Geomagnetic field intensity behavior in the Middle East between ∼3000 BC and ∼1500 BC

Abstract

An archeointensity study was carried out on 14 sites of Syrian baked clay artifacts, archeologically dated between ∼2500 BC and ∼1600 BC. Using an experimental protocol involving high‐temperature magnetization measurements, well‐defined mean intensity values were derived for 13 different sites with three to nine results obtained at the fragment level per site. Results of similar ages are coherent and the new data set is in good agreement with previous archeointensity results obtained from the same region. All together these data allow one to refine the evolution of the geomagnetic field intensity in the Middle East during the third and the second millennium BC. In particular, they show the occurrence of three periods of rather sharp intensity increase at ∼2600 BC, ∼2200 BC and ∼1600 BC possibly at the times of climatic cooling in the eastern North Atlantic, further suggesting a connection between the Earth's magnetic field and multi‐decadal climatic events.

Archaeological and Geomagnetic Implications of New Archaeomagnetic Intensity Data from the Early Bronze High Terrace ‘Massif Rouge’ at Mari (Tell Hariri, Syria)

“…As in our previous studies on Syrian baked clay fragments (e.g., Gallet et al . , ; Gallet and Al Maqdissi ), only a few fragments were rejected due to inappropriate magnetic behaviour. Most of the difficulties arose for the two sites (phases 1 and 2) of the Massif Rouge, because a large proportion of the fragments—in particular, those of phase 2—were too weakly magnetized to be analysed with the Triaxe magnetometer; however, thanks to two successive samplings, numerous fragments were collected, and a sufficient number of fragments (11 and five for phases 1 and 2, respectively) yielded reliable results.…”

“…; Gallet and Le Goff ; Gallet et al . , , ; Gallet and Al Maqdissi ; Ben‐Yosef et al . , ; Thébault and Gallet ; Shaar et al .…”

Large geomagnetic field anomalies revealed in Bronze to Iron Age archeomagnetic data from Tel Megiddo and Tel Hazor, Israel

“…The main reasons for , 2008a, 2008bShaar et al, 2011Shaar et al, , 2015, interpreted using the automatic interpretation technique described in text and the acceptance criteria listed in Table 1. Open gray symbols are other published data from Syria (Genevey et al, 2003;Gallet et al, 2005Gallet et al, , 2006Gallet et al, , 2008Gallet et al, , 2014Gallet and Butterlin, 2015;Stillinger et al, 2015). Locations map is shown in Fig.…”

“…We also plot in open black symbols other data from Syria published by two research groups: IPGP, Paris (e.g. Genevey et al, 2003;Gallet et al, 2005Gallet et al, , 2006Gallet et al, , 2008Gallet et al, , 2014Gallet and Butterlin, 2015), and the Institute for Rock Magnetism (IRM), University of Minnesota (Stillinger et al, 2015). These Syrian data were published without the measurement data and cannot be reinterpreted via Thellier GUI using our criteria.…”

Solar activity during the Holocene: the Hallstatt cycle and its consequence for grand minima and maxima

“…Here we used the GEOMAGIA50.v3 database (Donadini et al 2006;Korhonen et al 2008;Brown et al 2015) to which we added recent archeo-and paleointensity results (Cai et al 2014(Cai et al , 2015Cromwell et al 2015;de Groot et al 2015;Di Chiara et al 2014;Gallet et al 2008Gallet et al , 2009Gallet & Al Maqdissi 2010;Hong et al 2013;Kapper et al 2015;Kissel et al 2015;Osete et al 2015;Shaar et al 2015;Stillinger et al 2015). Concerning the data compiled in this version of GEOMAGIA, the Mesopotamian data from Nachasova & Burakov (1995 were modified according to .…”