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The Beginning of the Early Bronze Age in the North Jordan Valley: New 14C Determinations from Pella in Jordan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Stephen Bourke ,
Ugo Zoppi ,
John Meadows ,
Quan Hua  and
Samantha Gibbins
Stephen Bourke*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Australia
Ugo Zoppi
Affiliation:
Accium BioSciences, Inc., 550 17th Avenue, Suite 550, Seattle, Washington 98122, USA
John Meadows
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, United Kingdom
Quan Hua
Affiliation:
Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), PMB 1, Menai 2234, Australia
Samantha Gibbins
Affiliation:
Dept. of Archaeology, University of Sydney, Australia
*
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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This article reports on 10 new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates from early phases of the Early Bronze Age at the long-lived settlement of Pella (modern Tabaqat Fahl) in the north Jordan Valley. The new AMS dates fall between 3400 and 2800 cal BC, and support a recent suggestion that all Chalcolithic period occupation had ceased by 3800/3700 cal BC at the latest (Bourke et al. 2004b). Other recently published Early Bronze Age 14C data strongly supports this revisionist scenario, suggesting that the earliest phase of the Early Bronze Age (EBA I) occupied much of the 4th millennium cal BC (3800/3700 to 3100/3000 cal BC). As this EB I period in the Jordan Valley is generally viewed as the key precursor phase in the development of urbanism (Joffe 1993), this revisionist chronology has potentially radical significance for understanding both the nature and speed of the move from village settlement towards a complex urban lifeway.

Type
Archaeology
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , 2009 , pp. 905 - 913
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

References

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