Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- I INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEMS
- II SOME METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
- III AROUND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN IN THE IRON AGE
- 7 Radiocarbon Calibration in the East Mediterranean Region: The East Mediterranean Radiocarbon Comparison Project (EMRCP) and the current the state of play
- 8 A Dendrochronological 14C Wiggle-match for the Early Iron Age of North Greece: A contribution to the debate about this period in the Southern Levant
- 9 High Precision Dating and Archaeological Chronologies: Revisiting an old problem
- IV JORDAN IN THE IRON AGE
- V ISRAEL IN THE IRON AGE
- VI HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS
- VII CONCLUSION
- Index
9 - High Precision Dating and Archaeological Chronologies: Revisiting an old problem
from III - AROUND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN IN THE IRON AGE
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- I INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEMS
- II SOME METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
- III AROUND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN IN THE IRON AGE
- 7 Radiocarbon Calibration in the East Mediterranean Region: The East Mediterranean Radiocarbon Comparison Project (EMRCP) and the current the state of play
- 8 A Dendrochronological 14C Wiggle-match for the Early Iron Age of North Greece: A contribution to the debate about this period in the Southern Levant
- 9 High Precision Dating and Archaeological Chronologies: Revisiting an old problem
- IV JORDAN IN THE IRON AGE
- V ISRAEL IN THE IRON AGE
- VI HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS
- VII CONCLUSION
- Index
Summary
Abstract
This study examines the varied types of data from which archaeologists seek to establish relative and absolute chronologies, particularly in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of the Aegean and the Levant where there is a long tradition of writing ‘history’ from archaeology, and asks how far and in what ways we can best combine them. The conclusions are that, in general, they cannot be used to construct a single monolithic chronological structure characterised by ever finer resolution, and that perhaps we should accept the limitations of our chronologies more realistically than we sometimes do.
High Precision Dating and History
Chronology in general, and the chronology of the Early Iron Age southern Levant in particular, is one of those subjects which is almost always guaranteed to make one's head ache. This is not just because of the unusually contentious chronological problems, specific to the Early Iron Age Levant, which form the central subject of this volume, but also because when it comes to archaeological chronology generally we seem to spend much of our time trying to square circles, to combine chalk and cheese, by attempting to integrate into a single chronological scheme a number of different types of chronological frameworks that are based on quite different concepts of how the passage of time manifests itself in the archaeological record and, more importantly, how it can be measured.
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- The Bible and Radiocarbon DatingArchaeology, Text and Science, pp. 114 - 126Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2005