Was the solar activity in the last 100 years abnormally high? On the quality of modern solar paleoreconstructions

A technique for verifying the currently available reconstructions of solar activity in the preinstrumental epoch (prior to 1615 AD), covering time intervals up to 10 000 years, has been developed and tested. The technique is based on investigation of the possibility of predicting the actual sunspot numbers determined by means of telescopic observations using reconstructed solar series. Testing several paleoreconstructions over time intervals as long as 10 000 years has shown that they most likely contain only qualitative information about the behavior of solar activity in the past and are not very suitable for extracting quantitative information. It is shown that the recently suggested hypothesis that the current level of solar activity is highest in the last 8000 years is only an arbitrary assumption that can be neither confirmed nor refuted at the present level of knowledge about the past of our star.