Ayelet Gilboa

Report on the first stage of the Iron Age dating project in Israel: Supporting a low chronology

The traditional chronology of ancient Israel in the 11th9th centuries BCE was constructed mainly by correlating archaeological phenomena with biblical narratives and with Bible-derived chronology. The chronology of Cyprus and Greece, and hence of points further west, are in turn based on that of the Levant. Thus, a newly proposed chronology, about 75100 yr lower than the conventional one, bears crucial implications not only for biblical history and historiography but also for cultural processes around the Mediterranean. A comprehensive radiocarbon program was initiated to try and resolve this dilemma. It involves several hundreds of measurements from 21 sites in Israel. Creating the extensive databases necessary for the resolution of tight chronological problems typical of historical periods involves issues of quality control, statistical treatment, modeling, and robustness analysis. The results of the first phase of the dating program favor the new, lower chronology.

An archaeological contribution to the early Iron Age chronological debate: Alternative chronologies for phoenicia and their effects on the levant, Cyprus, and Greece

The debate over the chronology of the early Iron Age in Israel by far transcends Palestinian archaeology, history, and biblical historiography. Chronologies for most of the adjacent regions, and those of entities farther afield, such as Cyprus and Greece, are largely dependent on the Levant. The debate has centered to date mainly on historical considerations, adjusting the chronologies of the material record to the different proposed scenarios. This article advocates an opposite approach, namely, constructing detailed artifactual, mainly ceramic sequences, anchoring these to an absolute time scale by 14C dating, and only then correlating them with historical data. Southern Phoenicia is proposed as a starting point for such an endeavor. Not only does it offer the most detailed stratigraphic/ceramic sequence to date for the early Iron Age in the Southern Levant, its commercial ties provide a wealth of ceramic indices for correlating the Phoenician sequence with other series of the Levant and farther Mediterranean regions. To a large extent these overcome problems of regionalism, which otherwise hamper attempts at chronological cross-correlations in this relatively fragmented period. Two alternative chronologies are presented: the traditional, high chronology, which has been established mainly on the basis of biblical/historical considerations, and the newly proposed low one, which is supported by radiometric dates from Tel Dor. The adoption of either one will entail a revision of parts of the Cypro-Geometric and Greek (Euboean) Proto-Geometric chronologies.

DATING THE IRON AGE I/II TRANSITION IN ISRAEL: FIRST INTERCOMPARISON RESULTS

Nearly a decade ago, a different chronology than the conventional absolute chronology for the early Iron Age in Israel was suggested. The new, lower chronology transfers Iron Age I and Iron Age IIA contexts in Israel, traditionally dated to the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, to the 10th and 9th centuries, respectively. Thus, it places the Iron I|IIA transition at about 920900 BCE. This alternative chronology carries important implications for Israelite history, historiography, and Bible research, as well as for the chronologies of other regions around the Mediterranean. Relevant radiocarbon data sets published to date, which were measured at different sites by different laboratories, were claimed to be incompatible. Therefore, the question of agreement between laboratories and dating methods needs to be addressed at the outset of any study attempting to resolve such a tight chronological dilemma. This paper addresses results pertaining to this issue as part of a comprehensive attempt to date the early Iron Age in Israel based on many sites, employing different measuring techniques in 2 laboratories. The intercomparison results demonstrate that: a) the agreement between the 2 laboratories is well within the standard in the 14C community and that no bias can be detected in either laboratory; and b) calculating the Iron I|IIa transition in 3 different ways (twice independently by the measurements obtained at the 2 labs and then by combining the dates of both) indicates that the lower chronology is the preferable one.

Early Iron Age Radiometric Dates From Tel Dor: Preliminary Implications For Phoenicia And Beyond

The absolute date of the Iron Age I and IIa periods in Israel, and by inference in the Southern Levant at large, are to date among the hottest debated issues in Syro-Palestinian archaeology. As there are no pegs of absolute chronology throughout this range, conventional chronology had been established on proposed correlations of the material record with events and social phenomena as portrayed in historical and literary sources, chiefly the Hebrew Bible. With the growing impact of so-called revisionist notions in Biblical studies, which to various extents question the historicity of the Bible, it is imperative to try to establish a chronological framework for the Iron I-IIa range that is independent of historical and so forth considerations, inter alia in order to be able to offer an independent archaeological perspective of the biblical debate. The most obvious solution is to attempt a radiocarbon-based chronology. This paper explores the possible implications of a sequence of 22 radiometric dates obtained from a detailed Iron I-IIa stratigraphic/ceramic sequence at Tel Dor, on Israels Mediterranean coast. To date, this is the largest such sequence from any single early Iron Age site in Israel. Having been part of the Phoenician commercial sphere in the early Iron Age, Dor offers a variegated sequence of ceramics that have a significant spatial distribution beyond Phoenicia, and thus transcend regional differences and enable correlation with the surrounding regions. By and large, the absolute dates of these ceramics by the Dor radiometric chronology are up to a century lower than those established by conventional Palestinian ceramic chronology. The ramifications of the lower Dor dates for some Phoenician, Israelite, and Cypriot early Iron Age archaeological issues are explored.

