Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-lpg2g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-15T14:15:17.548Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Iron Age Mediterranean Chronology: A Rejoinder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Alexander Fantalkin,
Israel Finkelstein and
Eli Piasetzky
Alexander Fantalkin
Affiliation:
The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology; Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Israel Finkelstein*
Affiliation:
The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology; Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Eli Piasetzky
Affiliation:
School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
*
Corresponding author. Email: fink2@post.tau.ac.il.
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

This article is a rejoinder to a recent paper in this journal by van der Plicht et al. (2009) who use radiocarbon determinations from several sites in Israel, Italy, Spain, and Tunisia to advocate a High Chronology system for the entire Mediterranean Basin. We contend that they reached mistaken conclusions due to problematic selection of sites and data. We argue that a reliable way to provide absolute dates for the Iron Age in the central and western Mediterranean is by employing a combination of well-identified Greek pottery found in well-stratified sites and radiometric results from short-lived samples. For the time being, this combination exists only in the Levant, and provides an anchor for Greek chronology, which supports the Conventional Chronology for the Aegean Basin, which corresponds to the Low Chronology in the Levant.

Information

Type
Comments and Replies
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , 2011, pp. 179 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

REFERENCES

Avni, G, Avni, Y, Porat, N. 2009. A new look at ancient agriculture in the Negev. Cathedra 133:13–44. In Hebrew.Google Scholar
Bartoloni, G, Delpino, F, editors. 2005. Oriente e Occidente: metodi e discipline a confronto. Riflessioni sulla cronologia dell'età del ferro in Italia, Atti dell'Incontro di studi, Roma, 30–31 ottobre 2003. Mediterranea, 1 (2004). Pisa: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali.Google Scholar
Bietti Sestieri, AM, De Santis, A. 2008. Relative and absolute chronology of Latium Vetus from the Late Bronze Age to the transition to the Orientalizing Period. In: Brandherm, D, Trachsel, M, editors. A New Dawn for the Dark Age? Shifting Paradigms in Mediterranean Iron Age Chronology (BAR International Series 1871). Oxford: Archaeopress. p 119–33.Google Scholar
Blakeway, A. 1932–1933. Prolegomena to the study of Greek commerce with Italy, Sicily and France in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. Annual of the British School at Athens 33:170–208.Google Scholar
Blakeway, A. 1935. Demaratus, a study of some aspects of the earliest hellenization of the Latium and Etruria. Journal of Roman Studies 25:129–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boardman, J. 1980. The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Boaretto, E. 2006. Radiocarbon dates. In: Finkelstein, I, Ussishkin, D, Halpern, B, editors. Megiddo IV: The 1998–2002 Seasons. Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology. p 550–7.Google Scholar
Boaretto, E, Jull, AJT, Gilboa, A, Sharon, I. 2005. Dating the Iron Age I/II transition in Israel: first intercomparison results. Radiocarbon 47(1):39–55.Google Scholar
Boaretto, E, Finkeltsein, I, Shahack-Gross, R. 2010. Radiocarbon results from the Iron IIA site of Atar Haroa in the Negev Highlands and their archaeological and historical implications. Radiocarbon 52(1):1–12.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 1995. Radiocarbon calibration and analysis of stratigraphy: the OxCal program. Radiocarbon 37(2):425–30.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2001. Development of the radiocarbon calibration program. Radiocarbon 43(2A):355–63.Google Scholar
