Abstract:Summary
Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of Protogeometric ceramics at Troy supports a revision of our understanding of the site in the Protogeometric period. Previous interpretations of this period at Troy emphasized the importance of either Greek migration or Greek trade networks. A category of amphoras previously thought to be imports appears to have been made locally. NAA also indicates local production of a new class of handmade cooking pots, as well as more traditional Gray ware vessels. Analysis reveal… Show more
“…205 For the date, see Mountjoy 1999, 297-301. For the archaeology, see Blegen et al 1958, 10-13;Korfmann 2006. 206 Aslan et al 2014; see also Aslan 2009. 207 Mountjoy 1998; see also Hawkins 1998.…”
Explanations for the Late Bronze Age crisis and collapse in the eastern Mediterranean are legion: migrations, predations by external forces, political struggles within dominant polities or system collapse among them, inequalities between centers and peripheries, climatic change and natural disasters, disease/plague. There has never been any overarching explanation to account for all the changes within and beyond the eastern Mediterranean, some of which occurred at different times from the mid to late 13th throughout the 12th centuries B.C.E. The ambiguity of the evidence-material, textual, climatic, chronologicaland the differing contexts involved across the central-eastern Mediterranean make it difficult to disentangle background noise from boundary conditions and to distinguish cause from effect. Can we identify the protagonists of the crisis and related events? How useful are recent explanations that focus on climate and/or chronology in providing a better understanding of the crisis? This article reviews the current state of the archaeological and historical evidence and considers the coherence of climatic explanations and overprecise chronologies in attempting to place the "crisis" in context. There is no final solution: the human-induced Late Bronze Age "collapse" presents multiple material, social, and cultural realities that demand continuing, and collaborative, archaeological, historical, and scientific attention and interpretation. 1 introduction Over the years, the Late Bronze Age "crisis" or "collapse" in the eastern Mediterranean has presented archaeologists and ancient historians with endless fodder for consumption, consideration, and speculation. This horizon of change typically has assumed considerable historical significance-the end of a long-standing high-culture era of interregional connectivity followed by major reorientations, change, and decline-as evident from the titles of books like The Crisis Years or the recently published 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. 2 Cline's 1177 B.C., like the present study, seeks to explain the complexities that brought an end to the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. Thus, there are inevitable overlaps between our work and his in the types and range of data presented, but not in the way they are presented, nor in the readership for whom they are intended. 3 The present study aims to 1 We thank Julia Gruhot for assistance converting references to AJA format, and Luke Sollars for preparing fig. 7. We hope that readers will join the discussion on AJA Online (www.ajaonline.org). 2 Ward and Joukowsky 1992; Cline 2014. 3 The precise dates (including the title) of Cline's volume are really best guesses from a limited set of viable radiocarbon dates, a few anchor points in documentary sources, and circular reasoning, all of which give his narrative an exactitude in sequences and correspondences too smoothly linked for comfort. His reading of the documentary record is commendable, but the discussion of "natural causes" is inadequate and, as ever, ...
“…205 For the date, see Mountjoy 1999, 297-301. For the archaeology, see Blegen et al 1958, 10-13;Korfmann 2006. 206 Aslan et al 2014; see also Aslan 2009. 207 Mountjoy 1998; see also Hawkins 1998.…”
Explanations for the Late Bronze Age crisis and collapse in the eastern Mediterranean are legion: migrations, predations by external forces, political struggles within dominant polities or system collapse among them, inequalities between centers and peripheries, climatic change and natural disasters, disease/plague. There has never been any overarching explanation to account for all the changes within and beyond the eastern Mediterranean, some of which occurred at different times from the mid to late 13th throughout the 12th centuries B.C.E. The ambiguity of the evidence-material, textual, climatic, chronologicaland the differing contexts involved across the central-eastern Mediterranean make it difficult to disentangle background noise from boundary conditions and to distinguish cause from effect. Can we identify the protagonists of the crisis and related events? How useful are recent explanations that focus on climate and/or chronology in providing a better understanding of the crisis? This article reviews the current state of the archaeological and historical evidence and considers the coherence of climatic explanations and overprecise chronologies in attempting to place the "crisis" in context. There is no final solution: the human-induced Late Bronze Age "collapse" presents multiple material, social, and cultural realities that demand continuing, and collaborative, archaeological, historical, and scientific attention and interpretation. 1 introduction Over the years, the Late Bronze Age "crisis" or "collapse" in the eastern Mediterranean has presented archaeologists and ancient historians with endless fodder for consumption, consideration, and speculation. This horizon of change typically has assumed considerable historical significance-the end of a long-standing high-culture era of interregional connectivity followed by major reorientations, change, and decline-as evident from the titles of books like The Crisis Years or the recently published 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed. 2 Cline's 1177 B.C., like the present study, seeks to explain the complexities that brought an end to the Late Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. Thus, there are inevitable overlaps between our work and his in the types and range of data presented, but not in the way they are presented, nor in the readership for whom they are intended. 3 The present study aims to 1 We thank Julia Gruhot for assistance converting references to AJA format, and Luke Sollars for preparing fig. 7. We hope that readers will join the discussion on AJA Online (www.ajaonline.org). 2 Ward and Joukowsky 1992; Cline 2014. 3 The precise dates (including the title) of Cline's volume are really best guesses from a limited set of viable radiocarbon dates, a few anchor points in documentary sources, and circular reasoning, all of which give his narrative an exactitude in sequences and correspondences too smoothly linked for comfort. His reading of the documentary record is commendable, but the discussion of "natural causes" is inadequate and, as ever, ...
