[Sam Cree]

Blam, is there any actual written record to back up what the tree rings seem to indicate?

[WoofDog123]

i have seen 2 or 3 references to bizarre weather, including the one quoted in the article. Obviously the problem is that there isn't much of anything written from western europe surviving in this time frame, AFAIK. If the contemporary reference quoted in the article is authentic or believed to be authentic, it is certainly a rather chilling description. Not without reason are comets considered an evil omen in ancient culture - the description of a sword or star huge in the sky is something that would have been passed down for millenium in some convoluted form, I would think.

I wonder if the hypothetical comet would have been like the siberian comet 100 yrs ago or an ocean impact (tidal waves, none recorded?). The lack of any crater from such a recent event is notable.

The article leaves open the issue of the greenland cores being drilled and examined for this, but surely some greenland cores dating this far back have already been drilled.

[MarcusTulliusCicero]

If anyone did, I would suspect it would be the Chinese.

[blam]

"Blam, is there any actual written record to back up what the tree rings seem to indicate?"

I don't understand the question. Ask it another way.

[blam]

Astronomers Unravel A Mystery Of The Dark Ages

Some say the whole thing with Merlin was about the comet.

[Mike Darancette]

Blam, is there any actual written record to back up what the tree rings seem to indicate?

Try this blam oldie but goodie.

[ClearCase_guy]

The book "Catastrophe" by David Keys, copyright 1999, suggests a volcanic eruption which disrupted world weather patterns in 535. He ties it not only to the British wasteland, but also to sufficient chaos in the Middle East to set the stage for the rise of Islam 100 years later.

Comet, volcano ... something disruptive clearly occurred.

[RegulatorCountry]

From what I’ve seen within my own family history during Reconstruction in the south after the Civil War, it’s not surprising that record keeping would have ceased in the aftermath of such an event.

Just privations in the aftermath of war in a defeated state left some of my people burying their dead with rocks for markers, and then there were those, even from formerly prominent families, who fell into poverty and illiteracy, climbing out of which required several generations. There are families who still haven’t, with ancestors’ surnames on college campus buildings, government edifices and such.

So, to me, it’s not surprising at all to have such a black hole, especially leading into the so-called Dark Ages.