Early Bronze Jericho: High-Precision ¹⁴C Dates of Short-Lived Palaeobotanic Remains

Abstract

Reliable series of high-precision radiocarbon dates in a stratified archaeological context are of great importance for interdisciplinary chronological and historical studies. The Early Bronze Age in the Near East is characterized by the beginning of the great civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as by urbanization in the Levant. We present stratified high-precision dates of short-lived material of Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), covering Late Proto-Urban/EB I, EB II and EB III layers from Trench III. Our calibrated dates, refined by Bayesian sequence analysis involving Gibbs sampling, are ca. 150–300 yr older than conventional archaeological age assessments. The corpus of 14C dates measured in the first decades after the discovery of 14C dating should not be taken too seriously. The 14C dates of Jericho measured by the British Museum 14C laboratory in 1971 appear to be erroneous.

Radiocarbon Challenges Archaeo-Historical Time Frameworks in the Near East: the Early Bronze Age of Jericho in Relation to Egypt

“…This correlation by Kenyon and Holland with Egyptian chronology is based on an erroneous 14 C date. We found British Museum (BM) 14 C dates of EB Jericho, measured in the 1970s, about 200-300 BP years too young in comparison to our high-precision dates, as already presented in detail (Bruins and Van der Plicht 1998). Indeed the above date BM-549 (4204 ± 49 BP), used by Kenyon and Holland, is more than 300 years younger in 14 C years than our dates on short-lived material of the same destruction phase: GrN-18545 (4530 ± 19 BP) and GrN-18546 (4512 ± 15 BP).…”

“…GrA-224 has a date of 4210 ± 40 BP. Another measurement of the same sample turned out to be much older (Bruins and van der Plicht 1998) and seems unrealistic within the chrono-stratigraphic sequence. There was not enough material to make a third measurement.…”

“…Conventional chronologies for the Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant and Egypt are evaluated in the light of high-precision 14 C dates from Early Bronze Jericho dated on short-lived organic materials. The samples are derived from the excavations conducted in the 1950s by the late Dame Kathleen Kenyon (Bruins and van der Plicht 1998). The results are discussed in relation to Egyptian chronology and other 14 C dates from the southern Levant and Egypt.…”

Jericho and the Chronology of Palestine in the Early Bronze Age: a Radiometric Re-Assessment

“…The aim of this study is a complete reassessment and multiple recalibration of all available radiocarbon dates referable to the Early Bronze Age from Tell es-Sultan/ancient Jericho, one of the best-known and most widely published archaeological sites in the Levant. For this purpose, all available 14 C samples (Burleigh 1981, 1983; Weinstein 1984; Bruins and van der Plicht 1998, 2001; Lombardo et al 1998; Lombardo and Piloto 2000) have been re-examined by checking their correct setting into the EBA sequence. This also allowed double checking of the new absolute chronology proposed for the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant, which included samples from Tell es-Sultan (Regev et al 2012a, 2014: 258–262).…”

Radiocarbon Dating in Near-Eastern Contexts: Confusion and Quality Control

“…The significance of quality control and laboratory intercomparison in relation to Near Eastern archaeology became clear from the investigation by Bruins and van der Plicht (1998) concerning Early Bronze Jericho. Some EB strata excavated by the late Dame Kathleen Kenyon were dated during the early 1970s in the British Museum 14 C laboratory (Burleigh 1981).…”