This is quite an old “thesis” by Illig originally stemming from a very simple arithmetic misunderstanding. (No: Pope Gregory aligned his calendar to match eastern date as at the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325, not with the original beginning of the Julian calendar)
There is no need for radiocarbon dating to refute it, since a lot of evidence could easily pinpoint it as a crackpot theory, especially:
Comparison with historical recordings of oriental (esp. Chinese) civilizations.
Synchronization by well known astronomical events, like Halley comet, eclipses, etc
Making up an additional 200 years of Roman imperial history, in a way that duped generations of later historians, sounds to me prima facie very unlikely.
Ice core data might provide an interesting test. Smash the dendro temperature values (these are probably available even if the measurements aren’t) into shards, and then use techniques of the “shotgun sequencing” variety to reassemble it against the continuous ice core data template. See how it falls into place when there is no human dictating the dates.
My first reaction is: I think the simplest hypothesis is a continuous tree ring record. It’s continuous everywhere else. A sudden gap needs more than a just-so-story about Romans to justify it.
Also:
There are enough samples to satisfy professionals that they actually have the whole 2000 years covered, but the sample overlaps for the gap between the blocks are few and rather weak.
That sounds very much like fitting the evidence to the hypothesis.
I’ll grant you that the idea might be worth testing—for example, by radiocarbon dating calibrated on other dendro data—but I don’t think it has been shown convincingly enough to outweigh the historical accounts.
OK, now here’s one that might be interesting. Is there a gap, or is the date a lie?
This is quite an old “thesis” by Illig originally stemming from a very simple arithmetic misunderstanding. (No: Pope Gregory aligned his calendar to match eastern date as at the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325, not with the original beginning of the Julian calendar)
There is no need for radiocarbon dating to refute it, since a lot of evidence could easily pinpoint it as a crackpot theory, especially:
Comparison with historical recordings of oriental (esp. Chinese) civilizations.
Synchronization by well known astronomical events, like Halley comet, eclipses, etc
Making up an additional 200 years of Roman imperial history, in a way that duped generations of later historians, sounds to me prima facie very unlikely.
Is there ice core data to cover the gap?
EDIT: radiometric dating would present another big problem for this thesis. Still, it’s very unfortunate that the dendrochronology data isn’t public.
Ice core data might provide an interesting test. Smash the dendro temperature values (these are probably available even if the measurements aren’t) into shards, and then use techniques of the “shotgun sequencing” variety to reassemble it against the continuous ice core data template. See how it falls into place when there is no human dictating the dates.
The data proposed to support the gap is awfully weak—and I think that is the correct response for an educated layperson.
My first reaction is: I think the simplest hypothesis is a continuous tree ring record. It’s continuous everywhere else. A sudden gap needs more than a just-so-story about Romans to justify it.
Also:
That sounds very much like fitting the evidence to the hypothesis.
I’ll grant you that the idea might be worth testing—for example, by radiocarbon dating calibrated on other dendro data—but I don’t think it has been shown convincingly enough to outweigh the historical accounts.