A reassessment of the debate on Late Minoan 1 and interlinked chronologies through radiocarbon and comparative analysis

Abstract

The absolute chronology of the Late Minoan I A period and in particular the date of the Minoan eruption at Santorini is the object of a debate which is ongoing since the 1970's, and lead many scholars to speak of a "conflict" between archaeological and Radiocarbon dating. This study presents a collation of all the main arguments for the archaeological chronology in the bibliography, and a reanalysis of the radiocarbon datasets from Akrotiri on Santorini, Tell el Dab'a in Egypt and other relevant sites for the interlinked chronology. In particular, a critic approach to the accuracy of Bayesian chronology applied so far and a new possible approach to radiocarbon interpretation based on notions from Quantum mathematics are suggested. In addition, an open source package to perform the different analyses has been developed and uploaded on-line at the site http://c14.bpinfo.org