Checking and Correcting the Timescale for the Archaeology of the East Mediterranean-Near East in Later Prehistory & Protohistory: Investigating the Scale of a Radiocarbon Offse

在美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的支持下，斯特特·曼宁和蒂莫西·朱尔，连同一名博士后学者、其他同事和美国学生，将收集和分析来自约旦南部、欧洲和北美的树木年轮，以调查和确定适合黎凡特南部和东地中海地区考古和环境年代测定的放射性碳时间表。这个问题对于确定圣经考古学的正确时间框架——以及早期圣经历史——以及近东和东地中海地区其他重要古代文化的时间框架和历史至关重要。在过去的二十年里，关于这个话题有很多未解决的争论。放射性碳（14C）是主要的基于科学的方法，用于测定公元前500年（古希腊和罗马历史文明之前）古代近东和地中海东部的大多数遗址和发现。近年来，放射性碳测年变得越来越精确，并采用了复杂的分析方法。因此，在诸如早期以色列的确切年代和早期圣经历史的精确时间框架等关键问题上，出现了积极而激烈的辩论。这些争论对我们如何解释和理解这些文明的早期历史有着重要的影响，并对以希伯来圣经及其同时代世界的历史和文化为中心的许多领域产生了深远的影响。但是，随着精度和分辨率的提高，一些以前被忽视的与放射性碳测年有关的问题，如不同地区植物生长季节差异的潜在相关性，如果要实现正确的高分辨率年表，就开始变得至关重要。在精心设计的高分辨率加速器质谱仪（AMS）放射性碳分析项目的背景下，利用地中海东部和黎凡特南部已知年龄的树木年轮样本（精确到日历年），并将这些样本与德国、爱尔兰和北美已知年龄的树木年轮进行比较，该项目能够将放射性碳水平分辨到千分之三左右。该项目将调查并量化适合黎凡特南部和地中海东部地区的放射性碳校准数据集（并量化任何与生长季节相关的抵消的性质和规模）。这将为近东和东地中海的考古、早期历史和环境年表提供既准确又精确的基础。该项目将由康奈尔实验室与位于约旦安曼的美国东方研究中心（ACOR）合作开展现有的关于约旦树木年轮的合作研究，并将涉及康奈尔实验室的一名博士后学者、一名研究生和一名本科生。在亚利桑那大学加速器质谱（AMS）实验室对已知年龄的树木年轮样本进行放射性碳工作，将为测试和开发这一关键美国设施的准确性和精密度提供重要机会，该设施是美国国家科学基金会（NSF）资助的基于放射性碳的工作的核心，涉及从考古学到一系列环境和地质科学的几个领域。

With National Science Foundation (NSF) support, Drs. Sturt Manning and Timothy Jull, together with a postdoctoral scholar, other colleagues, and US students, will collect and analyze tree-rings from southern Jordan, Europe and North America in order to investigate and establish what is the appropriate radiocarbon timeline for archaeological and environmental dating in the southern Levant and east Mediterranean region. This issue is critical for determining the correct timeframe for Biblical Archaeology - and so early Biblical history - as well as the timeframes and histories of the other important ancient cultures of the Near East and east Mediterranean region. Over the last two decades there has been much unresolved debate on this topic.Radiocarbon (14C) is the main science-based method used to most date sites and finds in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean in the period before about 500 BCE (before the historical civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome). Radiocarbon dating has become increasingly precise in recent years, and employs sophisticated analytical approaches. As a result there have been active and vigorous debates over key topics like the exact dating of early Israel and the precise timeframe of early Biblical history, among others. These debates have serious implications for how we interpret and understand the early history of these civilizations and have profound effects on a number of fields centered on the history and culture of the world of the Hebrew Bible and its contemporaries. But, as precision and resolution have increased, some previously disregarded issues relevant to radiocarbon dating such as, the potential relevance of differences in the growing seasons of plants in different areas - start to become critically important if the correct high resolution chronology is to be achieved. Using known-age tree-ring samples - precise to the calendar year - from the east Mediterranean and southern Levant, and comparing these with known age tree rings from Germany, Ireland and the North America, in the context of a carefully-designed program of high-resolution accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon analysis capable of resolving radiocarbon levels to within about 3 parts per thousand, this project will investigate and quantify what is the appropriate radiocarbon calibration dataset for the southern Levant and east Mediterranean region (and quantify the nature and scale of any growingseason-related offset). This will provide the basis for archaeological, early historical and environmental chronologies in the Near East and east Mediterranean to be both accurate as well as precise.The project will develop existing collaborative research on tree-rings in Jordan by the Cornell Laboratory in partnership with the American Centre of Oriental Research (ACOR) in Amman, Jordan, and will involve a postdoctoral scholar, a graduate student, and undergraduate students in the Cornell laboratory. The radiocarbon work on known-age tree-ring samples at the University of Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) Laboratory, will provide an important opportunity to test and develop the accuracy and precision of this key US facility central to NSF sponsored radiocarbon-based work across several fields from archaeology to a range of the environmental and geological sciences.