{"id":489,"date":"2011-03-18T23:42:00","date_gmt":"2011-03-18T23:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ajaonline.org\/2011\/03\/18\/328\/"},"modified":"2024-08-13T03:46:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T03:46:40","slug":"328","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/forum-response\/328\/","title":{"rendered":"A Return to the Dark Ages? Reply to Thornton et al. 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A synthetic theory pointing out the central importance of metallurgy in the emergence of Bronze Age civilizations was recently published in the <i>AJA<\/i> (&ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ajaonline.org\/2009\/10\/01\/300\/\">From Metallurgy to Bronze Age Civilizations: The Synthetic Theory<\/a>,&rdquo; <em>AJA<\/em>&nbsp;113 [2009] 497&ndash;519). In reaction, six well-known authors (Christopher Thornton, Jonathan Golden, David Killick, Vincent Pigott, Thilo Rehren, and Benjamin Roberts) have written a rebuttal devoted mainly to defending the current localizationist paradigm challenged by the synthetic theory. In this reply, the epistemological nature of localizationism and its position regarding scientific theories is considered first, then three critical points underlying the synthetic theory are discussed: (1) the external mode of crucible heating, (2) the incompatibility of crucible and furnace smelting, and (3) the prevalence of southern Canaan in the emergence of furnace metallurgy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A synthetic theory pointing out the central importance of metallurgy in the emergence of Bronze Age civilizations was recently published in the AJA (&ldquo;From Metallurgy to Bronze Age Civilizations: The Synthetic Theory,&rdquo; AJA&nbsp;113 [2009] 497&ndash;519). In reaction, six well-known authors (Christopher Thornton, Jonathan Golden, David Killick, Vincent Pigott, Thilo Rehren, and Benjamin Roberts) have written [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":488,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[924],"tags":[3,21,27,36],"issues":[123],"region":[807],"class_list":["post-489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-forum-response","tag-bronzeage","tag-archaeologicalscience","tag-prehistory","tag-metallurgymetalworking","issues-123","region-neareast"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Return to the Dark Ages? Reply to Thornton et al. 2010 | April 2010 (114.2) | American Journal of Archaeology<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/forum-response\/328\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Return to the Dark Ages? Reply to Thornton et al. 2010 | April 2010 (114.2) | American Journal of Archaeology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A synthetic theory pointing out the central importance of metallurgy in the emergence of Bronze Age civilizations was recently published in the AJA (&ldquo;From Metallurgy to Bronze Age Civilizations: The Synthetic Theory,&rdquo; AJA&nbsp;113 [2009] 497&ndash;519). In reaction, six well-known authors (Christopher Thornton, Jonathan Golden, David Killick, Vincent Pigott, Thilo Rehren, and Benjamin Roberts) have written [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/forum-response\/328\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Journal of Archaeology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aja.journal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-03-18T23:42:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-08-13T03:46:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/Amzallag_Fig03_large.gif\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"373\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"website\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"website\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/forum-response\/328\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/forum-response\/328\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"website\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ajaonline.org\/#\/schema\/person\/f93c211048ad920b94c1e8abdb2053f0\"},\"headline\":\"A Return to the Dark Ages? 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