¹⁴C and the Iron Age Chronological Debate: Where Are We Really at?
Ilan Sharon, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Elisabetta Boaretto, Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
Ayelet Gilboa, Department of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Israel

Despite publicized convictions, protagonists of both 'high' and 'low' Levantine chronologies have recognized the need to bolster their contentions with radiometric dates. Recently it has been argued by H. J. Bruins, J. van der Plicht and A. Mazar that a set of ¹⁴C dates from Tel Rehov in Israel, obtained at the Gröningen Centre for Isotope research, has brought the debate to its conclusion. Thirty four dates were published from Strata VII (Iron Age I) and VI - IV (Iron Age II) by which the Rehov team claims to have proven that the traditional, high chronology for the early Iron Age can be maintained. In fact, the Rehov dates are considerably less categorical and reanalysis of the published dates demonstrates that they do not contradict the low chronology. This conclusion gains further support if one considers all the dates available to date from Tel Rehov (about 51), instead of just the 34 recently-promoted ones. It is also corroborated by dates available (and published) from other sites in Israel.

Attempting to solve such a tight chronological dilemma by selecting part of the dates from one site, and rejecting or ignoring the rest will simply not do. We have claimed in the past, and reiterate in the present context, that if the burden of deciding this controversy is to be laid on ¹⁴C dating, this will require a much broader approach, and hundreds of dates. Such a project has indeed been initiated three years ago. The program involves most of the relevant sites in Israel, careful selection of samples and archaeological contexts, charcoal characterization with Raman Spectroscopy and inter-comparisons between three laboratories and different measuring techniques.