Dataset Information

Dating the end of the Greek Bronze Age: a robust radiocarbon-based chronology from Assiros Toumba.

ABSTRACT: Over 60 recent analyses of animal bones, plant remains, and building timbers from Assiros in northern Greece form an unique series from the 14th to the 10th century BC. With the exception of Thera, the number of 14C determinations from other Late Bronze Age sites in Greece has been small and their contribution to chronologies minimal. The absolute dates determined for Assiros through Bayesian modelling are both consistent and unexpected, since they are systematically earlier than the conventional chronologies of southern Greece by between 70 and 100 years. They have not been skewed by reference to assumed historical dates used as priors. They support high rather than low Iron Age chronologies from Spain to Israel where the merits of each are fiercely debated but remain unresolved.

SUBMITTER: Wardle K

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4164355 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dating the end of the Greek Bronze Age: a robust radiocarbon-based chronology from Assiros Toumba.

Wardle Kenneth K Higham Thomas T Kromer Bernd B

PloS one 20140915 9

Over 60 recent analyses of animal bones, plant remains, and building timbers from Assiros in northern Greece form an unique series from the 14th to the 10th century BC. With the exception of Thera, the number of 14C determinations from other Late Bronze Age sites in Greece has been small and their contribution to chronologies minimal. The absolute dates determined for Assiros through Bayesian modelling are both consistent and unexpected, since they are systematically earlier than the conventiona ...[more]

PMID: 25222862

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Project description:In archaeological research, changes in material culture and the evolution of styles are taken as major indicators for socio-cultural transformation. They form the basis for typo-chronological classification and the establishment of phases and periods. Central European Bronze Age material culture from burials reveals changes during the Bronze Age and represents a perfect case study for analyzing phenomena of cultural change and the adoption of innovation in the societies of prehistoric Europe. Our study focuses on the large-scale change in material culture which took place in the second millennium BC and the emergence at the same period of new burial rites: the shift from inhumation burials in flat graves to complex mounds and simple cremation burials. Paul Reinecke was the first to divide the European Bronze Age (EBA) into two phases, Bz A1 and A2. The shift from the first to the second phase has so far been ascribed to technical advances. Our study adopted an innovative approach to quantifying this phenomenon. Through regressive reciprocal averaging and Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon-dated grave contexts located in Switzerland and southern Germany, we modelled chronological changes in the material culture and changes in burial rites in these regions in a probabilistic way. We used kernel density models to summarize radiocarbon dates, with the aim of visualizing cultural changes in the third and second millennium BC. In 2015, Stockhammer et al. cast doubt on the chronological sequence of the Reinecke phases of the EBA on the basis of newly collected radiocarbon dates from southern Germany. Our intervention is a direct response to the results of that study. We fully agree with Stockhammer's et al. dating of the start of EBA, but propose a markedly different dating of the EBA/MBA transition. Our modelling of radiocarbon data demonstrates a statistically significant typological sequence of phases Bz A1, Bz A2 and Bz B and disproves their postulated chronological overlap. The linking of the archaeological relative-chronological system with absolute dates is of major importance to understanding the temporal dimension of the EBA phases.

Dataset Information

Dating the end of the Greek Bronze Age: a robust radiocarbon-based chronology from Assiros Toumba.

Publications

Dating the end of the Greek Bronze Age: a robust radiocarbon-based chronology from Assiros Toumba.

Similar Datasets

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