Improvements in Archaeomagnetic Dating in Western Europe from the Late Bronze to the Late Iron Ages: An Alternative to the Problem of the Hallstattian Radiocarbon Plateau
Abstract
We present a new curve of the directional secular variation of the geomagnetic field in Western Europe between 1500 bce and 200 ce. Its computation relies on a Bayesian framework. The fast secular variation during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages makes archaeomagnetic dating efficient with a respective precision of 150–200 and 60–100 years during these periods. The Bayesian method also provides posterior date distributions that refine the dating of reference data, especially during the period of the Hallstattian radiocarbon plateau. Archaeomagnetism becomes a valuable alternative to radiocarbon and will help to improve the archaeological chronologies.
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Large wiggles and plateaus in the 14C calibration curve, such as the Hallstatt Plateau during 770~420 BC, mean that radiocarbon samples from the Iron Age period produce multiple dating solutions and very wide calibrated ranges.
“Besides the archaeological difficulties, large wiggles and plateaus in the 14C calibration curve (e.g., the “Hallstatt Plateau” during 770~420 BC) mean that radiocarbon samples from the Iron Age period produce multiple dating solutions and very wide calibrated ranges (5).”
From Radiocarbon chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem reveals calibration offsets and architectural developments (2024) · cites this paper as [5]
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A geomagnetic field model for the Holocene based on archaeomagnetic and lava flow data
Pavón-Carrasco, F. J., Osete, M. L., Torta, J. M., & De Santis, A. (2014) · Earth and Planetary Science Letters · doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2013.11.046 · Cited by 384 · see citing works
The impact of Bayesian chronologies on the British Iron Age
Hamilton, W. D., Haselgrove, C., & Gosden, C. (2015) · World Archaeology · doi:10.1080/00438243.2015.1053976 · Cited by 62 · see citing works
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Shaar, R., Hassul, E., Raphael, K., Ebert, Y., Segal, Y., Eden, I., Vaknin, Y., Marco, S., Nowaczyk, N. R., Chauvin, A., et al. (2018) · Frontiers in Earth Science · doi:10.3389/feart.2018.00164 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Vaknin, Y., Shaar, R., Gadot, Y., Shalev, Y., Lipschits, O., & Ben-Yosef, E. (2020) · PLOS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0237029 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Regev, J., Gadot, Y., Uziel, J., Chalaf, O., Shalev, Y., Roth, H., Shalom, N., Szanton, N., Bocher, E., Pearson, C. L., et al. (2024) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2321024121 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
- Authors
- Hervé, G., & Lanos, P.
- Affiliations
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Hervé, G.
- Venue
- Archaeometry
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2017-10-26
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 870-883
- ISSN
- 0003-813X (ISSN-L)
- 1475-4754
- OpenAlex
- W2902510204
- Cited by
- 41
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 1.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Archaeometry (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (HE7343/1‐1)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies
- Keywords
- archaeomagnetic dating, geomagnetic secular variation, Late Bronze Age, Early Iron Age, Western Europe, Bayesian dating, archaeological chronology, geomagnetic field direction
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Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
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