservoir effect', which means that the carbon circulating in the ocean is often older than terrestrial carbon, so the ratio of C12 and C14 absorbed into a person who eats a lot of seafood will look different to someone who ate entirely land based foods. You have to correct for this to reach the right age, and also have a working model of local reservoir effects, which can differ from place to place.
That’s amazing. Thanks!
What an archeologist/historian dream of joining old stories and sagas with modern science to understand the past better!!! Thank you for this article and your other work. It is such a treat to learn about these sorts of discoveries.
If there isn't a textbook of case studies of using DNA tech or other modern tech to understand previous civilizations, then someone ought to write that!
I have wondered before how interesting it would be to compare stories/songs/myths like this across languages with modern NLP to see if we can't find ones that might be taking about the same events. No one person could possibly be well versed in even a modest fraction of the histories or languages of the past to be able to find many of the gems that are probably hiding in plain sight.
What are the principles that are used to adjust for a marine based diet?
No textbook yet afaik, David Reich's book is probably the best, but the field moves so fast that noone wants to spend years writing a book that will be out of date.
You probably could do that comparative approach now at great scale. Comparative mythology has been around for nearly 200 years, but a lot more could be achieved yes.
The adjustments are due to something called the 'marine reservoir effect', meaning that the ocean contains carbon which is older than carbon on the land. Roughly about 400 years difference sometimes more or less. If a person or animal eats a lot of seafood the carbon 14 ratios will be skewed and give an older date. To correct it you need information about the reservoir effects in that area and build a calibration curve to provide a more accurate date