The ASPRO chronology is a nine-period dating system of the ancient
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
used by the
Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée for
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
sites aged between 14,000 and 5,700
BP.
First published in 1994, ASPRO stands for the "Atlas des sites du Proche-Orient" (Atlas of Near East archaeological sites), a French publication pioneered by
Francis Hours and developed by other scholars such as
Olivier Aurenche.
The periods,
cultures, features and date ranges of the original ASPRO chronology are shown below:
In 2001, the institute revised the chronology of the first six periods based on newer carbon data and calibration curves.
In Period 3 an early and late phase could be distinguished, but Periods 4 and 5 were merged. Overall they found more overlap in time between different cultural phases between different sites.
See also
*
Ancient Near East
The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...
*
Neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several pa ...
References
External links
Website of MOM
{{Chronology
1994 introductions
Ancient Near East
Neolithic
Chronology