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Radiocarbon Dating of Early Dynastic Mesopotamia: Results, Limitations, and Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2016

Maciej Mateusz Wencel
Maciej Mateusz Wencel*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Oxford, UK
*
*Email: maciej.wencel@wolfson.ox.ac.uk.
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Abstract

This paper describes the results of Bayesian modeling of radiocarbon dates from Early Bronze Age contexts in Southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq. The model uses 14C dates available in the literature, employing archaeological and textual information to correlate contexts from a number of important Mesopotamian sites. The insufficient number of dates makes it impossible to precisely define the chronology of the period in question; however, the analysis allows for observing patterns of cultural change otherwise invisible in archaeological and textual records. Firstly, it is suggested that there was a hiatus of at least a century between the latest protocuneiform texts and the earliest historical writing. Furthermore, the results seem to argue against a steady, gradual evolution of literate civilizations, indicating a more complex and varied process of development.

Keywords

Bayesian analysisBayesian modelingMesopotamiaIraq
Type
Puzzles in Archaeological Chronologies
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 59 , Special Issue 2: Proceedings of the 22nd International Radiocarbon Conference (Part 1 of 2) , April 2017 , pp. 635 - 645
Copyright
© 2016 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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Footnotes

Selected Papers from the 2015 Radiocarbon Conference, Dakar, Senegal, 16–20 November 2015

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