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Imagine if the chronology of early American history were off by 100 years, and it was really 1392 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Scholars have long argued over the possibility of a time discrepancy of similar magnitude for a crucial period in the Late Bronze Age of Greece and the Aegean world.
Scientists now report new radiocarbon evidence to support the contention that the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean began in the 17th century B.C., at least a century before the date previously assumed by many scholars. The radiocarbon samples showed that the age extended from about 1700 B.C. to 1400 B.C.
If correct, the earlier date would require a critical re-examination of cultural and trade relationships at the time between Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece and Cyprus, on the one hand, and the civilizations of Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. It would mean that the Crete of the elaborate palaces that tourists flock to see and of the legends of King Minos reached an apex a century earlier than once thought.
Specifically, two independent radiocarbon studies set an earlier date for the volcanic eruption on the island of Thera, now known as Santorini, which set off tsunamis and spread ash and pumice throughout the Aegean and Mediterranean region. The catastrophe is thought to have hastened the decline of the Minoan civilization on Crete, 70 miles away, and perhaps set the stage for the emergence of Mycenaean Greece as a wealthy power in the Aegean.
One group of researchers, led by Sturt Manning, a Cornell archaeologist, reported in the current issue of the journal Science that the eruption occurred between 1660 B.C. and 1613 B.C. The age was determined by an analysis of 127 radiocarbon samples, many of them from Santorini and Crete.
Another team, reporting in the same journal issue, gave a more narrow time range for the eruption - 1627 B.C. to 1600 B.C. The analysis was based in part on radiocarbon data from the branch and leaves of an olive tree that was buried by the volcano.
Walter L. Friedrich, a geologist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and colleagues said this was the first detailed examination of an object buried alive in the eruption. It adds, they wrote, "to the already strong evidence of an eruption date in the late 17th century B.C." In an e-mail message from England, Dr. Manning said, "The two independent papers thus greatly reinforce the strength of the overall new chronology."
Another article in the journal quoted Colin Renfrew, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, as saying that the findings "convincingly solve the problem of the dating of the Thera eruption." Until recent years, archaeologists had generally dated the eruption at around 1500 B.C. This was estimated mainly by comparing the pottery, art and other artifacts of the Aegean region with cultural goods in Egypt and Mesopotamia, which had more firmly dated chronologies.
The revised radiocarbon chronology, if it stands, would mean that the Minoans at their height were not contemporaries of Egypt's expansive New Kingdom of the 16th century B.C.
Instead, the Minoans apparently achieved greatness earlier and at a time when Egypt was being ruled by a foreign Canaanite dynasty, the Hyksos.
Dr. Manning said there was no artifact evidence linking the Aegean and Egypt directly and clearly in the period leading up to the volcanic eruption. "So the dates offered in the textbooks for these periods have always been interpretations and estimates with little evidence," he said.
Early indications suggest that proponents of the later chronology are not backing down. Their main line of defense is the Egyptian historical chronology, derived from its written records as well as pottery and iconography. They insist that a chronology tied to the Egyptian record could not be off by as much as 100 years. | 
