The CRANE (Computational Research on the Ancient Near East) Project was a dozen-year international and interdisciplinary research project based at the University of Toronto (PI Prof. Timothy Harrison) that aimed to provide a platform for integration and analysis of archaeological data in the ancient Near East, beginning with the Orontes Watershed of southeast Turkey and northwest Syria. These data were in turn used to model and visualize how human communities developed in the region and how they interacted with the natural environment. Cornell Lab members Sturt Manning and former lab member Brita Lorentzen worked on the CRANE Chronology Project as part of the overall CRANE initiative.

The aim of the CRANE Chronology Project (directed by Sturt Manning) was to create a robust and high-resolution absolute timescale for the Orontes Watershed that spans the Bronze and Iron Ages (ca. 3500-500 BC). This timescale is being built from data from dendrochronological and ¹⁴C wiggle-matching on wood charcoal, ¹⁴C dates of short-lived organic remains (e.g., seeds and twigs), and detailed archaeological data (e.g., ceramics, stratigraphy, and architecture), which are integrated together into Bayesian chronological models. This work requires accurate wood species identification and anatomical analysis of wood charcoal remains, which Brita Lorentzen developed and carried out. We are also conducting stable isotope analysis of selected charcoal samples to provide paleoenvironmental data for the project. Our work thus far has concentrated on samples and data from the sites of Tell Tayinat and Zincirli in southeastern Turkey. Publications include Manning et al. 2020 and Hermann et al. 2023.

Bayesian chronological model for Phases 2-6 at Tell Tayinat