Ricerc@Sapienza

The comparison of two sites of Tell es-Sultan and Tall al-Ḥammām, facing each other on the
opposite sides of the Jordan, needs a reliable cultural and chronological correlation. Something which
has been pursued by archaeologists with different methods and approaches: synchronization in time
and culture is never easy. This leads to the issue of relative and absolute chronology. A recent reassessment
of Early Bronze Age absolute chronology of Syria-Palestine, stemmed from a reexamination
of available radiocarbon datings and from stratigraphic inter-sites correlations, poses
more problems than it solves. There is a basic problem of method: to keep stratigraphy, periodization,
absolute dating and cultural interpretation separated. It often happens that the latter is confused with
periodization. This has deeply-rooted reasons, but it is time for archaeology to introduce a tool to
distinguish periods - that are time quantities - from cultural horizons; this tool is here defined as
“cultural genome”. The sequence of Tell es-Sultan, for its completeness, spatial and chronological
extension and rate of publication, can be used as a reference for the whole Early Bronze Age in
Southern Levant. This paper suggests how to use it.