A NEW ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATING TECHNIQUE. The article by Roger Atwood illustrates the use of an archaeological technique that indicates “where an individual spent childhood based on a chemical signature left by groundwater in developing teeth”, based on the isotopic oxygen levels in the teeth. The isotopes in the teeth of the four young men showed that two had grown up in Scandinavia and “two had spent their childhoods far from the Viking homeland, in Ireland or Scotland, another sign of permanent settlement by families, and not just summertime raids by Viking warriors.”
Archaeologists can now obtain evidence not only of how old finds are (give or take a century or two) but also of some of the travels that were undertaken by persons whose bodies have been found. This seems remarkable to me.