Brandherm, D. 2006. Zur Datierung der ältesten griechischen und phönizischen Importkeramik auf der Iberischen Halbinsel. Bemerkungen zum Beginn der Eisenzeit in Südwesteuropa. Madrider Mitteilungen 47:1–23.Google Scholar
Brandherm, D. 2008. Greek and Phoenician potsherds between East and West: a chronological dilemma? In: Brandherm, D, Trachsel, M, editors. A New Dawn for the Dark Age? Schifting Paradigms in Mediterranean Iron Age Chronology (BAR International Series 1871). Oxford: Archaeopress. p 149–74.Google Scholar
Bruins, HJ, van der Plicht, J. 2005. Desert settlement through the Iron Age: radiocarbon dates from Sinai and the Negev Highlands. In: Levy, TE, Higham, T, editors. The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science. London: Equinox. p 349–66.Google Scholar
Bruins, HJ, van der Plicht, J. 2007. Radiocarbon dating the “Wilderness of Zin.” Radiocarbon 49(2):481–97.Google Scholar
Bruins, HJ, van der Plicht, J, Mazar, A. 2003. 14C dates from Tel Rehov: Iron-Age chronology, pharaohs, and Hebrew kings. Science 300(5617):315–8.Google Scholar
Bruins, HJ, van der Plicht, J, Mazar, A, Bronk Ramsey, C, Manning, SW. 2005. The Groningen radiocarbon series from Tel Rehov: OxCal Bayesian computations for the Iron IB-IIA boundary and Iron IIA destruction events. In: Levy, TE, Higham, T, editors. The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science. London: Equinox. p 271–93.Google Scholar
Bruins, HJ, Mazar, A, van der Plicht, J. 2007. The end of the 2nd millennium BCE and the transition from Iron I to Iron IIA: radiocarbon dates of Tel Rehov, Israel. In: Bietak, M, Czerny, E, editors. The Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. p 79–100.Google Scholar
Christensen, P. 2007. Olympic Victor Lists and Ancient Greek History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Close-Brooks, J. 1967. Considerazioni sulla cronologia delle facies arcaiche dell'Etruria. Studi Etruschi 35:323–9.Google Scholar
Close-Brooks, J, Ridgway, D. 1979. Veii in the Iron Age. In: Ridgway, D, Ridgway, FR, editors. Italy before the Romans. London: Academic Press. p 95–127.Google Scholar
Cohen, R. 1970. Atar Haroa. Atiqot 6:6–24. In Hebrew.Google Scholar
Cohen, R, Bernick-Greenberg, H. 2007. Excavations at Kadesh Barnea (Tell el-Qudeirat) 1976–1982. IAA Reports 34. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority.Google Scholar
Cohen, R, Cohen-Amin, R. 2004. Ancient Settlement of the Negev Highlands Vol. II. The Iron Age and the Persian Periods. IAA Reports 20. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority.Google Scholar
Coldstream, N. 2003. Some Aegean reactions to the chronology debate in the southern Levant. Tel Aviv 30:247–58.Google Scholar
Colonna, G. 1974. Preistoria e protoistoria di Roma e del Lazio. Popoli e Civiltà dell'ltalia Antica 2:275–346.Google Scholar
Colonna, G. 1976. Le fasi protourbane dell'età del ferro dal IX al VII secolo a.C. (periodi II B, II, IV). In: Colonna, G, editor. Civiltà del Lazio Primitivo. Rome: Multigrafica. p 25–36.Google Scholar
Das, AA. 2008. Paul of Tarshish: Isaiah 66.19 and the Spanish Mission of Romans 15.24, 28. New Testament Studies 54:60–73.Google Scholar
Descoeudres, J-P. 2002. Al Mina across the great divide. Mediterranean Archaeology 15:49–72.Google Scholar
Descoeudres, J-P, Kearsley, R. 1983. Greek pottery at Veii: another look. Annual of the British School at Athens 78:9–53.Google Scholar
Docter, RF, Niemeyer, HG, Nijboer, AJ, van der Plicht, J. 2005. Radiocarbon dates of animal bones in the earliest levels of Carthage. In: Bartoloni, G, Delpino, F, editors. Oriente e Occidente: metodi e discipline a confronto. Rifflessioni sulla cronologia dell'età del ferro italiana. Pisa: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali. p 557–77.Google Scholar
Docter, RF, Chelbi, F, Maraoui Telmini, B, Nijboer, AJ, van der Plicht, J, van Neer, W, Mansel, K, Garsallah, S. 2008. New radiocarbon dates from Carthage: bridging the gap between history and archaeology? In: Sagona, C, editor. Beyond the Homeland: Markers in Phoenician Chronology (Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 28). Leuven: Peeters. p 379–422.Google Scholar
