Bad Timing: Problems with chronologies and narratives by numbers in Mediterranean prehistory
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-02-27

Big picture research, successfully carried out in the Mediterranean through the framework of connectivity (Horden and Purcell 2000; Broodbank 2013), hinges on understanding broad historical narrative, the ‘absolute’ chronology of events and degrees of contemporaneity. Unfortunately, work on the chronology of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Mediterranean is beset with problems – long-term, tied to the nature of the archaeological evidence, inherent in the practices used to collect and analyse data, and, perhaps most disappointingly, the product of zealous self-assurance and disciplinary in-fighting regarding interpretation. During this period, the region has more than one ‘High vs. Low Chronology’ debate. This paper will address the separation of ‘time-as-experience’ and ‘time-as-narrative’ approaches which impact on how we reconcile archaeological evidence at many different scales. The ‘certainties’ offered by techniques including Radiocarbon dating and Bayesian analysis will be discussed in the context of archaeologists’ own subjectivity and stratigraphic methodology. There is no ‘absolute’ chronology; there is only time relative to its material perception and the circumstances of its measuring. Despite this, narratives by numbers offer an essential counter to our discipline’s blind adherence to labels of time that have outgrown their original efficacy.  

Emily Wright (University of Cambridge)