This question is far from idle, given that the capabilities of modern instrumental dating methods are not able to provide researchers with accurate data on the time of a particular historical event.
Now the most famous is the radiocarbon method, which works with the radioactive isotope carbon 14C. This method was developed in 1947 by the American Nobel laureate W. F. Libby. The essence of the method is that the isotope of carbon 14C is formed in the atmosphere under the action of cosmic radiation, and together with the usual carbon 12C it is in the organic tissues of all living things.
When an organism dies, its exchange of carbon with the atmosphere stops, the amount of 14C decreases during the decomposition of the organism and is not restored. Determination of the 14C / 12C ratio in samples at a known 14C decomposition rate (5.5 thousand years) makes it possible to determine the age of the object.
It would seem that everything is simple. But practice has made its own adjustments. It turns out that the accuracy of the analysis is influenced by radioactivity and contamination of the object with foreign impurities. In addition, the method suffers from more serious flaws. In this regard, the American archaeologist W. Bray and the English historian D. Trump wrote that, firstly, the dates obtained are never accurate, and the correct date of the object's age lies in some accepted on faith interval, and secondly, legalized today the decay rate of 14C turned out to be too low. Nobody dared to cancel this value until a new international norm is adopted, and no one is in a hurry to adopt it either. Otherwise, it will be necessary to seriously rewrite not only history textbooks, but also the works of many serious researchers.
The researcher R. W. Wescott criticizes this method even more sharply. He believes that earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, falling asteroids, or the approach of another planet to Earth can greatly affect the accuracy of the dating of the sample. In this case, the radioactive "clock" will work like crazy. They will then count a whole year in one hour spent by a pound sample, and a whole millennium in a year. According to R. W. Wescott, all dating up to the 6th millennium BC. e. must be perceived as purely relative, without attaching absolute importance to it. Mentioned W. Bray and D. Trump believe that radiocarbon dating is reliable only for the last 2,000 years. If we agree with this opinion, then the question involuntarily arises: in what century or millennium are we living?
SCIENTIFIC SINS AND PARADOXES
The domestic researcher F. Zavelsky believes that the accuracy of determining the age of an object by the method depends on the correctness of the assumptions adopted by agreement (i.e., without serious justification) by the scientific community:
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For tens of thousands of years, the intensity of cosmic radiation falling on the Earth has not changed;
Cosmic carbon 14C was diluted with earth carbon always in the same way;
14C activity does not depend on the longitude and latitude of the area and its height above sea level;
The content of carbon 14C in living organisms has been constant throughout the foreseeable history.
If all or even one of these assumptions later turns out to be inaccurate, the results of the radiocarbon method will become illusory.
Over time, it turned out that in some places the radiocarbon age of soils is 1.5-2 times less than the age of charcoal obtained from plants in the same layer. In Germany, Israel and Czechoslovakia, such combinations of pounds were found that the radiocarbon method in them gave different ages, differing from each other by 2 times.
Historical researchers G. V. Nosovsky and A. T. Fomenko cite a number of significant errors in determining dates by the radiocarbon method.
During the radiocarbon dating of the Egyptian collection of J. G. Brasted, it was suddenly discovered that one of the three objects that were analyzed turned out to be modern! No, the object was authentic and ancient, but the radiocarbon method gave an error of four and a half thousand years! And, in order not to confuse public opinion, the ancient sample itself was later declared a forgery.
When dating live mollusks by radiocarbon dating (according to Science, No. 130, 1959), the error was 2,300 years. In other words, the freshly caught common snail was supposedly more than two thousand years old.
The dating of stone structures by the radiocarbon method is possible only if there are organic remains there, and they can be much later.
In the journal Nature (No. 225, 1970), it is reported that a study of the organic mortar of an English castle produced a 10-fold error. According to medieval chronicles, the castle was built 738 years ago, and the radiocarbon method has aged it to 7370 years! Thus, the error was almost six and a half thousand years.
