The results of the ECHOES project fall into three main groups: understanding nature of MEs; perfecting how to use them for dating; and then applying the new method to historical questions. We blazed a trail in the application of sophisticated data science techniques to analyse MEs. This work, driven largely by our post-doc, Andreas Neocleous, produced three papers in the first two years of the project. This focus was largely continued in conjunction with collaborators at the University of Queensland. Recently that collaboration generated a new open source online tool called ticktack for analysing ME data. Meanwhile Andrea Scifo, as part of his PhD, spent time trying to relate MEs to the solar cycle. His 2019 paper in Scientific Reports suggested a link might exist but we are now less certain. Andrea went on to show that two MEs already published in the scientific literature are actually not real. He, Margot Kuitems and I also collaborated with ANSTO on a study of MEs not using radiocarbon but similarly formed isotopes that are detectable in ice cores. This work is yet to be published but it will also substantially challenge prevailing interpretations of the nature of MEs. The three of us, and latterly Pinar Erdil and Safoora Kamjan, have also had enormous success at using MEs for dating. Largely these successes were based on the technical skills of Margot and analytical skills of Andrea, both of whom are also drafting how-to guides on best practice in 'spike dating'. In 2020, our team was the first to date a site of previously unknown age with the method, and published that in PNAS. We used our knowledge of high-precision radiocarbon dating on wood to assist with the dating of a major volcanic eruption in the 4th century CE. This work, led by Oxford, was also published in PNAS. We have also applied these approaches to the important ancient Egyptian timeline. There are two main versions of this record over the first 1000 years of its span (~2700-1700 BCE), our work has shown that only the older of the two options is correct. This work will be published shortly, and we are aiming for PNAS once again. We have also dated several other significant sites, in Turkey, Spain, Germany and Latvia, but all except the last of these articles are yet to come out. Once more, however, it is undeniable that our greatest triumph was proving that the Vikings were in the Americas in 1021 CE. This captured the public's imagination and stunned the academic world by showing everyone what was now possible. This paper, published in Nature, was covered by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Le Monde, indeed hundreds of newspapers around the world. Margot and I were even interviewed live on global TV news channels. The article went on to attain the highest score for impact for any study from our university, according to the leading website for this information, Altmetric. Moreover, our greatest accolade of all really, only came out this year. Nature featured our method, and its application to the Vikings in the Americas, as one of its Seven Technologies to Watch in 2023, alongside huge scientific breakthroughs like CRISPR-Cas gene editing and the James Webb Space Telescope. And last week, Science published a five-page feature article explaining the method and focusing on the contribution our project has made to its development.
