The criteria of chronological and historical synchronisation of the Central European and Aegean Bronze Age (original) (raw)

Chronology for the Aegean Late Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C

Science, 2006

Radiocarbon (carbon-14) data from the Aegean Bronze Age 1700-1400 B.C. show that the Santorini (Thera) eruption must have occurred in the late 17th century B.C. By using carbon-14 dates from the surrounding region, cultural phases, and Bayesian statistical analysis, we established a chronology for the initial Aegean Late Bronze Age cultural phases (Late Minoan IA, IB, and II). This chronology contrasts with conventional archaeological dates and cultural synthesis: stretching out the Late Minoan IA, IB, and II phases by ~100 years and requiring reassessment of standard interpretations of associations between the Egyptian and Near Eastern historical dates and phases and those in the Aegean and Cyprus in the mid-second millennium B.C.

New evidence for Middle Bronze Age chronology from the Syro-Anatolian frontier

Antiquity, 2023

Dates differ by up to 150 years in the protracted debate around the chronology of the Middle Bronze Age Near East. Here, the authors present radiocarbon and ceramic evidence from destroyed buildings at Zincirli, Türkiye, that support the Middle Chronology. Ceramics from late Middle Bronze Age sites in Syria and Anatolia, and Bayesian modelling of 18 well-stratified radiocarbon samples from site destruction contexts attributable to Hittite king Ḫattusili I, indicate a date in the later seventeenth century BC. Since the Northern Levant connects the Mesopotamian and Eastern Mediterranean second-millennium BC chronologies, this evidence supports the convergence of these long-debated schemas, with implications for the start of the Late Bronze Age and the rise of empires.

The Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BC: Natural Science Dating Attempts

Lecture Notes in Statistics, 2004

This chapter reports on work undertaken during the first three years of a ten-year project which aims to synchronize a range of relative and absolute dating evidence arising from archaeological records of the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC. At present the team is collecting chronological information from many different geographical locations. Some of the chronological methods are covered in more detail elsewhere in this volume (e.g. tephrochronology, Chapter 8 and radiocarbon dating with Bayesian models, Chapters 1 and 2) and other methods such as dendrochronology and astrochronology are explained in detail here. It is already clear that the different dating methods do not lead directly to a coherent chronological picture for the region. Consequently, one of the major issues that must be tackled by this project is the synchronization of chronological evidence from different sources. This chapter outlines the nature of the evidence available and explains some of the techniques that the project team plans to use to link together the diverse dating evidence and thus develop their final chronological understanding. 4.1 Introduction: the SCIEM 2000 Project-Archaeological methods of creating and documenting chronology The SCIEM 2000 project (a major research programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Science Fund, FWF) started in 1999 and has recently completed the first three years of its planned ten years of existence (Bietak 2000). As the name indicates, the project's aim is the "Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC". In order to create a definite chronological framework for the history of the second millennium BC both archaeological and scientific methods are applied in 15 subprojects. The remarkable financial and personal effort is justified by the

The Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium BC: Natural Science Dating

This chapter reports on work undertaken during the first three years of a ten-year project which aims to synchronize a range of relative and absolute dating evidence arising from archaeological records of the civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium BC. At present the team is collecting chronological information from many different geographical locations. Some of the chronological methods are covered in more detail elsewhere in this volume (e.g. tephrochronology, Chapter 8 and radiocarbon dating with Bayesian models, Chapters 1 and 2) and other methods such as dendrochronology and astrochronology are explained in detail here. It is already clear that the different dating methods do not lead directly to a coherent chronological picture for the region. Consequently, one of the major issues that must be tackled by this project is the synchronization of chronological evidence from different sources. This chapter outlines the nature of the evidence available and explains some of the techniques that the project team plans to use to link together the diverse dating evidence and thus develop their final chronological understanding.