If radiocarbon measurements are to be used at all for chronological purposes, we have to use statistical methods for calibration. The most widely used method of calibration can be seen as a simple application of Bayesian statistics, which uses both the information from the new measurement and information from the 14C calibration curve. In most dating applications, however, we have larger numbers of 14C measurements and we wish to relate those to events in the past. Bayesian statistics provides a coherent framework in which such analysis can be performed and is becoming a core element in many 14C dating projects. This article gives an overview of the main model components used in chronological analysis, their mathematical formulation, and examples of how such analyses can be performed using the latest version of the OxCal software (v4). Many such models can be put together, in a modular fashion, from simple elements, with defined constraints and groupings. In other cases, the commonly used "uniform phase" models might not be appropriate, and ramped, exponential, or normal distributions of events might be more useful. When considering analyses of these kinds, it is useful to be able run simulations on synthetic data. Methods for performing such tests are discussed here along with other methods of diagnosing possible problems with statistical models of this kind.

/pdf/bayesian-analysis-of-radiocarbon-dates-26ui63c9ae.pdf

Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates

Bones of recent mammals in the Amboseli Basin, southern Kenya, exhibit distinctive weathering characteristics that can be related to the time since death and to the local conditions of temperature, humidity and soil chemistry. A categorization of weathering characteristics into six stages, recognizable on descriptive criteria, provides a basis for investigation of weathering rates and processes. The time necessary to achieve each successive weathering stage has been calibrated using known-age carcasses. Most bones decompose beyond recognition in 10 to 15 yr. Bones of animals under 100 kg and juveniles appear to weather more rapidly than bones of large animals or adults. Small-scale rather than widespread environmental factors seem to have greatest influence on weathering characteristics and rates. Bone weathering is potentially valuable as evidence for the period of time represented in recent or fossil bone assemblages, in- cluding those on archeological sites, and may also be an important tool in censusing populations of animals in modern ecosystems.

Taphonomic and Ecologic Information Form Bone Weathering

The wide availability of precise radiocarbon dates has allowed researchers in a number of disciplines to address chronological questions at a resolution which was not possible 10 or 20 years ago. The use of Bayesian statistics for the analysis of groups of dates is becoming a common way to integrate all of the 14C evidence together. However, the models most often used make a number of assumptions that may not always be appropriate. In particular, there is an assumption that all of the 14C measurements are correct in their context and that the original 14C concentration of the sample is properly represented by the calibration curve. In practice, in any analysis of dates some are usually rejected as obvious outliers. However, there are Bayesian statistical methods which can be used to perform this rejection in a more objective way (Christen 1994b), but these are not often used. This paper discusses the underlying statistics and application of these methods, and extensions of them, as they are implemented in OxCal v 4.1. New methods are presented for the treatment of outliers, where the problems lie principally with the context rather than the 14C measurement. There is also a full treatment of outlier analysis for samples that are all of the same age, which takes account of the uncertainty in the calibration curve. All of these Bayesian approaches can be used either for outlier detection and rejection or in a model averaging approach where dates most likely to be outliers are downweighted. Another important subject is the consistent treatment of correlated uncertainties between a set of measurements and the calibration curve. This has already been discussed by Jones and Nicholls (2001) in the case of marine reservoir offsets. In this paper, the use of a similar approach for other kinds of correlated offset (such as overall measurement bias or regional offsets in the calibration curve) is discussed and the implementation of these methods in OxCal v 4.0 is presented.

/pdf/dealing-with-outliers-and-offsets-in-radiocarbon-dating-ydswx8wode.pdf

Dealing with outliers and offsets in radiocarbon dating

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/109/20/E1215.full.pdf

Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa

https://www.aber.ac.uk/en/iges/research-groups/quaternary/luminescence-research-laboratory/dose-rate-calculator/downloads/Durcan_et_al.,_2015.%20DRAC_dose_rate_and_age_calculator_for_trapped_charge_dating._Accepted_Manuscript.pdf

DRAC: Dose Rate and Age Calculator for trapped charge dating

In this paper, we present an analysis of an Iron Age I dwelling at the Phoenician site of Dor, on Israel's Carmel coast. We provide a definition for the architectural mental template for this type ...

/pdf/an-iron-age-i-canaanite-phoenician-courtyard-house-at-tel-3vi2of7652.pdf

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

559 Among the painted pottery types in the Levant during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., the “East Greek” class is especially conspicuous and usually assumed to have been produced in Ionia. This pottery is the subject of a comprehensive research project, examining it from typological, analytical, and other perspectives. Our conclusion is that the “East Greek” class comprises in fact several subgroups from various other parts of the Mediterranean. Here we discuss one of these groups, including mainly hydriai, table amphoras, and jugs, which we suggest were produced on Crete, specifically in the central part of the island. These are the first Cretan ceramics of this period attested anywhere off the island, and they provide the first hint that maritime routes then linked Crete with various eastern Mediterranean regions. This pottery can perhaps be understood as a proxy for the exchange of a wider array of commodities, a possibility addressed in the concluding section of this article. Since the conventional wisdom is that Crete was largely disconnected from the rest of the Mediterranean in the Classical period, both commercially and culturally, this discovery has important implications for Cretan history and more generally for tracing ancient Mediterranean interconnections. It also adds to our understanding of the ceramic repertoire of fifthand fourth-century B.C.E. Crete, which is still rather poorly known.1

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3764/aja.121.4.0559

Cretan Pottery in the Levant in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. and Its Historical Implications

This paper presents the results of a study of the cultural and economic changes from a longue duree perspective as reflected in the animal remains from a nearly continuous occupation spanning the e...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5615/bullamerschoorie.371.0083

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

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.

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

1 Kings 4 relates that Dor, the major port-town on Israel's 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.

Ayelet Gilboa

Papers

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

Cretan Pottery in the Levant in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C.E. and Its Historical Implications

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

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

Capital of Solomon's Fourth District? Israelite Dor