Mediterranean Chronology problems, Lower the dates and end the "Dark Ages"!

Khairete!

Gregory asked me to post about this, and I did promise Andrea a debate on the subject. I'm not sure I'm entirely ready to get into it, but it's clearly a topic which needs to be addressed and I'm not likely to pick up any more "ammunition" in the near future. So here we go! (Be forwarned: this is very long...)

First, a couple caveats. I'm no expert! I've been intrigued by the issue for some years, but only a week or so ago did I finish reading a pivotal book on the subject, "Centuries of Darkness" by Peter James (ISBN 0-224-02647-X). This is my main source of information, so if you really want to hammer me on any of this, you might be better off just reading the book and filling us in on what you find wrong with it. It is entirely possible that the book is riddled with errors and misconceptions, but I don't think so. There are actually 4 other authors who contributed, and all of them are experts in different regions or fields. If only a few of the matters they discuss are true, the chronology clearly needs to be adjusted! The dating problems they list are far more numerous and vaster in implication than I had ever guessed. There are other works on the topic, though, so I certainly invite more input and will be hunting down some more reading material.

We are all pretty familiar with the general archeological concept of stratigraphy, basically the idea that an inhabited spot like a city shows layers of occupation when excavated, with the latest or newest levels overlying the older ones. Generally speaking, this gives a good indication of relative dates, i.e., you can put the layers in a coherent order from oldest to newest, seeing how one derives from the previous, and often even make some estimates of the relative length of each phase. The artifacts in those layers, primarily pottery, can be used to date other sites such as graves, individual houses, or even shipwrecks, which don't have those nice neat layers.

Pottery styles (both shapes and decoration) are the big key in archeological dating systems, since the stuff is nearly indestructible, and gets traded around to other culures. Pottery styles are also surprisingly distinct, in the types of clay used, the workmanship and thickness of the vessels, types and colors of paints, decorative motifs, etc. In other words, potters stuck to their fashions quite nicely, and when the fashion changed they all followed it. So it's pretty easy to tell different styles and relative dates apart by a few potsherds, and potsherds generally occur in the THOUSANDS on ANY archeological site. Most of the wacky and sometimes confusing dating phases you see, such as MMII or LHIIIA, are actually pottery phases, and have been well-established over more than a century of study. The sequence of these phases, and often their relation to each other, is pretty solid in most cases--it's the absolute dates which we are here to debate.

For that, it turns out that everything is based on the Egyptian King List. When you find Egyptian artifacts (I'm gonna get tired of typing "Egyptian"...) on a site, you can relate the local pottery phase to an Egyptian phase, particularly if those artifacts have nice heiroglyphics or even cartouches on them. This is called "cross-dating". "Scarabs" are a popular find, and are usually inscribed. And low and behold, an absolute dating system has been constructed for Egypt, based on the reigns of its kings or pharaohs. Open up a book and you can find the dates BC that any particular pharaoh reigned, at least the famous ones. This list was first cooked up in ancient times (late BC) by a fellow named Manetho, who wrote up the 30 dynasties. But all we have of his work has come to us through later authors, so it's incomplete and inconsistent. Today, much has been fleshed out with new archeological finds, such as lists of names of pharaohs, some even listing the lengths of their rules, or saying that they did something in the 7th year of their reign, for instance, which gives us a minimum for that king. Slowly we can reconstruct much of the sequence, but it's still very spotty in places. But theoretically, if artifacts from a site can be matched to something Egyptian, you can cross-date them to get an absolute date for your site.

One major problem is the Third Intermediate Period, in which the traditional chronology places the dynasties consecutively (even though we can't assume Manetho intended that!), when it's becoming clear that there was a lot of overlap. The Egyptian government fragmented at several times through history, with different kings in different areas, and all of them are in one of those 30 dynasties. To make things worse, modern historians sometimes get a little carried away when filling in the gaps. One fellow found the name of a pharaoh previously unknown--just his name--and not only arbitrarily assigned him a reign of 15 years, but also blithely reconstructed the fellow's personality and administrative policy! Sometimes a modern historian will be so bold as to suggest that a certain pharaoh would be better placed in the 23rd dynasty rather than the 22nd, but keeps to the basic chronological structure and has to lengthen the reign to compensate!

