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Alternative Explanations for Anomalous 14C Ages on Human Skeletons Associated with the 612 BCE Destruction of Nineveh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

R E Taylor ,
Will C Beaumont ,
John Southon ,
David Stronach  and
Diana Pickworth
R E Taylor*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside 92521, USA; Also: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90021, USA Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
Will C Beaumont
Affiliation:
Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
John Southon
Affiliation:
Keck Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA
David Stronach
Affiliation:
Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA
Diana Pickworth
Affiliation:
Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA
*
Corresponding author. Email: retaylor@ucr.edu
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Abstract

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Three factors—contamination, a dietary reservoir effect, and a regional δ14C anomaly—are considered as possible contributing explanations for an almost 2-century offset between the historically documented age of 612 BCE and the calibrated ages of 9 14C determinations obtained on 3 human skeletons directly associated stratigraphically with an archaeologically—and historically—defined 612 BCE event at the ancient site of Nineveh in northern Mesopotamia (Iraq). We note that on the order of a 1% (∼80 yr) offset caused by one or a combination of these 3 factors, or other as yet unidentified additional factor(s), would be sufficient to move the average measured 14C age of these bone samples within the major “warp” in the 14C timescale during the mid-1st millennium BCE. We provide what we believe to be sufficient evidence that contamination is not a major factor in the case of these bone samples. At this time, we lack appropriate data to determine with sufficient rigor the degree to which a dietary reservoir effect may be contributing to the offset. At present, a posited regional δ14C anomaly does not appear to be supported on the basis of data from several other localities in the Near East of similar age. One purpose of presenting this data set is to solicit comparisons with 14C values obtained on samples from additional, historically well-documented, known-age archaeological contexts for this time period in this and adjacent regions.

Type
Archaeology
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 52 , Issue 2: 20th Int. Radiocarbon Conference Proceedings , 2010 , pp. 372 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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