“…Some suggest re-occupation of the town was by immigrants (Aslan and Rose 2013). However, the EIA people who reoccupied the site immediately or soon after its destruction appear to combine local and immigrant groups (Grave et al 2013; Aslan et al 2014), highlighting a more complex and dynamic process of EIA population “churning” than previously assumed.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…By the end of the 12th c. BCE, the EIA occupation at Gordion included groups practicing a household-scale economy (Henrickson and Voigt 1998). Although there is a strong break in material culture between the excavated samples for YHSS 8 and 7B, there is no evidence for violent upheaval and it seems likely that the initial EIA community (and perhaps the regional population) represented a new complex mix of local and immigrant groups as at Troy (Aslan et al 2014).…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…More recently, the nature of this “event” has been queried as mounting evidence suggests a more complex and variable scenario played out across the region (Knapp and Manning 2016). In Anatolia, key sites for this LBA collapse (Hattuša and Troy) highlight substantial differences both in the nature of the evidence and the cultural processes at work over the 13th–12th c. BCE (Figure 1; Seeher 2010; Aslan et al 2014).…”
Gordion has long served as an archaeological type site for Iron Age central Anatolia and provided pioneering radiocarbon (14C) determinations as reported in the first issue ofRadiocarbon(1959). Absolute dating of key events at Gordion continue to reshape our understanding of regional development and interaction in the Iron Age, with a major conflagration in the late 9th BCE century at this site the most recent focus of attention (DeVries et al. 2003). Here we present the latest series of14C determinations for Gordion from Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age contexts. Fifteen absolute dates provide a critical new framework for establishing the timing and tempo of cultural transformation from the collapse of the Hittite Empire through to the subsequent formation of the Phrygian polity that dominated central Anatolia from the 9th to the 7th c. BCE. This chronometric revision transforms our perspective on the LBA/EIA transition at this site: from disengagement from Hittite hegemony in the 12th c. BCE, to the precocious emergence of the Phrygian capital in the early 9th c. BCE.
“…1). 2 Although settlements within this region tended to form an interaction sphere during other periods as well (Aslan, Kealhofer and Grave 2014, 283–4), during this phase, the similarities and interconnections are so striking that one suspects that regional centres (at Troy and on Lemnos and Lesbos) were creating and disseminating trends in material culture and probably were instrumental in establishing and maintaining the interactions between settlements. Fig.…”
This article presents new excavation results from three oval or apsidal houses discovered at the site of Maydos-Kilisetepe (ancient Madytos), which is located near the coast of the Hellespont on the Gallipoli peninsula. The houses date to the late eighth to early sixth century bc. The material from Maydos is evaluated in comparison with the nearby site of Troy (Ilion) and situated within the wider context of developments in the north-eastern Aegean region during the Late Geometric to Early Archaic periods. From the mid-eighth to the mid-seventh century, a cultural koine existed in the north-eastern Aegean, shown by the strong similarities in material culture among the sites in the region. Troy was most probably a large regional centre, while Maydos functioned as a smaller settlement within this network. The power and influence of this koine declined or was replaced in the mid-seventh century, when there was a sudden influx of Ionian-style ceramics at Maydos, around the same time that Troy experienced a destruction. The patterns of cultural interactions changed with the establishment of Greek (primarily Ionian and Athenian) colonies on both sides of the Hellespont during the second half of the seventh to the early sixth century.
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