BOTANICAL PROOF OF ANTIQUITY

Evening Star, Issue 19660, 13 September 1927, Page 11

BOTANICAL PROOF OF ANTIQUITY

A curious instance of the interplay of the sciences is shown by the solution of n problem in arclnenlogy by means of observations in botany. About lour years ago there was found in Sweden, some Alt below the surface of a peat bed, a. woollen mantle, carefully folded and weighted down with stones, but with no accompanying object to reveal its age. It was perfectly preserved by the acid walcr of the peat swamp, and was evidently centuries old. Its date has now been list’d as the same period when the first members ot the dynasty of the I’araohs held sway in Egypt, and this determination was made by an ingenious combination of botanical and geological science. \Ve read in ‘ Die Umschau ’ (Frankfurt)

“ Dr Von Post, of tlio Museum of National Antiquities, in Stockholm, deicnuiiied its ago by an examination of the composition of the flower pollen which hung to it in great qnantitiqp. A careful counting of the varieties showed that there was a greater amount of pollen from the oaks, lindens, and elms than is to bo found in the 1 pollen rain ’ of the modern Swedish spring. Hence at the time when the cloak was so carefully laid away a milder climate than at present reigned in this part of Sweden, and, according to geological data, this could only have been in the early portion of the Bronze age. According to Landquist, this cloak is similar, allowing for differences in the size and in the manner in which it was worn, to the toga of the Romans.’'