Radiocarbon Evidence from Tell Abu en-Ni'aj and Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan, and Its Implications for Bronze Age Levantine and Egyptian Chronologies

Abstract

Archaeological interpretation of the Levantine Bronze Age depends on a regional chronology based on material culture and settlement dynamics with presumed linkages to Egyptian political history. We discuss current radiocarbon sequences from Tell Abu en-Ni‘aj and Tell el-Hayyat in the northern Jordan Valley, Jordan that expand the traditional time range of the Early Bronze IV Period, contract the range of the Middle Bronze Age, and thereby call into question the chronological correlations and explanatory value of previously assumed linkages to the dynastic history of Egypt.