Fantalkin, A. 2001. Low Chronology and Greek Protogeometric and Geometric pottery in the Southern Levant. Levant 33:117–25.Google Scholar
Fantalkin, A, Finkelstein, I. 2006. The Sheshonq I campaign and the 8th-century BCE earthquake—more on the archaeology and history of the south in the Iron IIIA. Tel Aviv 33:18–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feeney, D. 2007. Caesar's Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History (Sather Classical Lectures, 65). Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I. 2010. Kadesh Barnea: a reevaluation of its archaeology and history. Tel Aviv 37:111–25.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2003a. Recent radiocarbon results and King Solomon. Antiquity 77(298):771–9.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2003b. Wrong and right; high and low: 14C dates from Tel Rehov and Iron Age chronology. Tel Aviv 30:283–95.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2003c. Comment on “14C dates from Tel Rehov: Iron-Age chronology, pharaohs, and Hebrew kings.” Science 302(5645):568b.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2006. 14C and the Iron Age chronology debate: Rehov, Khirbet en-Nahas, Dan, and Megiddo. Radiocarbon 48(3):373–86.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2008. 14C and the history of copper production at Khirbet en-Nahas. Tel Aviv 35:82–95.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2009. Radiocarbon-dated destruction layers: a skeleton for Iron Age chronology in the Levant. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 28(3):255–74.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2010a. Radiocarbon dating the Iron Age in the Levant: a Bayesian model for six ceramic phases and six transitions. Antiquity 84(324):374–85.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Piasetzky, E. 2010. The Iron I/IIA transition in the Levant: a reply to Mazar and Bronk Ramsey and a new perspective. Radiocarbon 52(4):1667–80.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Silberman, NA. 2006. David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Singer-Avitz, L. 2008. The pottery of Edom: a correction. Antiguo Oriente 6:13–24.Google Scholar
Finkelstein, I, Singer-Avitz, L. 2009. The pottery of Khirbet en-Nahas: a rejoinder. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 141:207–18.Google Scholar
Gilboa, A, Sharon, I, Boaretto, E. 2008. Tel Dor and the chronology of Phoenician ‘pre-colonisation’ stages. In: Sagona, C, editor. Beyond the Homeland: Markers in Phoenician Chronology (Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 28). Leuven: Peeters. p 113–204.Google Scholar
González de Canales, F, Serrano, L, Llompart, J. 2008. The emporium of Huelva and Phoenician chronology: present and future possibilities. In: Sagona, C, editor. Beyond the Homeland: Markers in Phoenician Chronology (Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 28). Leuven: Peeters. p 631–55.Google Scholar
González de Canales, F, Serrano, L, Llompart, J. 2009. The two phases of western Phoenician expansion beyond the Huelva finds: an interpretation. Ancient West and East 8:1–20.Google Scholar
Ilan, D. 1999. Northeastern Israel in the Iron Age I: cultural, socioeconomic and political perspectives [PhD thesis]. Tel Aviv University.Google Scholar
Jung, R. 2006. Chronologia Comparata. Vergleichende Chronologie von Südgriechenland und Süditalien von ca. 1700/1600 bis 1000 v.u.Z. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
Knauf, EA. 1991. King Solomon's copper supply. In: Lipinski, E, editor. Phoenicia and the Bible. Leuven: Peeters. p 167–86.Google Scholar
Kourou, N. 2005. Early Greek imports in Italy: a comparative approach to a case study. In: Bartoloni, G, Delpino, F, editors. Oriente e Occidente: metodi e discipline a confronto. Rifflessioni sulla cronologia dell'età del ferro italiana. Pisa: Istituti Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali. p 497–515.Google Scholar
