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14C and the Iron Age Chronology Debate: Rehov, Khirbet en-Nahas, Dan, and Megiddo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Israel Finkelstein  and
Eli Piasetzky
Israel Finkelstein*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University 69978, Israel
Eli Piasetzky
Affiliation:
School of Physics and Astronomy, The Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University 69978, Israel
*
Corresponding author. Email: fink2@post.tau.ac.il.
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Abstract

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A recently published volume, The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating: Archaeology, Text and Science (Levy and Higham 2005), provides data related to the debate over the chronology of the Iron Age strata in the Levant (for a review, see Carmi 2006). The present article comments on several chapters in the volume. The article highlights methodological problems, such as insecure stratigraphic provenance of 14C samples, and demonstrates how unjustified selection of data can bias the result. The article offers a new interpretation to some of the results and shows that the full set of measurements from Tel Rehov supports the Low Chronology system.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , 2006 , pp. 373 - 386
Copyright
Copyright © The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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