The system has become dogma rather than science. On any site in the Mediterranean, an archeologist will find a neatly stratified site showing continuous occupation from the Bronze Age into the Iron Age, but then end up with a mess because what he feels to be artifacts from the 10th century have to be labelled as coming from the 13th century according to some string of parallels ending up in Egypt. Since no one is allowed to question the Egyptian dates, the mess spreads.

This has created the great "Dark Ages" of Greece, which supposedly follow the collapse of the great Mycenaean Bronze Age civilization. Collapse it certainly did! No problem there. But afterwards we are led to believe that the Dark Age closed in for nearly 3 centuries until the Geometric or Proto-geometric period. During that time there are virtually no settlements, no pottery, no writing, no artifacts, nada. Zippo. Heck, not even dust or rain-washed sediments, since on many sites, the late Mycenaean pottery is intermingled with the Proto-geometric! And adding 250 years to the Geometric period doesn't help, nor is it suggested by the stratigraphy or anything else. But reduce the dates before 950 by 250 years, and most of the problem suddenly vanishes!

This situation is repeated all over the world.

Peter James goes on for nearly 300 pages listing sites where the archeological occupation layers are perfectly normal from way back when up to about 1200. Then the finds all jump in date to about 950, even though the stratigraphy looks continuous. In fact, artifacts dated to 950 seem to be mixed with those from 1200. Mycenaean ivory carvings (widely exported) of c. 1200 are virturally indistinguishable from those found in Syria and dated to c. 950. Hittite artwork of the 10th century is clearly derived from that of the 13th, but there's nothing in between. Upper-class artifacts from about the 13th century are regularly found in c. 10th-century graves and buildings. According to the tradition dating, we are supposed to believe that the inhabitants abandoned the entire site in 1200, then came back in 950, rebuilt their original buildings, and picked up right where they left off, with the same pottery, architecture, etc. In the meantime, there was neither erosion of the whole settlement, nor was it covered by a sterile layer of wind- or water-carried earth. In short, time stood still.

Now, this wouldn't be so bad if it were one or two villages. But it turns out that it's virtually the SAME story for all of Greece, Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus, Asia Minor (including Troy!), Syria, Judea/Palestine/Canaan, North Africa (Nubia), Mesopotamia, and even to the shores of the Persian Gulf. There are virtually no finds really datable to the 12th through early 10th centuries, though a few things get stuck there arbitrarily. We are supposed to believe that the entire population of 3 continents left their homes one day, to spend the next 250 years living in tents or impermanent huts that leave NO archeological traces, even in places where stone and mud brick are about the only building materials. For 250 years they made no pottery, though apparently they kept alive the knowledge of making and decorating pottery in specific styles so that in 950 they'd be able to move back into their old houses and start anew. They did this without writing, by the way. There was also no metalworking. Supposedly all this knowledge was kept alive on "perishable materials"--so woven grass jugs instead of clay, perhaps? A massive paper industry sprang up to replace clay tablets for almost 3 centuries? Maybe pictorial "videos" were woven (without the loomweights used before and after) to teach bronze casting? But these folks were also essentially reenactors and had a great love of the past, because they kept with them a number of "heirlooms" from 1200, only allowing them to be lost or put into the archeological record after 950 BC--Not one item was lost or buried before then!

In 950, the whole world went back to living as they had in 1200, giving up their tents and huts, giving up their mobile and untraceable paper mills and tapestry looms and wooden bowl factories, to revive the culture of their ancestors pretty much unchanged. They made sure, of course to arrange themselves in their former political ways, too. Millions of people all over the world, devoting untold generations to this remarkable revival.

Do you see a slight problem with this theory?

The ripples keep spreading. Northern and western Europe are dragged into it through long and very tenuous strings of cross-dating. Italy is a particular mess, getting cross-dated from 2 different directions through half a dozen other cultures. And it still has the same kind of "dark age" gap as Greece. Places like England and Scandinavia are less heavily effected, but their artifacts still don't correspond as they should with more southerly or easterly lands.

