²³⁰Th/U dating of the Trojan ‘water quarries’

Abstract

We determined the 230 Th/U ages of individual calcite layers that grew on the walls of artificial water-supply tunnels ('water quarries') at Troy/Ilios by using thermal ionization mass spectrometry. The oldest age of overgrowth being 4350 ± 570 years, the tunnels must have been built a short time earlier, during the archaeological period Troy I-II. The tunnels were also used during Troy VI-VII (1700-1150 BCE, a period that includes the date of the supposed 'Trojan War'), in Homeric times (c. 720 BCE) and in the Roman period. These findings add strong support to the identification of the water quarries with a natural phenomenon and Anatolian deity known in Hittite texts of the second millennium BCE as KASKAL.KUR, a term denoting subsurface water systems. Consequently, they reinforce the view that Troy in the second millennium BCE was Anatolian in character. In this way, the findings are also consistent with the identification of (W)Ilios with Wilusa, a city attested to in Hittite historical texts.

Writ in water—Unwritten histories obtained from carbonate deposits in ancient water systems

“…The U/Th dating method (Frank et al, 2002; Pentecost, 2005, p. 249) is the most directly applicable to carbonate and has been successfully applied in some water systems (Claude et al, forthcoming; Frumkin et al, 2003; Passchier, Sürmelihindi, Spötl, Mertz‐Kraus, et al, 2016; Pons‐Branchu et al, 2018). Aqueducts, however, commonly contain clay and other detrital particles in sub‐microscopic particles, which contain 230 Th (initial Th) which significantly increases the error of the method (Wenz et al, 2016).…”

Extreme wet conditions coincident with Bronze Age abandonment of upland areas in Britain

“…Thus, at the time of 2950 cal. BP, wetter than normal conditions experienced in northern Europe most probably drove drier than normal conditions in the Mediterranean, impacting communities in the south (Frank et al, 2002;Kaniewski et al, 2015). It therefore seems possible that the archaeological changes experienced in southwest Britain were part of a broader suite of change as different human populations across Europe responded in their own way to contrasting trends.…”

“…Of particular significance in this regard is the Bronze Age, where climate change has been proposed to have played a significant role in large scale abandonment and migration around 1000 BC across the British Isles (3000 years ago) (Baillie, 1999;Burgess, 1985;Tipping et al, 2008;Warner, 1993), Europe (Burgess, 1989;Menotti, 2002;van Geel et al, 2004;Weiss, 1982) and the Near East (Frank et al, 2002;Kaniewski et al, 2010;Kaniewski et al, 2015;Weiss, 1982).…”