title: The Sea Peoples, from cuneiform tablets to carbon dating.
abstract: The 13(th) century BC witnessed the zenith of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean civilizations which declined at the end of the Bronze Age, ∼3200 years ago. Weakening of this ancient flourishing Mediterranean world shifted the political and economic centres of gravity away from the Levant towards Classical Greece and Rome, and led, in the long term, to the emergence of the modern western civilizations. Textual evidence from cuneiform tablets and Egyptian reliefs from the New Kingdom relate that seafaring tribes, the Sea Peoples, were the final catalyst that put the fall of cities and states in motion. However, the lack of a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology for the Sea People event has led to a floating historical chronology derived from a variety of sources spanning dispersed areas. Here, we report a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology with anchor points in ancient epigraphic-literary sources, Hittite-Levantine-Egyptian kings and astronomical observations to precisely date the Sea People event. By confronting historical and science-based archaeology, we establish an absolute age range of 1192-1190 BC for terminal destructions and cultural collapse in the northern Levant. This radiocarbon-based archaeology has far-reaching implications for the wider Mediterranean, where an elaborate network of international relations and commercial activities are intertwined with the history of civilizations.
authors.affiliation: EcoLab (Laboratoire d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement), Université Paul Sabatier-Toulouse 3, Toulouse, France. kaniewsk@cict.fr
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kaniewski
authors.forename: Elise
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Van Campo
authors.forename: Karel
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van Lerberghe
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Boiy
authors.forename: Klaas
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vansteenhuyse
authors.forename: Greta
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jans
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nys
authors.forename: Harvey
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: Christophe
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Morhange
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Otto
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bretschneider
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D044382:Population Groups; D055110:Radiometric Dating / Q000379:methods*; D014956:Writing