Bioarchaeological Analysis of Cultural Transition in the Southern Levant Using Dental Nonmetric Traits

To many Near Eastern archaeologists, the Late Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition in the southern Levant indicates the emergence of a new ethnic- ity. The question remains, however, whether changes in the material culture are the result of an invasion of for- eigners, or instead arose from shifting cultural and tech- nical practices by indigenous peoples. This study utilized dental morphological traits to assess phenetic relation- ships between the Late Bronze Age site of Dothan (1500 - 1100 BC) and the Iron Age II site of Lachish (Tell ed- Duweir, 701 BC). Information on 30 dental crown and root traits was collected for 4,412 teeth, representing 392 in- dividuals from Lachish and a minimum of 121 individuals from Dothan, using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System. Seventeen traits from Dothan and Lachish were compared with dentitions from a Byzantine Jerusalem monastery, Iron Age Italy, a Natufian group (early agrarians from the Levant), and a Middle Kingdom Egyptian site using C.A.B. Smith's mean measure of di- vergence statistic. The findings suggest that there are more similarities between Dothan and Lachish than ei- ther of them and other sites. This analysis indicates that the material culture changes were not the result of a foreign invasion. Rather, the Iron Age people of the south- ern Levant were related to their Bronze Age predecessors. Am J Phys Anthropol 128:466 - 476, 2005. © 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc.