ARTICLES | 2014
Mycenaean Messenia and the Kingdom of Pylos
Philadelphia
The olive-branch dating of the Santorini eruption
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 267-273
The massive eruption of the volcano beneath the island of Thera (Santorini) in the middle of the Aegean Sea provides a fundamental datum point in the history of the Late Bronze Age civilisations of the eastern Mediterranean.The olive branch chronology stands irrespective of tree-ring counting
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 274-277
Cherubini et al. question the reliability of identifying annual growth increments in olive trees, and therefore voice caution against the result of the wiggle-match of the four sections of a branch of an olive tree to the 14C calibration curve.Minoan Cushion Seals. Innovation in Form, Style, and Use in Bronze Age Glyptic.
Rome
Radiocarbon and the date of the Thera eruption
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 277-282
The criticism of the date of the olive tree branch from Thera offered by Cherubini et al (above) has to be fiilly supported.The Thera olive branch, Akrotiri (Thera) and Palaikastro (Crete): comparing radiocarbon results of the Santorini eruption
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 282-287
An olive branch is traditionally a symbol of peace, but not necessarily in the context of chronological problems in the Eastern Mediterranean region and the Near East during the second millennium BG. Cherubini et al. (above) strongly attack the radiocarbon dating by Friedrich et al (2006) of an ancient olive branch, buried by volcanic tephra during the Minoan Santorini eruption.The difficulties of dating olive wood
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 287-288
Olive wood is difficult to date for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that one cannot tell visually what is an annual growth increment (usually referred to as a 'ting') and what is a sub-annual growth fiush of which there may be any number in one growing season.Book review of Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction
Cambridge Archaeological Journal
Baumanova, Μ. 2014. Review of C. Knappett (ed.), Network Analysis in Archaeology: New Approaches to Regional Interaction (Oxford 2013), Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24:02 (June 2014), 312-313.
A disastrous date
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 288-290
Paolo Cherubini and colleagues have demonstrated convincingly that the identification of olive wood tree-rings from Santorini is 'practically impossible'.Book review of Mediterranean Islands, Fragile Communities and Persistent Landscapes: Antikythera in Long-term Perspective
Cambridge Archaeological Journal
Leppard, Τ.P., 2014. Review of A. Bevan & J. Conolly, Mediterranean Islands, Fragile Communities and Persistent Landscapes: Antikythera in Long-term Perspective (Cambridge 2013), Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24:02 (June 2014), 308-310.
The olive tree-ring problematic dating
Antiquity 88:339 (March 2014), 290-291
We are glad to see that our paper has stimulated a lively debate, and we acknowledge the appreciation of our work by Bietak, Kuniholm and MacGillivray as well as that of those who oppose our hypothesisBook review of Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos
Cambridge Archaeological Journal
Younger, J.C., 2014. Review of D. Nakassis, Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos (Leiden & Boston 2013), Cambridge Archaeological Journal 24:03 (October 2014), 564-566.