So, Carbon date everything, right? Not so fast. Carbon-14 dating can be helpful, but has an inherent inaccuracy which means you get a spread of dates rather than a pinpoint one. Also, charcoal is the favorite material to date since it's relatively easy to find, but since a burned piece of wood has typically lost its outer layers, the date you'll get from the center of the piece can be much older than the date it was actually burned. There is also fluctuation in atmospheric carbon-14 absorption over the centuries. Much of it has basically been mapped, so dates can be calibrated somewhat, but there is a "radiocarbon disaster area" in which the absorption rates sort of flatten out, so that anything dating from 800 BC to 400 BC will give a date reading of c. 500 to 600 BC. That's just past our problem era, but close enough to cause trouble. Finally, there have been surprisingly few carbon-14 dates taken from most sites, if any. There simply aren't enough to use them as a basis for challenging the traditional dating system.

Dendrochronology, perhaps? Using the variable thickness of tree rings to count back over the years is a fabulous system and very reliable--for a particular area. You can't use Irish oak trees to date Mycenae. In fact you can't even use them to date a nice piece of Irish pine, since different trees grow differently in the same conditions. And in many places under discussion, wood is a very rare find, particularly in large enough pieces to work out a sequence of tree rings. Even in better areas, the ring sequences simply haven't been worked out for dates that far back. And finally, having a great sequence won't help if you don't find pottery or other relatively-datable artifacts neatly stratified with your dendro-datable wood sample. But it will help, and it's being worked on.

In reality, the solution is much easier. Simply lop 250 years off every "traditional" date before 950. This is the "low" chronology supported by Peter James and his colleagues. It's time for the rest of the world to tell Egypt to go get itself straightened out and stop messing everyone else up! Why should one very clearly tenuous and arbitrary King List be permitted to cause such havoc for everyone else? Is this science, or religion? (Funny, I wonder if the same sorts of folks who treat challenges to the King List as heretical are the same ones who scoff at using the Bible as a historical source?) Heck, the benefits to Egyptian history alone make me wonder why this idea hasn't been swept up with cheering! It's bizarre that so MANY books are still coming out that use the traditional "high" dates, cheerfully repeating the wacky and unsupportable stories of "dark ages" and "heirlooms", with nary a suggestion that the dates are still unsettled and highly debatable. Especially since there have been historians pointing out the problems for nearly a hundred years!

It's time to lower the the dates and make sense of our history. Join me in this glorious revolution! Down with the Traditional High Chronology! Low Chronology Rules! Rah, rah! (Ahem, sorry, got carried away...)

Gads, have I gone on long enough? Will anyone actually read all this? Please do, and tell me how you feel.

Enjoy,

Matthew

James has caused a lot of ripples. Personally I think he makes a lot of valid points and nobody has been able to seriously discredit the book. Here some of the critics are answered. The FAQs are interesting also.
http://www.centuries.co.uk/replies.htm

Ooo, a website, excellent! Thanks for digging that up! Poor Professor Kitchen--looks like it's time to thank him for his hard work, give him a nice gold watch, and usher him out the door. It's amazing that anyone could object to stringently to an "everybody wins" solution. That one-line review is pretty funny, too.

Anyone else make it through my epic post?

Matthew

Just few examples: Some of the late Mycenaean finding coming from Tyrins has been dated 1150-1100 B.C. thus already included in the as call "Dark age"(at least one iron sword or dagger has been found in those graves) .
The last excavation on Troy has discovered continuty in the various strata even during the dark age: Troy VIIb1 destroy by enemy actions around 1130 B.C., Troy VIIb2 1050 archaeological evidencies of incoming population from balcanic area, discovered of Luwian sigil which demonstrate that at that "dark age time" in Troy a administrative sistem was still present.
Around 1000 B.C. another war with relevant fire destroy again the city aftert this event the city was less populated but commercial trades with Greece are still present several protogeometric pottery have been found.
Around 950 B. C. Another war definitivelly ended the Troy history and no people was living in the area for the next 200 years, but the "dark age" was already finished at that point.
During our research about the Mycenaean world we have found Several evidencies of Greek "dark age" element from Greece dated from 1100 to 900 B.C. as late Mycenaean and proto- geometric pottery, weapons, manufactures etc..
Of course because of the internal wars, external invasions or emigrartion flows, fall of the Achaeans cittadel and amministration system, lost of writing sources etc... the elements are no so abundants, but is clearly the continuty between the late Mycenaean fonts and the protogeometric ones, both of them can be included in the as call "dark age".
I'm pretty sure than as soon as we start to investigate about this period (old archaeological reports verifications, catalogations of elements present in the various museums etc..) we will find enought elements to make several archaeological based reconstructions about the warriors, the living place, the society of that period etc..

