Assiros: Stratigraphy and Chronology

(updated 090409)

The table below was first prepared on the basis of the conventionally accepted chronology for the Mycenaean and Protogeometric periods. Since then results from Dendrochronology and Dendrochronologically related 14C dates for timbers from  construction Phases 9, 6, 3 and 2 as well as 14C dates for seeds from the destruction of the Phase 9 granaries, require a reassessment of many of these dates. These reassessments are indicated in red in the table. These new scientifically-derived absolute dates also suggest that the dates conventionally used for the successive styles of Mycenaean (LH IIIA2 - LH IIIC) and Protogeometric pottery need re-evaluation

The felling dates of timbers from the Phase 3 destruction show that the construction of the Phase 3 buildings must be set around 1080 BC while felling dates from the Phase 2 destruction show that the construction of the Phase 2 buildings must be set around 1070 BC, only ten years later. The Phase 3 destruction must therefore predate 1070 BC. The fragments of a PG amphora in the Phase 3 destruction level below the Phase 2 floor must come from a vessel manufactured before this date. Since they imitate the Attic PG style, their presence indicates that the start date of Protogeometric from Attica and indeed from the whole of southern Greece must be set before 1070 BC, perhaps by as many as fifty years.  A full report on the Phase 3 and 2 dates has already been published in AEMTH for 2003 (pdf here). See also OLD TREES, NEW DATES and the end of Mycenaean civilization

The felling dates of timbers from the Phase 6 destruction have been determined at c 1270 BC. Phase 6 is a remodelling of the previous Phase 7 and it may reasonably be presumed that the timbers date the construction of Phase 7 rather than that of Phase 6. Since the construction of the Phase 7 buildings saw major changes in the layout of the settlement and probably in the social organisation of the community, it is very unlikely that the timbers originate in the construction of any earlier phase. Since Mycenaean pottery of LH IIIC style, imitating that found in southern Greece, first appears in the use levels of Phase 7, there is a very strong probability that the first appearance of the style in southern Greece should be dated much earlier than conventionally, at c 1270 BC rather than c 1200 BC. See also OLD TREES, NEW DATES and the trojan war

The felling dates for the timbers from the Phase 9 destruction presumably date the construction of the granaries of that Phase and have been determined to be c 1360. They give, however, no information about the duration of that Phase before the granaries were destroyed by fire. 14C determinations of a series of samples of seeds, which can only have been harvested very shortly before the fire, give a date of either c 1360 BC or c 1310 BC depending on the correspondance with the calibration curve. This destruction level contained fragments of Mycenaean pottery of LH IIIA2 style or of the beginning of the LH IIIB style which would normally be dated around 1300 BC. If the later of the two Assiros dates is accepted, it would fit with this 'conventional' date but would require the LH IIIB period to be compressed to no more more than 50 years before the start date of LH IIIC indicated by the Phase 6 dates (above). The earlier of the two dates conflicts with the 'conventional' chronology but would ease the problems caused by raising the start of LH I and Late Minoan IIA by around 100 years on the basis of the absolute dates proposed for the Thera eruption in the southern Aegean.

'Conventional' dates in this table are based on pottery imported from Southern Greece - Mycenaean (LH), Protogeometric (PG) or Geometric (LG) as set out in the discussion in AEMTH 10, 447-449.

Tabulation of Mycenaean and Assiros dates

The Dark Ages in Northern Greece

Back to introduction

Index to Assiros Pages