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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dendrochronology | 4/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:55:31.464391+00:00 | kb-cron |
The Post Track and Sweet Track, ancient timber trackways in the Somerset levels, England, have been dated to 3838 BC and 3807 BC. Navan Fort where in Prehistoric Ireland a large structure was built with more than two hundred posts. The central oak post was felled in 95 BC. The Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts. While the house had long been claimed to have been built c. 1640 (and being the oldest wood-framed house in North America), core samples of wood taken from a summer beam confirmed the wood was from an oak tree felled in 1637–8, as wood was not seasoned before use in building at that time in New England. An additional sample from another beam yielded a date of 1641, thus confirming the house had been constructed starting in 1638 and finished sometime after 1641 . The burial chamber of Gorm the Old, who died c. 958, was constructed from wood of timbers felled in 958. Veliky Novgorod, where, between the tenth and the fifteenth century, numerous consecutive layers of wooden log pavement have been placed over the accumulating dirt. The Neolithic well with linings made of oak wood, found near Ostrov, Czech Republic, have been dated to 5,482-5,243 BC.
== Measurement platforms, software, and data formats == There are many different file formats used to store tree ring width data. Effort for standardisation was made with the development of TRiDaS. Further development led to the database software Tellervo, which is based on the new standard format whilst being able to import lots of different data formats. The desktop application can be attached to measurement devices and works with the database server that is installed separately.
== Continuous sequence == Bard et al write in 2023: "The oldest tree-ring series are known as floating since, while their constituent rings can be counted to create a relative internal chronology, they cannot be dendro-matched with the main Holocene absolute chronology. However, 14C analyses performed at high resolution on overlapped absolute and floating tree-rings series enable one to link them almost absolutely and hence to extend the calibration on annual tree rings until ≈13 900 cal yr BP." Some of the longest tree-ring timelines, especially those extending earlier than about 4000 BC, are joined by comparing how similar the ring patterns look instead of by directly overlapping pieces of wood from different trees. In those sections only a few samples match, so the connection is less certain.
== Related chronologies ==
Herbchronology is the analysis of annual growth rings (or simply annual rings) in the secondary root xylem of perennial herbaceous plants. Similar seasonal patterns also occur in ice cores and in varves (layers of sediment deposition in a lake, river, or sea bed). The deposition pattern in the core will vary for a frozen-over lake versus an ice-free lake, and with the fineness of the sediment. Sclerochronology is the study of algae deposits. Some columnar cacti also exhibit similar seasonal patterns in the isotopes of carbon and oxygen in their spines (acanthochronology). These are used for dating in a manner similar to dendrochronology, and such techniques are used in combination with dendrochronology, to plug gaps and to extend the range of the seasonal data available to archaeologists and paleoclimatologists. A similar technique is used to estimate the age of fish stocks through the analysis of growth rings in the otolith bones.
== See also ==
Dendrology International Tree-Ring Data Bank Post excavation Timeline of dendrochronology timestamp events
== References ==
== External links ==
Nottingham Tree-Ring Dating Laboratory Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory Dendrochronology and Art History of Painted Ceilings (Historic Environment Scotland, 2017). Video & commentary on medullary rays, heart wood, and tree rings. Video & commentary on Tree Rings – Formation and Purpose Bibliography of Dendrochronology Multilingual Glossary of Dendrochronology Digital Collaboratory for Cultural Dendrochronology (DCCD) International Tree-Ring Data Bank Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research University of Arizona "Tree Ring Science", the academic site of Prof. Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, Department of Geography, The University of Tennessee, and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Science Briand, Christopher H.; Brazer, Susan E.; Harter-Dennis, Jeannine M. (December 2006). "Tree Rings and the Aging of Trees: A Controversy in 19th Century America". Tree-Ring Research. 62 (2): 51–65. doi:10.3959/1536-1098-62.2.51. hdl:10150/262645. S2CID 162884050.