Andrea Salimbeti

Khaire, Andrea!

I'm not sure, but it sounds like you may have missed my point. What James' book is saying is that all the things we THOUGHT were dated to 1200 or before are actually 250 years younger than that. So if we thought something was dated to 1400, like the Dendra armor, it actually dates to 1150. The big "Catastrophe" that saw the end of the great Mycenaean centers which we used to date to 1200 actually occurred in 950. This makes sense according to all the archeological stratigraphy. The artifacts which you mention being dated to 1150-1100 were probably only stuck with that date arbitrarily because they were found just above or after the layers of the Catastrophe, which gets its date of 1200 by pottery association to a particular spot in the Egyptian chronology. But if the Egyptian chronology has been incorrectly stretched by 250 years, that throws everyone else off! And it looks like it has. So the Catastrophe dates to 950, and those artifacts you mention could be around 900 to 850. I'll bet the archeologists would agree!

The thing is that the layers and artifacts from the end of the Bronze Age, traditionally about 1200, are always followed by layers and artifacts dated to about 950. There aren't enough layers, ruins, or finds from the "Dark Ages" to show that they lasted 300 years.

It's still fine to use terms like LHIIIC, and that's still going to be followed by Proto-geometric, etc. Only the absolute dates and lengths of the various phases may change.

We're probably going to have to start adding notes to all the dates we use, such as "high chronology" or "low chronology", to keep it straight. ("LHIIIC 950 BC LC"?)

Matthew

He is, indeed, missing your point. And obviously hasn't read James' work. Everything dated before c.800BC is suspect. There are no exceptions. Consider the implications for the Trojan War. Instead of occurring some four centuries before Homer, it may have occurred only five or six generations before. Far less time for the story to become garbled and confused.

It is easy to understand why Kitchen is so resistant. Not only does he have to admit that he was wrong, but that he wasted a sizable portion of his life. It would be hard for any man to accept that. And those in the acadmeic community are not known for their humility.

Ok now I have better understan the point.
I don' t have the James'book but seems strange to me that all the various finding

in different area of Greece, Anatolia, Egypt etc.. have been wrongly dated of

about 300 years, and not only the pottery and the manufacts but also for instance

the diplomatic tables from Hittite which give clearly referencies about their

Kings dinasty and the relevant links with the Egyptians, Sumerian and Achaeans

world.
Furthermore even if in some specific case and for specific periods (already taken

into acount during the calculation) the carbon 14 has inherent inaccuracy I don't

thing that the datation of all the human remains before the 800 B.C.. (for

instance the skeletons of Mycenaeans graves A OF 1500 b.c. ) have been wrongly

interpretate of 300 years, otherwise this should be valid also in others more

recent remainings which the datation is well known and confirmed by documents,

the as called radiocarbonius disater occurred several times in the world history

well known by the esperts which use adegate corrective tables.
But I'm not an expert of this matter, What I can tell you is that I believed more

in the experience and seriety of Prof. Korfmann and his international team which

have performed the last Troy excavation and datation (it is not true that there are

not enough layers, ruins, or findings in the darks age, for instance enought

layers and findings to justify the actual datations have been found in the troy

remainings, and I'm prety sure that the same thing is aplicable for others

escavation areas in Greece Anatolian Egypts etc..) but probably James was not

enought updated about those recent discovery.
There are a lot of unusual theories and relevant books (which sometimes sell more

than the official ones) about the historical events or datations or

archaeological mistery etc.. for instance the Vinci's book placed the Trojan war

around 2000 B.C. in the Norvegian areas and also this books seems apparently to

be plenty of evidencies or reasonable proof, as well as the ones relevant to

Atlantis continents about the Aliens visitors in the prehistoric times etc..
Even those books have been never denialed by the official academic comunity (to

confutate any of those books they need to spend all their times everyday).
The Academic comunity probably it is not very humil but generally the new theory

are taken into acount when those are really based on concrete elements and

brings verifiable proof.

