300-year drought frames Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age transition in the Near East: new palaeoecological data from Cyprus and Syria

Kaniewski, David; Marriner, Nick; Bretschneider, Joachim; Jans, Greta; Morhange, Christophe; Cheddadi, Rachid; Otto, Thierry; Luce, Frédéric; Campo, Elise Van

doi:10.1007/s10113-018-01460-w

Cited by 32 publications

(28 citation statements)

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“…Here too, a direct association between various reconstructions of 13 th -10 th centuries BCE climatic crisis in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East (e.g. [ 3 , 20 – 23 , 26 , 43 , 162 – 164 ]) and the trajectory of development at the site of Tell Tayinat is difficult to discern. The decline of the Late Bronze Age settlement of Tell Atchana begins at least a century earlier than the proposed major crisis that occurs ca.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The potential importance of such historically relevant climate forcing episodes, both in explaining history, but also as laboratory of current and future relevance, should not be overlooked–and this general topic has been the subject of much recent research, as in other regions, in the Mediterranean-Near East (e.g. [ 1 – 3 , 16 – 23 ]), but also debate (e.g. [ 4 – 11 , 24 ]).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…4200 BP/2200 BCE and (ii) 3200 BP/1200 BCE (BP here from 2000 CE) (e.g. [ 16 – 23 , 25 , 26 ]). In each instance, there is purportedly a multi-century episode of collapse, then general hiatus and transformation before a subsequent return to ‘high’ civilization—the Middle Bronze Age (the Middle Kingdom in Egypt, the Old Babylonian period in Mesopotamia) from around 2000/1900 BCE for the first, and the Iron Age ‘renaissance’ from the 9-8 th centuries BCE for the second (the latter perhaps linked to a major solar irradiance minimum and climate shift [ 3 , 27 , 28 , ref.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The 1200 BCE episode, around the close of the Late Bronze Age, involves a long-recognized widespread set of site abandonments, destructions and changes across the East Mediterranean and Levantine region, the collapse of the previous ‘palatial’ economies and inter-linked trading systems and an ensuing ‘dark age’ [ 11 , 15 , 24 , 40 – 42 ]. Associated proxy climate evidence indicates another shift around this period to cooler and more arid conditions [ 20 – 23 , 26 , 43 ]. The widespread collapse of the internationalized political economies of the Late Bronze Age is real, and many sites do experience destruction, decline, or abandonment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In contrast to the southern Levant and a few other areas, where the widespread use of radiocarbon evidence to address issues of Iron Age chronology has led to the development of a large dataset of chronometric evidence (e.g. [ 87 , 91 – 97 ]), available radiocarbon data in the northern Levant is extremely scarce [ 15 , 23 , 51 , 104 ]. This has led to the development of a series of relative regional chronologies, often employing widely varying chronological terminologies based on locally-defined or somewhat arbitrary subdivisions [ 86 , 105 – 108 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Beyond megadrought and collapse in the Northern Levant: The chronology of Tell Tayinat and two historical inflection episodes, around 4.2ka BP, and following 3.2ka BP

et al. 2020

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There has been considerable focus on the main, expansionary, and inter-regionally linked or ‘globalising’ periods in Old World pre- and proto-history, with a focus on identifying, analyzing and dating collapse at the close of these pivotal periods. The end of the Early Bronze Age in the late third millennium BCE and a subsequent ‘intermediate’ or transitional period before the Middle Bronze Age (~2200–1900 BCE), and the end of the Late Bronze Age in the late second millennium BCE and the ensuing period of transformation during the Early Iron Age (~1200–900 BCE), are key examples. Among other issues, climate change is regularly invoked as a cause or factor in both cases. Recent considerations of “collapse” have emphasized the unpredictability and variability of responses during such periods of reorganization and transformation. Yet, a gap in scholarly attention remains in documenting the responses observed at important sites during these ‘transformative’ periods in the Old World region. Tell Tayinat in southeastern Turkey, as a major archaeological site occupied during these two major ‘in between’ periods of transformation, offers a unique case for comparing and contrasting differing responses to change. To enable scholarly assessment of associations between the local trajectory of the site and broader regional narratives, an essential preliminary need is a secure, resolved timeframe for the site. Here we report a large set of radiocarbon data and incorporate the stratigraphic sequence using Bayesian chronological modelling to create a refined timeframe for Tell Tayinat and a secure basis for analysis of the site with respect to its broader regional context and climate history.

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