Figure - available from: Canadian Journal of Forest Research
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A simplified illustration of tree-ring cross-dating. (a) Visual inspection of ring features among multiple radii and synchronization of their patterns of wide and narrow rings, (b) analysis between the time series of tree-ring widths plotted for comparison, and (c) a composite tree-ring chronology containing ring-width series from living trees with a known sampling year and from dead wood materials dated against the master chronology representing the mean (mx) of the sample series
Source publication
Cross-dating is considered one of the most important principles of dendrochronology. The first known cross-dating attempts, conducted between the years 1737 and 1783 by independent researchers in France, Germany, and Sweden, were related to the identification of growth rings believed to have formed during the harsh winter of 1708–1709. In this pape...
Citations
... In addition, dendroclimatic comparisons with temperature and precipitation records are extended in this study over the 1910-2019 period, for an improved understanding of climatic signals. Third, it is also noteworthy that one of the earliest dendrochronological/dendroclimatic investigations in Europe was carried out in Turku, conducted by Johan Leche during the 1750s (Norrgård and Helama, 2021). Since then, there have not been intensive tree-ring studies focusing on trees of Turku or the forests surrounding the city. ...
Archaeological and living tree data were used to construct tree-ring chronologies over the medieval (AD 1183–1430) and recent (AD 1812–2020) periods in Turku, which is historically an important population centre in Southwest Finland and the country. Comparisons between the two tree-ring assemblages, and between the previously built chronologies from the Åland (historical timber) and Tavastia (lacustrine subfossils and living trees) sites, provided ways of understanding the growth patterns and their linkages to climatic, environmental, and edaphic factors. Tree growth in and around Turku was affected by warm-season precipitation and winter temperature. Similar relationships were previously evident also in the Åland tree rings, whereas the data from a wetter Tavastia site did not exhibit similar precipitation signal. The site conditions influence also the correlations which are higher between Turku and Åland than between Turku and Tavastia chronologies. Construction of long continuous chronology is impaired by human-related activities, the Great Fire of Turku in 1827 and logging, which have diminished the availability of dead and living-tree materials, respectively. These conditions lead to hardships of filling the gap between the medieval and recent periods and updating the archaeological datasets with compatible living-tree data, which are both demonstrated by our results.
... Two papers in the area of forest ecology can be found in this Special Issue. Norrgård and Helama (2021) present the fascinating history of Johan Leche's (1704-1764) pioneering studies in dendrochronology. Leche paired detailed climatic data with analysis of tree ring series and cross-dating to challenge the common belief of the timethat narrow rings were the result of harsh wintersand demonstrated the important influence of summer temperature and wetness. ...
The concept of dendrochronology is simple: the annual growth increments visible in the wood of many tree species – tree rings – provide a key sequential record of time: each individual ring encompasses the beginning through the end of the annual growing season for that species in a particular area. This chapter focuses on dendrochronology in archaeology. It reviews principles and methods, noting especially recent developments, and highlights some of the new and emerging topics in dendroarchaeology. Wood or charcoal samples for dendroarchaeological analysis can be collected in a variety of ways depending on the context and sample type. The aim is the maximum information possible for the transverse section of the timber of interest. The process of securely placing, that is correlating, one series of annual tree‐ring observations or measurements versus another is referred to as ‘crossdating’.
This aimed to species identification and tree-ring dating of wooden elements used in the Myeongjeong-gate of the Changgyeong-palace, Seoul, Korea. Of the 79 wooden elements evaluated, 78 were confirmed to be hard pines and one belonged to Abies spp.. Cores of the wooden elements were collected using a drill for tree-ring dating, and ring-width plots of individual samples were constructed using the TSAP software. The tree-ring dating results for the outermost ring of 58 hard pine wooden elements revealed the following felling dates: early spring of 1604-late fall of 1615, late fall of 1706-early spring of 1707, and late fall of 1828-late fall of 1834. The obtained felling dates of the 1600s and 1800s were found to be consistent with those in the construction and repair records of the Annals of Joseon Dynasty, Gwanghaegun’s Diary and Changgyeonggung Yeonggeondogam Uigwe. However, the obtained felling dates of the 1700s were not consistent with those in the construction and repair records. Therefore, additional confirmation of repairs that were not included in the records was possible using tree-ring dating.