Andrea Salimbeti

There have been many many attempts to debunk James' work. Almost all of them involve misinterpreting the evidence or deliberately misquoting James. I will believe James until someone gives me reason not to. I haven't seen it yet and many have tried. The above website answers most of the serious attempts to discredit him. Perhaps you should at least read that before responding. Your points are thoroughly addressed. For example, since the publication of CoD, Walter Burkert (1995) has independently confirmed, using genealogical material, that the Trojan War could have occurred as late as the 10th century. You also mention the Hittite record being independent of the Egyptian chronology. this is not true. Nor is any of the other major chronologies. If the Egyptian chronology is suspect. Then all is suspect.

Personally I don't think the chronology will ever be sorted until the 1503-year floating sequence in the dendrochronology record is pinned down.

Yes there have been also many attempts to debunk other unusual theories, depend from who try to debunk this theories and of course the reply (as always happed in this case) is accuratelly only against the debunk which could bring credibility to the theory itsefl and simply ignore the others which could scientifically demonstarte the incontistency of his works.
For instance to be sure we should ask to some carbon 14 laboratory or experts if the James assumption are justified. For what I know the abnormal absorbance of carbon which occurred several times during the centuries decrease the decadence of the radioactive Hysotops of carbon 14 so at least bring back the datation of the speciments not makes those more recent...This is always have been the point! some of the remainings datation of Egiptian Mummy or old burials in several part of the world, due to those anomalies could be older that believed not younger!
The same problem occurred about the Jesus Crist Shroud in my Town the carbon test shows that it comes from medieval time , but because it has been submitted to fire actions and carbon anomalies some other experts are confident that it really could be around 0 an 20 A.D.
Furthermore if the Mycenaean linear B tablet of 1200-1150 should be moved in the 900-850 those are to close to the arcaich Greek language evidencies, even if the linear B is basically a primitive form of Greek there are a lot of differencies (at the beginning was believed they were complete different language) to be justified in so few years.
The same is for the manufactures pottery style etc.. so radical changes need centuries of invasions change of cultures change of population changes of social life style etc..
I personal believe that in Greece and Anatolian there are enough evidencies coming from burials. pottery, weapons city remaings tec...(As for instance have been demonstate in Troy levels) about Dark age period which can not be placed in few years from the last Myceanean period (James datation 900-850 B.C. ) and the "whithout any doubts" dation period of 800 B.C.
I believed that the correct historical archaeological and scientifically memtality is NOT to believed in this theories untill those have shows clearly proof and elements to be accepted by the scientifical comunity, In this praticulary field I don't believed in lone genius who claim to be the only one to know the history reality (specially when their theories are published in the the commercial books) despite the works of hundred peoples and archaeologiacl teams around the world who normaly published their report only in the dedicated arcaheological magazine or University/museums publications whithout get any money.
For my mentality The one who claim something have to proove with concrete evidencies what he said..(for what I have read in the previous Mattew's post James arguments seems to be not so scientifically based and demonstrative)
Othervise everybody could claim something... and just said untill no one is able to debunk my theory this means that this is true! At this point I can claim that the Green Aliens coming from Venus are keept in a secret room of the Pentagon...(Probably I could also be able to find apparentelly logical demonstation and fonts) and because nodoby can so far proove the contrary this means that I need to be believed!?
I dont think so!

Andrea Salimbeti

Tis the height of arrogance and conceitedness to criticise a man's work without first reading it. When your new book comes out I will undoubtedly have criticisms but I will at least do you the courtesy of reading it first. If you are not willing to debate James' work on its merits then you are not welcome in this discussion. Whether he is right or not is irrelevant. He has presented a logical and coherent argument and to be dismissed without serious consideration is disgraceful. Not to mention narrow-minded and naive. The evidence is overwhelming that the current chronology is wrong. Whether James' new chronology is correct remains to be seen.

Apparently, the C-14 experts seem to be agreeing with James, at least in theory. The problem is that VERY few Carbon-14 dates have been taken, or none at all from many sites. Many of those that were taken came from charcoal, which gives dates which are too old. In many cases, even if other organic materials were used, the dates were ambiguous, or much younger than the preconceived ideas of what they should be. James shows that in some cases the excavators simply ignored the C-14 dates that they didn't like, or just quoted the ones that they did like! And finally, many of these analyses were done back in the 1960's or 1950's, when the technology was so crude that the dates are worthless. ALL the scientists agree on that! Most of the time, however, the archeologists don't even bother with C-14 dating, assuming that they don't need it. That is not a safe scientific attitude!

