# Archaeological trap: Fish can make skeletons appear hundreds of years too old

Source: [Science News - Mathematics, Economics, Archaeology, Fossils](https://phys.org/news/2026-11-archaeological-fish-skeletons-hundreds-years.html) · 2026-11-10 · Life
Page: https://themorning.science/story/archaeological-trap-fish-can-make-skeletons-appear-hundreds-of-years-too-old-b0ae4053bbe74743
Kind: research · Impact: low

## In brief

- The article reports that fish consumption can make human skeletons appear hundreds of years older than they really are.
- The example comes from Svendborg in Denmark, the site of a former Franciscan monastery where prestigious burials were placed close to the church.
- The source excerpt does not give the study's methods or sample size.

## Why it matters

Dating errors caused by diet can shift the apparent age of burials and the chronology built on them, so archaeologists need to account for what the people ate.

## Coverage

- [Archaeological trap: Fish can make skeletons appear hundreds of years too old](https://phys.org/news/2026-11-archaeological-fish-skeletons-hundreds-years.html) — Science News - Mathematics, Economics, Archaeology, Fossils, 2026-11-10

Tags: archaeology, radiocarbon dating, diet, skeletons, medieval burial, denmark

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Brief generated by AI (claude-haiku-5-5) from the reporting listed under Coverage. Headlines belong to their publishers. The Morning Science – https://themorning.science