ABSTRACT
Radiocarbon dating plays a key role in (pre)historic research, because it provides a scientific yardstick (quite often the only objective) for the measurement of time. This yardstick is independent of cultural deliberations and enables chronological comparisons, for example, of different areas at an excavation site, or between sites and regions. This is essential for proper interpretation of archaeological layers and association with other data (van der Plicht and Bruins 2001). Our 14C Iron Age chronology established for Tel Reh ov, Israel, unambiguously favors a ‘high chronology’ (Bruins, van der Plicht, and Mazar 2003a, 2003b). However, our findings are contested by Finkelstein and Piasetzky (2003; Chapter 16, this volume). It is of crucial importance to be aware of perceived or real quality problems of dating results. The present Iron Age chronology discussion takes place at the limits of resolution of the 14C method, as issues need to be resolved with a temporal resolution well within a century. Here even small errors may have important consequences. Mistakes can be made by the 14C laboratory (methodology and accuracy), and/or in the field (sampling and association). In this paper we discuss the 14C dates from Tel Reh ov in terms of quality control, as measured by the two Groningen radiocarbon laboratories: conventional by means of Proportional Gas Counting (PGC) and AMS. This is necessary in order to evaluate the coherence and robustness of our radiocarbon series, composed of 64 dates, based on two separate measurement systems (for all these dates, refer to the tables in Mazar et al. [Chapter 13, this volume]). Our dates are contested by proponents of the ‘low chronology’ theory. They refer to other 14C dates, which are comparatively younger than the Groningen series, as far as Tel Reh ov is concerned (Bruins, van der Plicht, and Mazar 2003b, 2004).
