Acknowledgments

Absolute Time Ranges in the Plateau of the Late Bronze to Iron Age Transition and the Appearance of Bichrome Pottery in Canaan, Southern Levant

“…1140 BC. Cultural segragation of the early foreigners is partially supported by the historical reference of the Papyrus Harris I of Ramesses III, that mentions the relocation of the foreign identities in Egyptian strongholds (Killebrew and Lehmann 2013), although recently criticized (Ben-Dor Evian 2017). The discrepency in time between Ramesses III and the first appearance of Agean-like pottery, and the longue durée process of integrating foreign styles with local pottery styles reflects the complex nature of migration processes, that is over-simplified in historical documentations (Yasur-Landau 2007; Knapp and Manning 2016).…”

“…During the end of the 2nd millennium BC in the Eastern Mediterranean the social and political organization changed, resulting in weakening of the Hittite and Egyptian empires, and Aegean centers. During this period, according to some scholars, foreign groups of people settled along the coastlines of the Levant, which resulted in the appearance of new material culture, locally produced, and associated typologically to Aegean styles (Dothan 1982; Ben-Shlomo et al 2008; Faust and Lev-Tov 2011; Hitchcock and Maeir 2013; Killebrew and Lehmann 2013; Maeir et al 2013). Other scholars propose cultural exchange rather than migration to explain the appearance of new material culture (Sherratt 2013).…”

“…One of the main reasons for the different annotations is that the local Canaanite material culture does not change much during this period (Martin 2013), and the presence of early Aegean-style pottery marks the LB/Ir transition from the material culture point of view. Therefore, the terminology of the LB/Ir transition differs between coastal sites in Philistia and the rest of Canaan (Finkelstein 1995; Bunimovitz and Yasur-Landau 1996; Dothan and Zukerman 2004; Mazar 2007; Killebrew and Lehmann 2013).…”

“…Table 1 summarizes the relative chronology of the Aegean-like pottery styles in Canaan (adapted from Killbrew and Lehmann 2013). Different archaeologists report that the Iron Age started following the LB IIB period (LBIIB/Iron IA; Mazar 1990), while others report that the Iron Age started following another period after the LBIIB, namely LB III (LB III/Early Iron I; Finkelstein and Piasetzky 2011).…”

The Chronology of the Late Bronze (LB)-Iron Age (IA) Transition in the Southern Levant: A Response to Finkelstein’s Critique

“…A similar preconception is the expectation that sites in the same general area should give similar results—archaeology is a lot more complicated than that. Several examples of this complexity can be given: (1) there is a lack of any cultural interaction between the neighboring Egyptian and Philistine sites, Tel Mor V and Ashdod XIII, both dated to the beginning of the first half of the 12th century BC (Killebrew 2013); (2) another example is that there is a 60-yr difference in the Modeled LB-IA transition dates between two areas within the same site (Megiddo); (3) a third example is that the final LB destruction at Hazor dates to about 1250 BC and the final LB destruction at Megiddo dates to about 1100 BC, even though both sites are in the same general geographical area. Thus, the assumption on which Finkelstein arrives at the conclusion that one of our results must be wrong is hard to accept.…”