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Radiocarbon dating and the Naqada relative chronology

2014; Elsevier BV; Volume: 46; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.jas.2014.03.016

1095-9238

Michael Dee, David Wengrow, Andrew Shortland, Alice Stevenson, Fiona Brock, Christopher Bronk Ramsey,

Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

The Naqada relative chronology forms the main cultural framework for the Predynastic period of ancient Egypt.It was devised in the late nineteenth century by Flinders Petrie to facilitate understanding of the prehistoric origins of the Egyptian state.Petrie's approach served as the blueprint for similar systems across the world and formed the basis for the development of seriation.In this study, we test the reliability of the Naqada relative chronology as a dating tool against all the relevant radiocarbon information.The results show that the main blocks of the relative sequence do form a true chronology, but also indicate that the system is much less reliable at the level of individual phases.The nature of the discrepancies and the influence of the relative chronology on current understanding of Early Egypt are discussed.