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Radiocarbon Dating Shows an Early Appearance of Philistine Material Culture in Tell es-Safi/Gath, Philistia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2016

Yotam Asscher ,
Dan Cabanes ,
Louise A Hitchcock ,
Aren M Maeir ,
Steve Weiner  and
Elisabetta Boaretto
Yotam Asscher*
Affiliation:
Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Scientific Archaeology Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel D-REAMS Radiocarbon Laboratory, Scientific Archaeology Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
Dan Cabanes
Affiliation:
ERAAUB, Dept. de Prehistòria, Història Antiga i Arqueologia, Universitat de Barcelona, c/ de Montalegre 6-8, Barcelona 08001, Spain. Current address: Plant Foods in Hominin Dietary Ecology Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
Louise A Hitchcock
Affiliation:
Classics and Archaeology, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Victoria, Australia
Aren M Maeir
Affiliation:
The Ackerman Family Bar-Ilan University Expedition to Gath, the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel
Steve Weiner
Affiliation:
Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Scientific Archaeology Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
Elisabetta Boaretto*
Affiliation:
Weizmann Institute-Max Planck Center for Integrative Archaeology and Anthropology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel D-REAMS Radiocarbon Laboratory, Scientific Archaeology Unit, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel
*
Corresponding authors. Emails: [email protected]; [email protected].
Corresponding authors. Emails: [email protected]; [email protected].
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Abstract

The Late Bronze Age to Iron Age transition in the coastal southern Levant involves a major cultural change, which is characterized, among other things, by the appearance of Philistine pottery locally produced in styles derived from outside the Levant. This transition in the coastal southern Levant is conventionally dated to the 12th century BC, based on historical and archaeological artifacts associated with the Philistine pottery. Radiocarbon dating can provide a more precise independent absolute chronology for this transition, but dating for the period under discussion is complicated by the wiggles and relatively flat slope in the calibration curve, which significantly reduce precision. An additional complication is that the stratigraphic record below and above the transition at this site, as well as at most other sites in the region, is far from complete. We thus used a variety of microarchaeological techniques to improve our understanding of the stratigraphy, and to ensure that the locations with datable short-lived materials were only derived from primary contexts, which could be related directly to the associated material culture. The 14C dates were modeled using Bayesian statistics that incorporate the stratigraphic information. Using this integrative approach, we date the appearance of the Philistine pottery in Tell es-Safi/Gath in the 13th century BC.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 57 , Issue 5 , 2015 , pp. 825 - 850
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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