Geomagnetic field intensity behavior in the Middle East between ∼3000 BC and ∼1500 BC

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Gallet, Yves, Le Goff, Maxime, Genevey, Agnès, Margueron, Jean, Matthiae, Paolo
• Other Authors: Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Université de La Réunion (UR)-Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPG Paris)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Centre de recherche et de restauration des musées de France (C2RMF), Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication (MCC)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL), Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell'Antichità, Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza" = Sapienza University Rome (UNIROMA)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2008
• Subjects: [SDU.STU.GP]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Geophysics [physics.geo-ph]; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://insu.hal.science/insu-01863454; https://insu.hal.science/insu-01863454/document; https://insu.hal.science/insu-01863454/file/Gallet_et_al-2008-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL031991

International audience An archeointensity study was carried out on 14 sites of Syrian baked clay artifacts, archeologically dated between ∼2500 BC and ∼1600 BC. Using an experimental protocol involving high‐temperature magnetization measurements, well‐defined mean intensity values were derived for 13 different sites with three to nine results obtained at the fragment level per site. Results of similar ages are coherent and the new data set is in good agreement with previous archeointensity results obtained from the same region. All together these data allow one to refine the evolution of the geomagnetic field intensity in the Middle East during the third and the second millennium BC. In particular, they show the occurrence of three periods of rather sharp intensity increase at ∼2600 BC, ∼2200 BC and ∼1600 BC possibly at the times of climatic cooling in the eastern North Atlantic, further suggesting a connection between the Earth's magnetic field and multi‐decadal climatic events.