I am no longer surprised by this sort of thing tho the dating techniques might have also included others as well noted if not more reliable..tho funding was probably a consideration.

Otoh there was 'one' who knew....opined...dreamed...fantasized..hoped..and believed...he even wrote about it.

''"Know, O prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars ... Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet." -- The Nemedian Chronicles ''

RE Howard