Well, I don't know the languages well enough, so I'd have to say that may be a point for more debate. You might ask Peter James, in fact! Apparently he and his co-authors are very open to discussing the finer points. But as I recall, the problem with the traditional Dark Age theory is that the Greeks simply gave up writing altogether for a couple centuries, and then suddenly adopted an alphabet which had been used 200 years before by someone else. That doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, either.

But most of the changes aren't radical at all! In most places, the "1200" finds are right below or even intermingled with those from 950, and often are clearly related, the later deriving directly from the older. The sites often show no sign of long abondonment. And remember, ALL the artifacts from places like that are dated only by cross-dating to the Egyptian chronology! Change that, and everything changes, like it or not.

Well, if you have the evidence, all kinds of folks would love to see it. James used quotations from archeologists all over the world to show that there simply was very little from the "Dark Ages" at all, and that much of it could easily be dated earlier or later. So they aren't his loony ideas, but the conclusions of the experts who actually did the digging. By the way, I think James' date for the end of the Mycenaean period would be about 950, at least that's the nice round number I've been using. And he doesn't make any wild claim that there was no downfall of the Bronze Age civilizations, nor that there was no population decline or general cultural slump or change. There certainly was!

If you look through the reviews and other parts of his website, you'll see that the scientific community is starting to agree with him, in growing numbers. The ones who object the loudest are those who have taken to name-calling or comparing with bona-fide nutcases like Von Daaniken. They haven't been able to come up with anything to debunk or disprove his ideas. So this might be a good time to read his book and join the parade! You don't want to be left behind, eh?

Well, we say "Peter James", but he is only the leader of a group of 4 or 5 authors who wrote the book together. They are all certified and respected experts in different regions and fields, and they consulted other experts as well. If they are to be thought less respectable because they simply published a book for the open market, then science becomes a hidden and secret knowledge more like religion, doesn't it? Their book is hardly aimed at the great unwashed masses, by the way! If their only goal was to stir up trouble and make money, they certainly would have come up with something more sensational than this. And don't most scholars and scientists hope to make a little money from some of their publications?

Heck, there's so much concrete in that book that it's hard to lift! And I hope my very brief and rather wild summary didn't give the impression that the book was not scientific! If you just read some of the reviews and the James team responses to them, I think you'll see that it gets pretty technical.

Ah, see here you lapse into the unworthy tactics of equating these scholars with people who see aliens! Simply because they propose a change in some dates which people have been tinkering with and changing for a hundred years? They present over 300 pages of evidence, some of it actually collected by their loudest opponents! It is all to obvious that these dates have been argued over and shoved around for a LONG time, so James and company are NOT the first guys to think of this. If you can't come up with scientific evidence of your own to argue against the James team theories and can only compare them to hysterical weirdos or conspiracy theorists, then it looks like you've lost the argument, eh?

Andrea, keep in mind that James is not screaming that everyone else is wrong and they have to do things his way. He's offering a solution to problems that have been around since modern archeology began, and it's a solution which can help EVERYONE! This is NOT "Ha, ha, you're WRONG and we're RIGHT!" It's a chance for everyone to be right at last! The benefits to Egyptology alone make this book a gold mine! It's a very scholarly and strongly scientific attempt to present a very rational and coherent theory. Why not read a little of it rather than just calling the guy a nut? He's being mature and scholarly, and so should you.

