Decadal samples from a dendrochronology built from the tree-ring sequences of four trees in two stratigraphically defined phases at the site of Assiros in north Greece provide the first high precision wiggle-matched radiocarbon dates for a stratum containing a diagnostic ceramic artifact (a Protogeometric amphora). The date points to a higher date than conventionally accepted for the appearance of this ceramic style in Greece and, by extension, any of the neighboring areas in the eastern Mediterranean to which this style of pot was exported. With respect to the focus of this volume, the study is a clear illustration of the difficulties involved in interpreting any 14C date for this period. The wiggle-matched 14C date, at 2σ, is 1091 ± 25 BCE, and this correlates with the dendrochronological date of 1078 + 4/−7 BCE. Dendrochronological crossdating can offer dates at annual resolution which, as with historical annals, is clearly the preferred resolution for understanding the complex archaeological footprints of multiple sites in a large area of the eastern Mediterranean in the early Iron Age.

…Why not have Protogeometric begin in 1100 BCE, instead of ca. 1050 BCE? The problem is in stretching the Geometric, as we would have to do, keeping the Thucydidean dates as fixed points (where are we if we don't?).

Years ago, Anthony Snodgrass hoped for a log, if possible one strategically placed, as in a magazine like the one at Tel Hadar, to answer our questions through dendrochronology.