Re: Vineland

From: Steve Marcus (smarcus_spamout__at_cox.net)
Date: 02/19/05 

Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2005 19:24:31 -0500

I'll top post here as a courtesy because I am not replying to 99% of your
post.

Whatever you may say re provenance and initial presumptions regarding the
authenticity of a given artifact, and much of it is indisputable, my sole
purpose in replying to Seppo's initial post was to point out that his claim
that the ink on the Vinland Map hadn't been "dated" was simply incorrect.
The VM has been dated; it's hugely unlikey to be older than about 1920 and
it is not newer than 1957. At worst if could conceivably be 17th century at
the earliest. Dating can, and quite often does, take the form of a range.
And in this case, the dating was far more effective to establish that the VM
is a fake (at least on the present evidence) than the questionable
provenance of the VM.

Steve 

-- 
The above posting is neither a legal opinion nor legal advice,
because we do not have an attorney-client relationship, and
should not be construed as either.  This posting does not
represent the opinion of my employer, but is merely my personal
view.  To reply, delete _spamout_ and replace with the numeral 3
"Philip Deitiker" <Nopdeitik@att.net.Spam> wrote in message 
news:Xns96016C47795C8prd@128.249.2.19...
> In sci.archaeology,          Steve Marcus created a message ID
> news:6DjRd.44381$EG1.28556@lakeread04:
>
>> My point was that while provenance is certainly an important
> consideration
>> in the evaluation of an artifact, it is hardly a conclusive
> matter.  An
>> artifact presented for sale (or for scholarly consideration)
> without any
>> information (or with a great deal of reluctance to provide
> information)
>> vis-a-vis its provenance comes with a built-in flashing
> light that screams
>> "warning, warning."  However, it's entirely possible for
> such an artifact to
>> prove to be genuine, whereas artifacts allegedly well
> provenanced can
>> certainly prove out to be fakes.
>
>> Which is why I did not raise the issue of provenance (permit
> me to remind
>> you that you did).
>
> I raised the issue because it trumps the issue of the
> parchment and ink. As you describe above, if the article
> has a history which can be traced, for example you have a
> video of some archaeologist removing it from the soil
> and removing the carbon artifacts for dating, then you have a
> level of scientific certainty as to how old the document is.
> Then the date conclusions obtained are to be accepted.
>  But from a historical perspective a document without a
> history and no provenance then you scientifically reject
> it as genuine until the document proves its own case.
> This document
>
>>  The recent NOVA program on the VM made provenance an
>> issue, and properly so if my comments above are understood,
> but then again,
>> NOVA's purpose is to attract viewers and provide some
> entertainment value.
>> Starting the program off with mention of the lack of
> provenance for the VM,
>> and reminding viewers of that lack throughout the program,
> certainly
>> provided a "hook" that would keep folks not readily
> conversant with either
>> the VM or the science of archaeology discussed on the
> program from changing
>> the channel.
>
> I saw the program many months ago, I think the Nova program
> however was more interested in the political undertones of the
> european period from 1890 to 1945.
>
>
>>> It doesn't matter what the burden of Seppo's post was, the
>>> reality is that there are independent factors that create
>>> reasoning for not entertaining this map as of scientific
>>> value.
>>
>> And the strongest is the ink, which was the first argument
> presented by
>> Seppo.
>
> No, the strongest is its lack of provenance, the Ink is a
> premise to which the conclusion might be changed, if the ink's
> origin is found to align chronologically with the parchment,
> which aligns with the potential origin of the paper in
> proximity to someone who had made the journey or had great
> knowledge of the journey, etc. IOW the conclusion is reject,
> and when the other issues say probably the document is
> genuine, then the conclusion changes.
>  There are other issues with this map, also, besides the ink.
> The person who drew it had great knowledge of africa and
> eastern mediterranean. And yet the Norse, per say, were not
> great explorers of either areas. If it was a norse and he was
> drawing a map of personal expertise, he would be drawing the
> areas that he had explored. While we can name norse who had
> been to continental north america, can you name a single norse
> who had been to africa, the east coast of africa or india.
>  Therefore the individual who maps these coast would have to
> have relied on a map made from someone else, once again
> provenance, since we don't also have that map, or any
> indication that such a map was ever made.
>
>
>>  Show that Seppo's claim on that matter is bogus, and you
> blow the
>> entire post out of the water *and* cast serious doubt on
> Seppo's credibility
>> in general.  These objectives were, after all, a large part
> of my purpose in
>> bothering to reply to Seppo's post.
>
> Everything seppo says comes from a kooks mouth, this is not
> even an issue to begin with.
>
>
>> Eric most certainly is trying to cloud the issue raised by
> the ink on the
>> map.  Moreover, you are most certainly not "unclouding" or
> addressing the
>> topic of the ink my raising the entirely different (even if
> very germane)
>> issue of historical documentation.  You see, Eric's post re
> "dating" the ink
>> is, as a matter of the science involved with the Vinland
> Map, wholly an
>> attempt to divert attention from the fact that the best
> scientific evidence
>> obtained to date clearly and definitively show the VM to be
> a fake, and Eric
>> can't stand that.
>
> Fake is a ambiguous word. Does the map claim it is from the
> 15th century? If I draw a map from in the style of the 15th
> century on the wall of my bedroom, is that a fake, I would