Khaire,

Matthew

First all mine were not speculative critics !! or even less arrogance !! and I don't think that all scientists and scholars that have concern about this theory are arrogants themselfs, mine were just considerations and reasonable suspects about a theory, that can be subtained also whitout have read the book, because based on Mattew's pretty esplicative summary.
You don't need to read the book "the man is never been on the moon " to let know your concern about this theory considering the facts that hundreds of books wrote by NASA scientist, experts, engineers astronauts etc.. seems to denied this theory!
Of course the Alien example is an exageration just to remember that the world if full of books about unusual theory (sometimes apparentelly well scientifically substained) that somertimes just because are unusual are very popular to the general audience.
Anyway if the James' theory is really based on concrete elements and prooved fatc, as already happens for other discoveries before this, it will be accepted by the scientific comunity and all the future arcaheological report will be updated accordingly and maybe old dated reperts will be retested again...could also happens that because of some abnormal assumpion of carbon 12 his comparative rapport with the radioactive isothops of carbon 14 will be high so some of those elements now dated 1200 or 1300 are actually older!!!
So far I don't have any doubs to continuing to reffering about the fonts with the actual datation I can't just said (on books or just talking in this forum or with other experts)... because of maybe valid (but still questionable and under examination) James' theory this late Mycenaean iron sword discovered in Tyrins actually dated 1150 B.C. I arbitrary decide to place it in 950 B.C so this can fill the gaps of the dark age Greek, and the graves and pottery now dated 1000-950 B.C. just can keep in this period because fit properly with the James theory even if as for manufacture as for location are cleary younger that the Thirins sword but older than others archaic manufacture.
Or better maybe I should call Prof. Korfmann and Lactaz and all the huge "Troy project" team which have worked the last 10 years on Hysarlik hill, which have performed the most recent discoveries and datations (some of those in 2004 not 50 years ago!) of the several layers of Troy cities and said :... please move the last period datation of Troy VIh from 1300 to 1000 and troyVIIa from 1200 to 850 because those datation are not in accordance with James' book...and please ignore all the dark age level of Troy VIIb2, b3, c1 etc.. and all the relevant manufactures pottery, weapons, amministartive seal... or even if clearly those have been found in much recent level than Troy VIh and VIIa just consider them from the same period (wich despite your datations all need to be compressed in 1000-900 B.C.) because James in his book said that basically no city levels and virtually no reperts, elements etc.. have been found between the last Mycenaean time and the beginning of geometric period!!


Mybe probably we will have the same problems with the late roman British dark age, so what we can said.. because there are no so many manufactures and many layers discovered from 400 to 600 A.D the best think is to move every date of 300 years so everything now fit properly?!!

Andrea Salimbeti

With your attitude the world will still be flat. I won't waste any more time with you. You will eventually die off like the others from the old school and the rest of us can then get some serious work done without being hampered. Looking forward to your new book. My review will be widely posted.

Well, I seem to be a little easier-going than Dan (though I do tend to cheer when he's being a hard-core about something!), and tried not to interpret your comments as arrogant. But you do seem to be ridiculing the whole issue rather than taking an objective look at it.

Certainly not all! But some definitely are...

Whoa, no! I'm just summarizing the merest outline of it, and adding my own commentary! And yeah, my commentary got a little wacky, I'll freely admit that--that's my own sense of humor getting out of control, as usual. Go to the book, or at least the website, don't just take my word for it.

Again, you are trying to discredit the authors by associating them with the lunatic fringe. That's not a respectable tactic. (It's what makes Dan mad at you, and I don't blame him!) And one DOES have to read this book to understand the amazing scope and detail of the information they've collected. In this case, it's actually those who support the traditional high chronology who sound like the wackos, while James and his team are the NASA scientists calmly piling up fact after fact.

Fair enough, but like I said, if they wanted to be sensationalist about something, they would have picked a topic a lot less obscure than this! There is no way this is all going to have ANY interest to the general public. It is aimed at the scientific historical community, and a very small slice of it at that.

That would be great! But it's VERY rare, as far as I know, for old books to be rewritten or revised due to things like this. They just fade away in popularity, or continue to be used for their raw data which is still applicable in some way. And sometimes people who don't know better continue to be led astray by them...

If so, I think you'll find that James will be the first to take a strong look at it all, and revise his theories. But it's not likely, since his theory makes sense of the archeological data, and even older dates would make for more problems than already exist.

Sorry, not sure I'm following what you're saying here. The only way an iron sword or pottery can be dated is stylistically, in association with other artifacts. Somewhere along the chain of associations, something has to be associated with a known historical person or place or event which can be given an absolute date. If it is found that the date assigned to that person, place, or event is incorrect, then the date of every artifact in that long chain of associations changes, too. NOTHING should be dated "arbitrarily"--that does more harm than good. And in very few cases is James discussing relative dates, except when the stratigraphy shows that an object that is supposed to be 200 years older than another is actually the same date, or younger.