Earliest economic exploitation of chicken outside East Asia: Evidence from the Hellenistic Southern Levant

Significance This study offers new evidence on the cultural history of the chicken, a species that until recently received limited attention compared with other domesticated animals. We provide evidence for the earliest known economic exploitation of the chicken outside its original distribution. This intensified use is first documented in the Southern Levant during the Hellenistic period (fourth–second centuries B.C.E.), at least 100 y before chickens spread widely across Europe. We explore the mechanisms for the spread of chickens as an important species in livestock economies from Asian to Mediterranean and European economies in antiquity to become one of the most widespread and dominant domesticates in the world today. Chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) is today one of the most widespread domesticated species and is a main source of protein in the human diet. However, for thousands of years exploitation of chickens was confined to symbolic and social domains such as cockfighting. The question of when and where chickens were first used for economic purposes remains unresolved. The results of our faunal analysis demonstrate that the Hellenistic (fourth–second centuries B.C.E.) site of Maresha, Israel, is the earliest site known today where economic exploitation of chickens was widely practiced. We base our claim on the exceptionally high frequency of chicken bones at that site, the majority of which belong to adult individuals, and on the observed 2:1 ratio of female to male bones. These results are supported further by an extensive survey of faunal remains from 234 sites in the Southern Levant, spanning more than three millennia, which shows a sharp increase in the frequency of chicken during the Hellenistic period. We further argue that the earliest secure evidence for economic exploitation of chickens in Europe dates to the first century B.C.E. and therefore is predated by the finds in the Southern Levant by at least a century. We suggest that the gradual acclimatization of chickens in the Southern Levant and its gradual integration into the local economy, the latter fully accomplished in the Hellenistic period, was a crucial step in the adoption of this species in European husbandry some 100 y later.

Cypriot Barrel Juglets at Khirbet Qeiyafa and other Sites in the Levant: Cultural Aspects and Chronological Implications

Abstract The destruction level of the much contested Stratum IV at Khirbet Qeiyafa yielded two Cypriot vessels, both of them miniature barrel juglets. Their stratigraphic context and the shape of the one complete specimen indicate that they are among the earliest such vessels ever shipped out of Cyprus. This paper considers these vessels from two major perspectives. First, it draws on them as the starting point for highlighting a commercial phenomenon that has hitherto received insufficient attention—the rather extensive export of such vessels to the Levant in the early Iron Age. Second, it considers the chronological implications of the two exemplars for the chronology of Stratum IV at Khirbet Qeiyafa. This issue is relevant as well to the general debate regarding absolute dates of the Iron Age in the Levant.

Food, Economy, and Culture at Tel Dor, Israel: A Diachronic Study of Faunal Remains from 15 Centuries of Occupation

This paper presents the results of a study of the cultural and economic changes from a longue durée perspective as reflected in the animal remains from a nearly continuous occupation spanning the early Iron Age through the Roman period at Tel Dor, a harbor town on Israels Carmel coast. Such long-term zooarchaeological analyses are currently rare. Focusing on the choice of food, as well as on animal exploitation methods/strategies, the paper asks whether changes through time can be explained in economic or cultural terms, whether they can be correlated with changes in the sites material culture, whether they reflect some change in the sites population, or should be explained in terms of the adoption of new cultural norms. The results demonstrate that during a millennium and a half of Dors existence, there was very little change in most patterns of animal exploitation and consumption. The only apparent change was in the increase in pig remains between the early Iron Age and the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In view of the constancy in all other exploitation characteristics, and in light of other data from Dor, the paper suggests that this change does not reflect a change in the sites population but rather the adoption of new norms.

An Iron Age I Canaanite/Phoenician Courtyard House at Tel Dor: A Comparative Architectural and Functional Analysis

In this paper, we present an analysis of an Iron Age I dwelling at the Phoenician site of Dor, on Israels Carmel coast. We provide a definition for the architectural mental template for this type of house—a Central Courtyard Hash-Plan House. By combining an analysis of the size and layout of the house, and the distribution of artifacts and ecofacts in it, we define rooms devoted to specialized economic activities such as food production and storage and also attempt to identify gendered spaces. We conclude that the house was a self-contained agrarian unit engaged in complex economic activity. The same conceptual plan, housing similar economic activities, can be identified in other dwellings in the southern Levant, from Late Bronze Age I to Late Iron Age IIA. The gradual disappearance of this house type, vis-à-vis the emergence, on the one hand, of smaller and simpler dwellings such as the ubiquitous Four-Room House and, on the other, that of public facilities for specialized economic tasks, signifies to our minds a fundamental ideological and economic transformation, a change in the habitus of Levantine society—namely, the gradual segregation between households and various aspects of economic life.

Capital of Solomon's Fourth District? Israelite Dor

Abstract 1 Kings 4 relates that Dor, the major port-town on Israels Carmel coast, constituted part of the Solomonic state. This formed the basis for several historical reconstructions. Here, for the first time, we examine all the relevant archaeological data available after three decades of excavations at Tel Dor. We conclude that indeed, archaeology supports a scenario whereby Dor passed from Phoenician to Israelite hands, but that this happened in the second half of the 9th century BC. This shift involved a significant change in the role of Dor and its harbour, exemplified by changes in urban layout, ceramic production, and in commercial and other interaction spheres.

On the Origin of Iron Age Phoenician Ceramics at Kommos, Crete: Regional and Diachronic Perspectives across the Bronze Age to Iron Age Transition

Excavations at Kommos, Crete, have unearthed hundreds of fragments of Iron Age Levantine transport jars—an unusual phenomenon in the Iron Age Mediterranean. Though usually termed “Phoenician,” their origin has never been demonstrated by fabric analysis. This article presents such an analysis, employing petrography and chemistry. To a large extent, this is a rather unexplored domain because fabric analyses of Phoenician Iron Age ceramics overseas are surprisingly few. The compositional data indicate that most of the jars are indeed from Lebanon, specifically from its southern coast. To place these results in a diachronic and regional perspective, we discuss the chronology of these finds and then compare the production centers identified with those defined in other provenance studies of Levantine containers overseas. This illustrates the growing importance of southern Lebanese polities in Iron Age Mediterranean networks at the expense of the Syrian littoral, on the one hand, and the coast of the southern Levant, on the other.