Leighton, R. 2000. Time versus tradition: Iron Age chronologies in Sicily and southern Italy. In: Ridgway, C, Serra Ridgway, FR, Pearce, M, Herring, E, Whitehouse, RD, Wilkins, JB, editors. Ancient Italy in Its Mediterranean Setting. Studies in Honour of Ellen Macnamara. London: University of London. p 33–48.Google Scholar
Lemaire, A. 2000. Tarshish-Tarsisi: problème de topographie historique biblique et assyrienne. In: Galil, G, Weinfeld, M, editors. Studies in Historical Geography and Biblical Historiography Presented to Zecharia Kallai. Leiden: Brill. p 44–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, T, Adams, R, Najjar, M, Hauptmann, A, Anderson, JD, Brandl, B, Robinson, MA, Higham, T. 2004. Reassessing the chronology of biblical Edom: new excavations and 14C dates from Khirbet en-Nahas (Jordan). Antiquity 78(302):865–79.Google Scholar
Levy, TE, Higham, T, Bronk Ramsey, C, Smith, NG, Ben-Yosef, E, Robinson, M, Munger, S, Knabb, K, Schulze, JP, Najjar, M, Tauxe, L. 2008. High-precision radiocarbon dating and historical biblical archaeology in southern Jordan. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(43):16,460–5.Google Scholar
Lipiński, E. 2004. Itineraria Phoenicia (Studia Phoenicia XVIII, OLA 127). Leuven: Peeters.Google Scholar
Maeir, AM, Fantalkin, A, Zukerman, A. 2009. The earliest Greek import in the Iron Age Levant: new evidence from Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel. Ancient West and East 8:57–80.Google Scholar
Mazar, A, Bronk Ramsey, C. 2008. 14C dates and the Iron Age chronology of Israel: a response. Radiocarbon 50(2):159–80.Google Scholar
Mazar, A, Bruins, HJ, Panitz-Cohen, N, van der Plicht, J. 2005. Ladder of time at Tel Rehov: stratigraphy, archaeological context, pottery and radiocarbon dates. In: Levy, TE, Higham, T, editors. The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science. London: Equinox. p 193–255.Google Scholar
Mazar, E. 2004. The Phoenician Family Tomb n.1 at the Northern Cemetery of Achziv (10th–6th centuries BCE) Sam Turner Expedition. Final Report of the Excavations. Cuadernos de Arqueología Mediterránea 10. Barcelona: Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona.Google Scholar
Meyer, JC. 1983. Pre-Republican Rome: An Analysis of the Cultural and Chronological Relations 1000–500 BC. Odense: Odense University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, MJ. 1997. Separating the Solomon of history from the Solomon of legend. In: Handy, LK, editor. The Age of Solomon, Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium. Leiden: Brill. p 1–24.Google Scholar
Möller, A. 2005. Epoch-making Eratosthenes. Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 45:245–60.Google Scholar
Müller-Karpe, H. 1962. Zur Stadtwerdung Roms (Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Romische Abteilung 8). Heidelberg: F.H. Kerle.Google Scholar
Newton, MW, Kuniholm, PI, Wardle, KA. 2005a. Dendrochronology and radiocarbon determinations from Assiros and the beginning of the Greek Iron Age. To Arhaiologiko Ergo sti Makedonia kai Thraki 17 (2003):173–90.Google Scholar
Newton, MW, Kuniholm, PI, Wardle, KA. 2005b. A dendrochronological 14C wigglematch for the early Iron Age of North Greece. In: Levy, TE, Higham, T, editors. The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science. London: Equinox. p 104–13.Google Scholar
Niemann, HM. 1997. The socio-political shadow cast by the biblical Solomon. In: Handy, LK, editor. The Age of Solomon, Scholarship at the Turn of the Millennium. Leiden: Brill. p 252–99.Google Scholar
Nijboer, AJ. 2005. The Iron Age in the Mediterranean: a chronological mess or ‘trade before the flag’, part II. Ancient West and East 4:254–77.Google Scholar
Nijboer, AJ, van der Plicht, J. 2006. An interpretation of the radiocarbon determinations of the oldest indigenous-Phoenician stratum thus far, excavated at Huelva, Tartessos (south-west Spain). BABESCHAnnual Papers on Mediterranean Archaeology 81:31–6.Google Scholar
