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Absolute Time Ranges in the Plateau of the Late Bronze to Iron Age Transition and the Appearance of Bichrome Pottery in Canaan, Southern Levant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2018

Yotam Asscher Open the ORCID record for Yotam Asscher [Opens in a new window]  and
Elisabetta Boaretto
Yotam Asscher
Affiliation:
D-REAMS Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Scientific Archaeology Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel Current address: Conservation and Laboratories Department, Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem 9777405, Israel
Elisabetta Boaretto*
Affiliation:
D-REAMS Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Scientific Archaeology Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
*
*Corresponding author. Email: elisabetta.boaretto@weizmann.ac.il.
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Abstract

The Late Bronze Age to Iron Age transition in the Levant includes the appearance of new material culture that is similar in styles to the Aegean world. In the southern Levant, the distribution of early styles of Aegean-like pottery, locally produced, is limited to the coastal areas of Canaan, making synchronization with the rest of the region difficult. Radiocarbon (14C) dating provides a high-resolution absolute chronological framework for synchronizing ceramic phases. Here, absolute 14C chronologies of the Late Bronze to Iron Age transition in the sites Tel Beth Shean, Tel Rehov, Tel Lachish, and Tel Miqne-Ekron are determined. Results show that the ranges of transitions vary in an absolute time frame by 50–100 years between different sites and that the range of the Late Bronze Age to Iron Age transition in Canaan spans the 13th–11th centuries BC plateau. These chronologies, based on a site-by-site approach for dating, show that the change between early types of Aegean-like pottery (Monochrome) to developed types (Bichrome), occurred over 100 years in Canaan and that the transition occurred in southern sites prior to sites in the north. These ranges show that not only is the Late Bronze to Iron Age not contemporaneous, but also synchronization between sites based on their ceramic assemblages is problematic.

Keywords

microarchaeologyradiocarbon contextsouthern Levanttransition dating
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , February 2019 , pp. 13 - 37
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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