Comment on 'AMS radiocarbon dates from the Predynastic Egyptian Cemetery, N7000, at Naga-ed-Dêr' by S.H. Savage.

Millard, A.; Wilkinson, T.

Abstract

Savage (JAS 25 235-249) has recently published an analysis of a corpus of radiocarbon dates from Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egyptian contexts. He has assigned the calibrated dates to phases and sub- phases, and he proposes these as the components of a refined radiocarbon chronology for Predynastic Egypt. Unfortunately his analysis of both the new dates from Cemetery N7000 at Naga-ed-D�r and other dates is methodologically flawed, deriving durations for phases from 95.4% confidence limit ranges of dates for single events. In addition the seriation data for Naga-ed-D�r presented is inconsistent with the claims in the text.. The Predynastic chronology proposed is also inconsistent with the archaeological and historical evidence for the order of some of the contexts used. This brief comment is designed to draw readers' attention to the unreliability of the analysis, and prevent the derived age ranges from entering the literature as accepted dates.

Citation

Millard, A., & Wilkinson, T. (1999). Comment on 'AMS radiocarbon dates from the Predynastic Egyptian Cemetery, N7000, at Naga-ed-Dêr' by S.H. Savage. Journal of Archaeological Science, 26, 339-341. https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.1999.0414

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 1999-06
• Journal: Journal of archaeological science, reports.
• Print ISSN: 0305-4403
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 26
• Pages: 339-341
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/jasc.1999.0414