> call it art. If the Nova documentary is correct, I think it
> was designed to be a ruse, something to reilluminate the
> thinking of the early 20th century european nationalist. And
> yet oddly it has become the battle flag of some late 20th
> century (swedish) european nationalist and cryptoracist.
>  Provenance would state that until proven otherwise the map
> is not-genuine, nothing else more needs to be said. You may
> flutter around and say the ink is from 1920, and then some ink
> specialist working in a laboratory somewhere might find the
> same kind of ink being used in 1820. Your arguments precise
> dating is dependent on a precise knowledge of the history of
> the ink, which may or may not be correct. But the provenance
> of the artifact is what it is, and it is to be accepted as
> this until information on its history (it in itself open for
> examination) is chronologically increased.
>
>
>> I disagree.  The concept of how science approaches an
> artifact is certainly
>> relevant to an archaeology group.
>
> So you agree that we should entertaine people with neo-nazi
> thinking to consume this group with discussions of false
> information and false artifacts rather than bringing actual
> archaeological results and information for discussion.
>
>>> I don't disagree with that but the papers I read did not
> set
>>> an exact date, and the speculation of when the anastase was
> of
>>> quality to result in the ink granules could be confidenced
> in
>>> a wider range if the history of anastase is incomplete.
>>
>> When, in archaeology, is an exact date ever set??  Surely
> not in C14 dating,
>> or in dendrochronolgy.
>
> Exact enough.
>
>> that the fossil dates to 8,123,456 BCE, or the arrow head
> dates to 1685.
>
> The quality of the Carbon-14 result diminishes along a 3
> dimensional plot.
> 1. Age of sample reduces signal to noise
> 2. The amount of sample reduces signal
> 3. The percentage of nascent organic carbon in the original
> sample.
>
> The maximal reliable dating if 2 and 3 are high is about
> 25,000 years, beyond which the confidence interval will begin
> to spread.
>  Exact dates prior to calender times are meaningless, one has
> very little use for a date like. On april 23rd 11,235 BC Joe
> smoe whack Fred Smoe upside the head. Calender dates and
> historical dating are a completely human artifact and have no
> meaning other than what we give to it.
>
>  Does it help you if you found an arrowhead dated to Feb 3rd
> 1685, and then the next arrowhead you find is from Jan 12th
> 1684.
>
>  When I was in Tosa-gomen the archaeologist had arranged all
> the artefacts that were dated into three early period, the
> early Yayoi, the middle Yayoi and the late Yayoi. Over the
> period between 1000 BCE and 400 AD they then plotted the
> distribution of artefacts over time. In the broader context of
> the periods and the dates they show an increase in artefacts
> from the early Yayoi to the middle Yayoi, and then a decline
> at the inland sites and increase on the coastal sites. Exact
> dates are meaningless, because what they are demostrating is a
> trend over time.
>  The alternative is if you are dating a historical event. For
> example a castle was attacked and subsequently burned. You go
> in and date timbers and charcoal on the castles site, you come
> up with dates for a timber with 40 rings that dates to 950 +/-
> 20 then you date a timber with 30 rings to 970 +/-10. The
> korean historical record says a battle was in 963
> (interpreting from a different calender) and the Japanese says
> it was in 962 based on a different calender. The chinese have
> the most accurate dating, from a 2nd hand chinese source the
> battle was placed in early 964 AD.
>  Then as an archaeologist you find a piece of pottery in the
> ruins which dates according to a local dating system to 964
> (by the potters marks and similarity to other ceramics of
> known date). However many other pieces of pottery are found
> that date from 955 to 963.
>  What is the date of the battle and when the castle was
> burned.
>
>> Dating is quite often a range of dates.  In the case of the
> VM, as others
>> have pointed out, the date can be expressed as the range
> about 1920-1957
>> (the date that it was presented for sale to Witten).
>
> That date is based on assumptions about the ink. And the
> question then arises on what is the confidence in the
> technologies emergence. That is then cross-multiplied by the
> prospect of any given individual having access to an emergent
> technology.
>
>>  Some have pointed out
>> that the technology to produce anatase of having the
> characteristics of the
>> anatase found on the VM existed earlier than 1920; if IIRC,
> the allegation
>> was 17th century.  So a conservative date would be circa
> 1600-1957, a range
>> that is hardly "huge" by archaeological or anthropological
> standards, and
>
> Archaeological accuracy is generally a relative function in
> terms of distance from current period. Dating phenomena, for
> instance give you a date of 2.3my +/- 0.3 my. This translates
> into a relative error of 13%. If the peak date is ~1930 and
> the range is from 1600-1957 then the relative range from
> present is great. -36% to 433%. Acceptable ranges are between
> -50% and +100% and beyond which scientist should have a level
> of discomfort.
>  OTOH, something that Inger and Eric fail to factor in is the
> probability of being dated from the skewed end of a
> distribution, for example availability of inks of the type
> from 1600 to 1920 may be rather limited, particularly in the
> earlier period. For this reason one wants to define a percent
> confidence interval and eliminate the low probability zones in
> which the ink was unlikely used. Therefore the date range does
> not accurately represent the probability distribution.
>
>
>> still excludes the possibility that the VM is a genuine 15th
> century
>> artifact.
>
> Correct. But this is the point that was being alluded to.
>
> -- 
> Philip
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