Nijboer, AJ, van der Plicht, J. 2008. The Iron Age in the Mediterranean: recent radiocarbon research at the University of Groningen. In: Brandherm, D, Trachsel, M, editors. A New Dawn for the Dark Age? Schifting Paradigms in Mediterranean Iron Age Chronology (BAR International Series 1871). Oxford: Archaeopress. p 103–18.Google Scholar
Nijboer, AJ, van der Plicht, J, Bietti Sestieri, AM, De Santis, A. 1999/2000. A high chronology for the early Iron Age in central Italy. Palaeohistoria 41/42:163–76.Google Scholar
Núñes Calvo, F. 2008. Western challenges to east Mediterranean chronological framework. In: Brandherm, D, Trachsel, M, editors. A New Dawn for the Dark Age? Schifting Paradigms in Mediterranean Iron Age Chronology (BAR International Series 1871). Oxford: Oxford: Archaeopress. p 3–27.Google Scholar
Pare, C. 2008. Italian metalwork of the 11th-9th centuries BC and the absolute chronology of the Dark Age Mediterranean. In: Brandherm, D, Trachsel, M, editors. A New Dawn for the Dark Age? Schifting Paradigms in Mediterranean Iron Age Chronology (BAR International Series 1871). Oxford: Archaeopress. p 77–101.Google Scholar
Popham, MR, Lemos, IS. 1992. Review of Rosalinde Kearsley: the Pendent Semi-Circle Skyphos. Gnomon 64:152–5.Google Scholar
Rosen, SA, Savinetsky, AB, Plakht, Y, Kisseleva, NK, Khassanov, BF, Pereladov, AM, Haiman, M. 2005. Dung in the desert: preliminary results of the Negev Holocene Ecology Project. Current Anthropology 46:317–27.Google Scholar
Schiffer, MB. 1986. Radiocarbon dating and the “old wood” problem: the case of the Hohokam chronology. Journal of Archaeology Science 13(1):13–30.Google Scholar
Shahack-Gross, R, Finkelstein, I. 2008. Subsistence practices in an arid environment: a geoarchaeological investigation in an Iron Age site, the Negev Highlands, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(4):965–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharon, I, Gilboa, A, Jull, TAJ, Boaretto, E. 2007a. Report on the first stage of the Iron Age Dating Project in Israel: supporting a Low Chronology. Radiocarbon 49(1):1–46.Google Scholar
Sharon, I, Gilboa, A, Boaretto, E. 2007b. 14C and the Early Iron Age in Israel—where are we really at? A commentary on the Tel Rehov radiometric dates. In: Bietak, M, Czerny, E, editors. The Synchronization of Civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C. III. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. p 149–56.Google Scholar
Shor, P, Bernick-Greenberg, H. 2007. Area C: the east-central part of the Strata 3–2 courtyard. In: Cohen, R, Bernick-Greenberg, H. Excavations at Kadesh Barnea (Tell el-Qudeirat) 1976–1982. IAA Reports 34. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority. p 67–85.Google Scholar
Singer-Avitz, L. 2008. The earliest settlement at Kadesh Barnea. Tel Aviv 35:73–81.Google Scholar
Smith, NG, Levy, TE. 2008. The Iron Age pottery from Khirbat en-Nahas, Jordan: a preliminary study. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 352:41–91.Google Scholar
van der Plicht, J, Bruins, HJ, Nijboer, AJ. 2009. The Iron Age around the Mediterranean: a High Chronology perspective from the Groningen radiocarbon database. Radiocarbon 51(1):213–42.Google Scholar
Van Seters, J. 1983. In Search of History. New Haven: Yale University.Google Scholar
Wardle, KA, Newton, MW, Kuniholm, PI. 2007. Troy VIIB2 revisited: the date of the transition from Bronze to Iron Age in the northern Aegean. In: Todorova, H, Stefanovich, M, Ivanov, G, editors. The Struma/Strymon River Valley in Prehistory. Sofia: Gerda Henkel Stiftung. p 481–97.Google Scholar
Weninger, B, Jung, R. 2009. Absolute chronology of the end of the Aegean Bronze Age. In: Deger-Jalkotzy, S, Bächle, AE, editors. LH III C Chronology and Synchronisms III: LH III C Late and the Transition to the Early Iron Age. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. p 373–416.Google Scholar