Well, don't go putting words in James' mouth because of my poor summary. It's entirely possible that I have mis-remembered something, or exaggerated it. Read the book! I should like to know more about Troy--you clearly know more!--and certainly there's been a lot of work done there and in other places since James' book came out in 1991. But the fact remains that most artifacts are dated stylistically and their absolute dates come ONLY from Egypt. So your argument here could be circular. If a LOT more Carbon-14 or dendro dating has been done at Troy to clarify the stratigraphy, excellent! It would be terrific if any site could be given absolute dates independently of the Egyptian chronology. It can only help! It just seems to me that if there are clearly stratified occupation layers and artifacts at Troy that represent the centuries between the traditional dates of 1200 and 950, the stuff found there must be pretty much unique, since my understanding is that things like that aren't generally found on other sites. If the dates do get changed, the advantage is that no one will have to ignore anything any more! That's a better situation than we have now, where all kinds of information has to be kind of shoved out of sight because it messes up the traditional view. The Low Chronology should help the analysis of Troy immensely, and maybe even bring wonderful new conclusions about the "reality" behind the Trojan War stories. I'm looking forward to that!

That's also a silly thing to say, because it's a different situation entirely, and you know it.

Andrea, you really shouldn't treat this all as silliness or some kind of attack on reality. At worst, it's a powerful reminder that scholars should never get complacent and assume that things like precariously-constructed chronologies are solid facts. Because they clearly are not! If they were, James could never have gotten as far as he has. You know, if you change your mind and at least put a note in your upcoming books that many of the dates could be much lower, you are sure to be on the winning side. And your publisher and readers will be much more impressed than they would be if the low chronology wins and it looks like you got all your dates wrong, eh?

Khaire,

Matthew

If the James theory is wrong your world will be flat as well (everything already discovered and dated from 1200 to 950 flatted together in few years)
The main difference between us is that I follow the scientifically method: everyting need to be prooved and confirmed by international experts comunity (if this happen I will be glad to accept the James' theory) .
At the contrary you have already accepted his theory despite de facts that several recent archaeological reports and books, as credibles as the James' one, and other experts, as experts as James, seems have demonstate differents conclusion.
Even if we likes the history and we make archaeological research on books (which most of them are not so specifically accurate but only published for general audience) We are not in the condition to really understand if one theory is more credible respect to the others, others peoples have to give to us the concurrance to decide if the James theory are credible or not! this means do serious work!
Just believe in a general audience book because the theory sound good to you and seems to be enough credible it is not a serious works!
when his theory will be published in some university threatments, when his theory will be discussed and analized by internation team of expert in offical convencion (as always happen for all the new rivolutionary discovery!!) at that point we could be confident that this theory is right.
You are complaining about my exagerate examples or sarcasm, but to immage that the international archaeological and historical comunity is mainly compoused by old people who likes to reject the new theories is a tipical metropolitan leggend or silly complottistic theory (UFO style).
Just last years for examples have been generally accepted the comparison between the Ilios Greek name and the Hittite Wiluosa. that has been questinable for years waithing for much more archaeological evidencies, but as soon as the archaeologist and experts have had this new elements the theory has been presented in the international convenction published in officail report and than for the general audience in commercial books.
But of course everyone is free to believed in what he likes better.
If for you the James arguments are enough credible it is fine, maybe your knoldgment about archaeology matters and Carbon datation systems, and the others several radiometrical datations, about the strata geological/archaeological comparison the pottery style analisis etc.. are better than mine and better than the majority of the world wide experts ...good for you!
Or maybe I have just miss interpretate your brief comments and summary about the James theory, which at the end could be nothing else that what mostly of the actual archaeological experts and scholars said (and I agree with them) ...There is not a really dark age, the continuity of elements, pottery, weapons, city strata etc.. between the as call Late Mycenaean world and as call early proto geometrical periods, is now much more clear ..and it is what we want hopefully show to the general audience in some reconstructive plate of our future Concord book.
And you shouldn't said "..I don't want Waist more time" any kind of controversial discutions and confrontation about scientifical arguments it is never a ...waist of time..even if somethimes maybe exagerate or sarcastic examples or phrases are used!

Andrea