When the newly shot seals were dated for 14C, they were 1,300 years old! And the mummified corpses of seals that died just 30 years ago were dated by this method at 4,600 years (Antarctic Journal of the United States, No. 6, 1971).
But the present-day American mollusk turned out to be already at a respectable age - 1,200 years, and another mollusk shell, found in Florida, will appear only after 1,080 years.
A blooming rose from North Africa, according to the radiocarbon method, has been dead for 360 years, and the growing Australian eucalyptus turned out to be non-existent, the method showed that it will appear only after 600 years!
Radiocarbon dating in Heidelberg of a sample from a medieval altar showed that the tree from which it was made had not yet grown!
And there are dozens of such examples.
ON THE EYE
In other words, the entire dating of historical events that took place before our era is largely conditional, since for very old samples, carbon atoms have to be counted almost individually. And for such calculations, the accuracy of modern instruments is simply not enough. Therefore, the much-needed accuracy of measurements lies beyond the current capabilities of science.
Archaeologists have even more problems with determining the age of finds made of stone and the time when the rock paintings were created. For example, the age of rock carvings of all known spacesuit-like figures discovered by A. Lot's expedition in 1956-1957. in Central Sahara on the Tassilin-Ajer plateau, has been identified in the range from 8,000 to 3,500 BC. e. But can this assessment be trusted?
In this regard, the corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences D. A. Olderogge points out that there is no generally accepted classification of all the rock paintings of the Sahara. The comparative method is usually used. If, for example, a bull is depicted on a rock drawing, then archaeologists estimate when such animals could exist in this area. If the stone of interest to historians is located on the banks of the bed of a dried up ancient river, then the approximate time of its drying is established. It is clear that special accuracy cannot be expected with such methods of determination, since the processes of drying up of rivers or the extinction of bulls can be greatly extended in time for hundreds and thousands of years.
In other cases, historians simply compare "by eye" in which layer of soil a particular material residue was found. If a pound has weathered and a sample of, say, ceramics, lies on the surface, then even this approximate "eye" method becomes unusable.
The imperfection of dating methods is clearly illustrated by the story of the famous crystal skull, which is attributed to the civilization of the ancient Maya. It was discovered in 1926 on the Yucatan Peninsula in a tropical rainforest during excavations of the ancient sacred city. But it is impossible to determine the time at which the crystal was given the shape of the sculpture using the available geological methods.
Currently, many researchers consider the generally accepted dates for the creation of the Egyptian pyramids in Giza and the Sphinx, as well as the dates of the construction of some Maya, Aztec, Inca cities in the range of 3-5 millennia to be erroneous.
One of the leading historians A. Oleinikov wrote: “For example, it is known from ancient written sources that the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II reigned about 3,000 years ago. The buildings that were erected under him are now buried under a 3-meter layer of sand.
This means that for a millennium, about a meter layer of sandy deposits was deposited here. At the same time, in some areas of Europe, only 3 centimeters of precipitation accumulates over a thousand years. But in the conditions of estuaries in southern Ukraine, a 3-meter layer of sand is deposited annually. This means that the method of dating by the thickness of sediment layers also turns out to be unsuitable. Modern data from climatologists indicate that once the entire territory of Egypt was a blooming garden, and not a desert.
Increasingly, there are estimates of the creation of the Egyptian pyramids and the Sphinx in 10-15 thousand years BC. e. However, these estimates were made thanks to modern astronomical calculations of the position of heavenly bodies in antiquity. It seems that this method is now the most accurate and reliable, but by no means universal, since first it is required to clearly establish that this or that object had an astronomical orientation.
Thus, by the beginning of the 21st century, historical science found itself in a methodological dead end due to imperfect dating methods. Indeed, it is possible to make many local finds, to unearth a few more ancient cities and cultures, but not find a logical chronological connection between them. But history without a clear chronology is nonsense. Therefore, it is possible that many chapters in the history of ancient civilizations will have to be rewritten anew in the future.
Alexander PETUKHOV