Plain Truth 1977 (Prelim No 10) Dec - Herbert W. Armstrong

we would expect thei r growth was
lim ited by some climatic factorusually
rainfall.
Dendrochronologists Dr. Valmore
C. LaMarche and Dr. Harold C.
Fritts have demonstrated that we
can acq uire a greater understand ing
of climatic fluct uations and wea ther
pa tterns over the past several tho usand
years by examining bristlecone
tree-ring patterns. Such studies, they
believe, give valuable insig hts into
futur e climatic trends, such as the
potential for a new ice age .
Recalibrating Carbon 14
Yet perhaps the most significant result
of the bristlecone pine tree -ring
chronology is its revolution ary implications
for the ca rbon- 14 dating
method and our understand ing of
prehistory.
What do bristlecone pines ha ve to
do with carbon 14? All living things,
including the bristlecone pine, contain
a sm all amount of the radioactive
element carbon 14. When an
organi sm dies, the carbon 14 begins
to decay at a known rate . By measuring
the amount of rem aining carbon
14 in a once living organism,
scientists can closely estimate whe n
that organism died.
But the radiocarbon dating technique
is based on the questio nable
assumption that the amount of carbon
14 available to be incorporated
into living orga nisms has remained
constant for thousands of years.
Since carbon- 14 concentrations
have been measured only in the past
four decades, scien tists could only
assume that the same carbon- 14
concentration applied to those past
eras where no historical da ta was
ava ilable as a check. Indeed, without
that assumption, or at least
some method of calibration, the ra ­
diocarbon dating method would be
largely worthless.
Enter bristlecone pine. The 8,200 ­
year sequence of bristlecone rings
has provided a remarkable check on
the primary assumption of radiocarbon
dating. As each ring in a
seq uence grew , it recorded the carbon-14
concentration in the atmosphere
at that time. By measuring
the carbon- 14 content of various
rings, scientists were able to check
the accuracy of the radiocarbon dating
method. The conclusion of
The PLAIN TRUTH December 1977
man y yea rs of research at the Universities
of Arizon a, Pennsylvan ia,
and Ca liforn ia is that the basic assumption
of radi ocarbon dating is
not 'gross ly in error. Indeed, the
bristlecone studies have shown that
radi ocarbon dating is generally accurat
e over the past 3,000 years.
Older by 900 Years
But the bristlecone calibration also
produced something unexpected :
As we go back in time prior to abo ut
1,000 B.C., th e amount of carbon 14
in the environme nt was somewhat
greater than at present. This mean s
that cert ain samples dated by radi ocarbon
will be dated too yo ung. In
other word s, the bristlecone pine
calibration has shown that some archaeological
sa mples should ac ­
tually be dated up to 900 years older
(earlier) than conventional carbon­
14 ana lysis would ind icate!
Th e bristlecon e calibration of radiocarbon
has drastically chan ged
the archaeologist's understanding of
some ea rly cultures, especi ally in
Europe. A leading British archa eologi
st, Colin Renfrew, believes th e
bristlecone pine will revolutionize
our chronology of the deve lopment
of early European civilization .
Using the calibrated rad iocarbon
dat es.. Renfrew contends that mega
lithic tombs of western Eu rop e
are actua lly older than the Egyptian
pyramids ( w h ic h a r e usually
thou ght to pred ate the Eu rop ean
tombs). He also asserts that Britain 's
Stonehenge, once thought to have
been ins pi red by M ycenaean
(Greek) bui lders , actua lly was completed
well before the Mycenaean
civilization began . "No w it is clear,"
says Renfrew, " tha t megalithic
chamber tombs were being built in
Britt any ... a millennium before
monumental funerary architecture
first appears in the eastern Med iterran
ean and 1500 years before the
raising of the pyramids."
Multiple Rings and the
Appearance of Age
According to Renfrew, the bristlecon
e ca libration make s obso lete the
formerly accepted theory that prehistoric
culture began in the Ne ar
East and was only later diffu sed into
" ba rba ric" Europe.
(Co ntinued on page 37)
21