Reply #22: Pottery styles back then changed every 50-100 years

[starroute]

Before C14 dating, the main method of establishing chronologies was by tracing the subtle evolution of pottery styles and using them to establish statigraphies for various sites and regions. It proved possible to define 50-100 year chunks of history very clearly on the basis of pottery alone -- everywhere except during this one anomalous period.

For example, in Greece, the entire Late Bronze Age is broken down into roughly 75-year phases, up until Late Helladic IIIC, which is considered to start about 1200 BC and last until the emergence of the Geometric style about 900 BC. Archaeologists have attempted to insert a Submycenean (1075-25) and Proto-Geometric (1025-900) phase into the sequence, but neither of those is well-defined and both styles coexist with continuing LH IIIC.

It's the same in Italy, where imported LH IIIC ware is found throughout the 1200-900 period and is contemporary with poorly defined local cultures labeled Sub-Apennine and Proto-Villanovan. (Whenever archaeologists resort to "sub" and "proto," it's a clue that something doesn't fit.)

In central Europe, most cultural phases cover about a century. For example, Bronze Age B and C run from 1500-1300 and Bronze Age D from 1300-1200. But Hallstatt A and B cover a much longer span, from 1200-700. Then Hallstatt C and D revert to the earlier pattern, running from 700-500. In other words, Hallstatt A-B lasts about 500 years, where on the basis of the phases before and after it, you'd expect more like 200.

So every one of these areas (as well as others, like Sicily and Malta) has a strange chronological anomaly at exactly the same time. And it isn't sufficient to blame this on some sort of simultaneous cultural collapse, because Hallstatt A-B was flourishing, expanding, and technologically innovative.

In dealing with Egypt or Assyria, it's easy for archaeologists to be beguiled by king lists and other written records and think they've derived hard dates from them when they haven't. But in Europe, where there are no written records for the period, archaeology is entirely dependent on the testimony of the spade (and, to a lesser degree on C14 dating) -- and that testimony shows something is wrong.