"The longest chronology in the world stretches back 12,000 years. But in the Mediterranean, the problem is that we don't have a full, continuous record going back to the time of Thera," Pearson said. "We have recorded the last 2,000 years very well, but then there's a gap. We have tree rings from earlier periods, but we don't know exactly which dates the rings correspond to. This is what's called a 'floating chronology.'" Filling this gap could help pin down the Thera eruption date and paint a climatic backdrop for the various civilizations that rose and fell during the Bronze...