Abstract
In order to construct meaningful site chronologies, Near Eastern archaeologists have traditionally relied on relative dating techniques, such as ceramic seriation and textual/glyptic evidence. The introduction of radiocarbon dating provided archaeologists with an absolute dating tool to address age discrepancies. However, many sites do not contain sufficient or suitable materials for radiocarbon analysis, requiring the need for an alternative absolute dating tool. Archaeomagnetic dating provides such an alternative. Excavations at Tell Mozan (Bronze-Age Urkesh) in northeastern Syria have revealed evidence for nearly 5000 years of occupation in strata containing a variety of diagnostic ceramic artifacts, which form the basis for a well-established relative site chronology. In order to test the agreement between seriation ages and paleomagnetic-derived ages, archaeointensity experiments were conducted on pottery specimens from six well-stratified occupational layers spanning more than a thousand years of the site's primary occupation. Archaeointensity was determined using the IZZI paleointensity protocol of Tauxe and Staudigel (2004), and all estimates were corrected for remanence anisotropy and cooling rate effects, resulting in an 88% success rate (n=51). The magnetic mineral assemblage of each sample was also characterized using a comprehensive suite of rock magnetic techniques. Final results were compared with previous archaeointensity studies in the region, and 70% of the magnetically-derived ages agree with the archaeologically-derived dates within a 1sigma confidence interval, while 76% agreed within 2sigma . Artifacts showing disagreement with the seriation chronology are most likely objects in use long after their original firing or the result of contamination of strata from the re-use of previous occupational materials in construction. One specimen appears to confirm the presence of a geomagnetic spike around 1000 BCE previously identified in Syria, Israel, Crete, and Turkey. The results of this study contribute to an increasingly dense geomagnetic intensity record for the period between 2300 and 1000 BCE in the northern Syro-Mesopotamian region.