Evidence of people on the Azores archipelago 700 years earlier than thought

Re:Evidence of people on the Azores archipelago 700 years ea... by nuerow on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @02:42AM (#28848940)

The conclusions presented in the article seem a bit far-fetched. The article only mentions "upticks in charcoal particles (suggesting large fires had been burning)" and a presence of a "compound is typically found in the feces of livestock, such as cows and sheep".

Given that large fires do occur naturally and don't require human intervention, it sounds quite a leap to jump from that onto "humans did it".

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Re:Evidence of people on the Azores archipelago 700 years ea... by ggm on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @03:52AM (#28849465)

I thought this too. But reading your criticism, I felt "yea, but this is a news-take on a peer review paper: They will have had to address this to get above the threshold for publication"

eg correlates to other events, evidence of known occupied areas and confounding wildfire signals.

Its like treerings. They're going to work with sediment levels which include strong signals of widespread events, and volcanic events nearby, and discount them scientifically

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Re:Evidence of people on the Azores archipelago 700 years ea... by PedroBatista on Wednesday October 13, 2021 @07:26AM (#28850862)

I don't know if it's in the article but I remember the authors saying something about being able distinguish between livestock and human feces given the compounds.

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