Social and technological changes in the ceramic production of the Northern Levant during the LBA/IA transition: New evidence about the Sea People issue through archaeometry

The transition from the Late Bronze Age (LBA) to the Iron Age (IA) in the Levant is marked by the collapse of the Egyptian and Hittite empires, which dominated the political scene of the 14th-13th century BCE. The role of the Sea People, groups of migrants who were defeated by the Egyptian king Ramses III around 1175 BCE, is the focal point concerning this period. After the collapse of the LBA empires, written sources disappeared, and the archaeologists' primary tool to define cultural processes is to analyze the evolution of pottery. Because of this, studies about the distribution of Aegeanizing ceramic production, considered here to have derived from the Sea People culture, can provide data that supports the impact of Iron Age events on local cultural development. The petrographic, mineralogical, and chemical analysis of LBA-IA I potteries from the site of Tell Afis have allowed us to identify the existence of an Aegeanizing production from the North Syrian coast. These finds and coeval local common and painted ware productions not only exhibit different compositional and stylistic features, but also singular technological traditions.