 Archaeologists have traditionally placed the date of the Theran eruption at approximately 1500 BCE.Radiocarbon dates, including analysis of an olive branch buried beneath a lava flow from the volcano that gave a date between 1627 BCE and 1600 BCE (95% confidence interval), suggest an eruption date more than a century earlier than suggested by archaeologists.Thus, the radiocarbon dates and the archaeological dates are in substantial disagreement.