Hot take on that Viking burial ship in Norway - I think the dating is off

Everyone's hyped about the Gjellestad ship being from 800 AD, but I spent 3 months looking at the soil samples from the excavation report and I'm not buying it. The stratigraphy shows a clear mixing layer that could mess up carbon dating by 50 to 100 years. I learned from a geoarchaeology workshop in Denver last spring that root disturbance in sandy soils like that can pull older organic material down. Nobody in the forums wants to hear it because the 800 AD date makes for a better headline. Has anyone else checked the pollen analysis from the burial mound base versus the ship trench?

2 comments

2 Comments

abby3087d ago

Oh man, that root disturbance thing is wild, totally messes with the timeline.

dakotacraig7d ago

@abby308 reminds me of that time my friend's garden grew upside down, roots on top.