SidingWithTheEnemy said:
Murderiser said:
[...]
This must be troll. I mean, seriously? No historian takes that theory even REMOTELY seriously, seeing as it is contradicted by astrological records, the passing of Halley's comet and that little thing known as CARBON DATING.
Personally I don't put that much faith in carbon dating and astrological records that always took the Middle Age for granted
Anyway I'm not interested in convincing anyone. It's just an interesting theory I find noteworthy, I would sorely miss Carolus Magnus though so I'm against it, too.
I honestly never heard about that Phantom time hypothesis, but as an archaeology student, I cringe at such things. Let me explain a phew points so you don't have to worry about Charlemagne.
The basis of the hypothesis as stated on Wiki is the fact that there is no archaeological evidence. This is false. Archaeological evidence from that period is indeed scarce, but it exists, more than enough of it is here to testify of the existence of that period. There is, of course, specific context for that period, as it was very turbulent and dramatic. The beginning of the Early Middle Ages is marked by the fall of the Roman Empire (usually; there are other interpretations, but some general concesus is to say that the year 476. AD is the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Medieval period). The end of the Roman Empire pretty much set the world into chaos as all the institutions and laws that the Romans carefully installed around their empire were gone; there was no uniformity and wars started, as well as attempts for defence against barbarians. They are actually a key point here; they invaded Europe while Romans were still pretty much alive and Romans were the first to fight them, but eventually, the Migration period kicked in and everything fell apart. The so called "barbarians" were people from the east and the north, mostly nomadic, rarely with any true material possessions, oriented to conquering, pillaging and with little to no care about the "civilized world".
The first ones were the Huns, nomadic peoples originating somewhere in China presumably, who had nothing to build; there was a saying at the time that they literally live on their horses. They mastered horseback archery and were generally ruthless and disorganized which was horrible for the Roman armies to handle (they did win though, as one Roman general lived with the Huns when he was a boy and he learned their ways which he could use against them). Anyway, after them, there were the Vandals, the Goths, the Gepides , the Lombards, Avars, Alans, later on Slavs, Bulgars and many many others. We have archaeological evidence for all of them, although it's mostly from graveyards. They didn't build cities or any kinds of settlements; they occupied what was already there, while the natives didn't really have time to build anything on their own as they were too busy fighting for their lives and hiding behind walls and fortresses from antiquity. That's why there's no sudden change in architecture, which usually is the most evident point about the change of the period. However, we have many other types of material evidence; certain things started showing up only after the Migration period, mostly best seen from small artefacts like fibulae (change in styles, shapes and types of decoration). In archaeology, sometimes, the smallest of things have the most value in terms of determining where they came from and how much the times have changed.
To completely ignore all the things that have been found about the period (not to mention the historical evidence as in written words; there are excellent sources from that time like Jordanes, who wrote about the Goths), and to ignore even some instances of their architecture (Theodorik, the king of the Ostrogoths who took over the rule in Italy built something after all) only shows how little about that period that guy, who proposed the hypothesis, knows. Seriously, the hypothesis has no basis in reality, no matter how interesting it might be. To even remotely propose that people like Charlemagne did not exist is a prime example of ignorance. Charlemagne was a key figure in restoring the civilization back to Europe after "barbarians" moved in and completely destroyed stuff left by the Romans. He brought back the civilization; it is not called the "Carolingian Renaissance" for nothing. Denying his existence is truly pointless as we're not talking about period without writing or without any evidence whatsoever; there's tons of material evidence that not only prove the existence of the period, but actually make quite a bit of a mess when we try to determine which ones are good and which ones are merely Medieval gossips and fantasies.
Also, it's not "astrological" evidence; it's "astronomical". And while carbon dating is not infallible, it is often tested on multiple objects and it is not applied on its own; when dating an object, scientists try to apply as much methods possible to ensure that multiple methods provide with similar dates. So if ten objects give the same dates after two or more dating methods applied on them, then we can be sure that the dates received are correct. Dating is never done by taking one object and carbon dating it, and then just taking whatever date it gave us and assuming it's truth. Many things can affect carbon dating (and other methods) so multiple methods are always applied, to multiple objects.