Abstract
Vast burial fields, some with hundreds of burials, categorize the southern Levant’s Intermediate Bronze Age period (IBA). This phenomenon contrasts with a limited number of burials found from the preceding Early Bronze III period. This paper presents the first radiocarbon dating research of sampled bones from shaft tombs from five IBA burial sites across Israel: Yehud, Jebel Qaaqir, Sheikh-Danon, Hazorea, and Kefar-Veradim. Prescreening methods, including Fourier transform infrared analysis, were applied to identify best-preserved collagen in archaeological bones for radiocarbon dating. Overall, the measured date ranges cover the IBA timeline, supporting the observation that the IBA signature shaft tombs are a fundamental tradition of the IBA culture, at least in Israel. A single IBA shaft tomb at Jebel Qaaqir which contained remains of multiple humans, supplied different dates for various people, spanning over a few hundred years. These results suggest a tribal or family-oriented IBA community with a long-lasting tradition reflected in centuries of collective burial practices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 969-987 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Radiocarbon |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 22 Aug 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Oct 2022 |
Funding
The Exilarch Foundation supported the Radiocarbon research for the Dangoor Research Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (D-REAMS) Laboratory. We wish to thank the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science and George Schwartzman Fund for funding support to R.L., laboratory, and material analysis. E.B. is the incumbent of the Dangoor Professorial Chair of Archaeological Sciences at the Weizmann Institute of Science.