Dating Techniques: Dendrochronology (Other Keyword)
1-25 (37 Records)
The chronology of prehistoric cultural developments within the American Southwest has been a subject of interest and debate since the archaeologists began to study the region. Although archaeologists have recognized patterns of aggregation throughout the Southwest, the degree to which the patterns are synchronous through prehistory remains uncertain. This research focuses on the development of a cultural chronology of the prehistoric Flagstaff area ranging from A.D. 600 through A.D. 1300,...
Are Big Data Better Data? A Historical Evaluation of Dinetah Navajo Tree-ring Data (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The tremendous expansion of research and computing power in the past few decades has resulted in the creation of large databases in many fields, and archaeology is no exception. But what have we really learned? In the early 1990s, astronomers searched the skies with the most advanced technology of the time. They addressed such...
Chankillo as a Fortification and Post-Chavín Warfare in Casma, Peru (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Peering into the Night: Transition, Sociopolitical Organization, and Economic Dynamics after the Dusk of Chavín in the North Central Andes" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Chankillo is a large ceremonial center in the Casma Valley, northern coast of Peru, built in 250 BC to worship the sun. It contains, besides the earliest astronomical observatory known to date in the Americas, an impressive hilltop fort. Previously,...
Climate Change, Population Migration, and Ritual Continuity in the Lower Mississippi Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Migration and Climate Change: The Spread of Mississippian Culture" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tree-ring reconstructions of cool- and warm-season moisture reveal several multi-decadal droughts that impacted the northern Lower Mississippi Valley between AD 1250 and 1450. These chronic droughts contributed to the regional abandonments and population migrations southward out of the Cairo Lowland and adjacent areas...
The Contribution of Tree-Ring Studies to Archaeological Research in Northwestern Mesoamerica (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Journeying to the South, from Mimbres (New Mexico) to Malpaso (Zacatecas) and Beyond: Papers in Honor of Ben A. Nelson" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Despite more than fifty years of excellent archaeological research in Northwestern Mesoamerica, progress has been impeded by a lack of precise chronological controls to understand site developments and pinpoint the direction of political influence and cultural change....
Dating Stylistic Change in Ancestral Pueblo Building Mural Traditions in the Southern Bears Ears and Across the Northern Southwest (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mural decorations on buildings can be used to express shared identities and cosmologies at a variety of scales. Stylistic links between murals at sites can reveal connected networks of practice within and between regions. Most prior studies focused solely on murals from a single structure or site that are dated at a relative-scale using ceramic...
Dendrochronological Recognition of Two Traumatic Events in Navajo History: The Fearing Time/Long Walk and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over recent centuries the Navajo of the Southwestern U.S. have faced several traumatic periods that affected their culture and lives. Two of the most dynamic of these were the Fearing Time/Long Walk of the 1850s and 1860s and the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. The Fearing Time resulted in the Navajo seeking refuge and safety in...
Dendrochronology at the Pile-Dwelling Site of Lucone D (Brescia, Italy): Chronology, Building Reconstruction and Wood-Use Practices (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Early Bronze Age Lucone D pile-dwelling settlement, a UNESCO World Heritage site component, is located in the basin of Lucone di Polpenazze del Garda, northern Italy. It has been excavated, by Museo Archeologico della Valle Sabbia from 2007 to today. Over 400 samples already subjected to dendrochronological analysis allow...
Dendrochronology of Historic Structures Associated with the Acequia de San Jose de la Cienega in San Fidel, NM (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A grant was secured from the New Mexico Archaeological Council to conduct dendrochronological studies of a number of structures near the village of San Fidel, New Mexico. Dendrochronological samples were obtained from a breeched and abandoned reservoir dam, a partially standing abandoned adobe residence, and an occupied adobe residence. Cut dates were...
Environmental and Cultural Changes at the Late Archaic – Early Woodland Transition on the Georgia Coast, USA: A Dendrochronological and 14C-Based Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present a new multimillennial tree-ring chronology derived from subfossil bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) buried at the mouth of the Altamaha River on the Georgia Coast, USA, and discuss environmental and climatic changes indicated by tree-ring proxies, including ringwidth and chemical analyses. Finally, we examine modeled new and existing radiocarbon...
Establishing a Multimillennial Dendrochronological Sequence in the Atlantic Southeast, USA (2018)
This paper discusses advances in the development of a multi-millennial ring-width chronology based on bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) from the mouth of the Altamaha River in Georgia. New insights into the environmental history of coastal Georgia are discussed, including the archaeological implications of major climatic and ecological events visible in the ancient cypress rings. Finally, we focus on environmental conditions before, during, and after the transition from the Late Archaic (ca....
Extending the Use-Lives of Ancestral Pueblo Kivas and Great Kivas: A Tree-Ring Perspective (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The archaeological concept of "architectural continuance” refers to the extended longevity of selected buildings and, especially, to the efforts made by those structures’ owners or caretakers to keep them in service over time. Archaeological evidence for the continuance of ancestral Pueblo kivas and great kivas shows how these...
Finding a “Living Archaeology” among Tropical Trees: The Potential of Multidisciplinary Dendroarchaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Entangled Legacies: Human, Forest, and Tree Dynamics" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tropical forests have often been synonymous with 'wilderness' in popular discourse. However, the last couple of decades of research in archaeological, palaeoecological and historical ecology have revealed that these ecosystems have actually been intensively managed by our species from at least 45,000 years ago. This necessitates...
Fire History and Red Pine: Ojibwe Cultural Burning in Northern Minnesota (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Colonial Archaeological Research in the American Midcontinent" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation highlights the work of our fire history partnership on the Chippewa National Forest and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota. The research is a collaborative effort involving the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, Leech Lake Tribal College, the USDA Forest Service, and the University of...
Florence Hawley’s Enduring Legacy in Southeastern Archaeology and Beyond (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Female Firsts: Celebrating Archaeology’s Pioneering Women on the 101st Anniversary of the 19th Amendment " session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of the pioneers of dendrochronology, Florence Hawley was employed by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the 1930s during the archaeological excavations that were conducted prior to impoundment of Norris Reservoir. Hawley’s work was one of the earliest attempts at establishing a...
Forest Regrowth and the End of Upland Farming at Picuris: Evidence from Tree Rings (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Collaborative Archaeology at Picuris Pueblo: The New History" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kilometers of terraced rock alignments characterize the upland slopes of the Picuris Pueblo watershed, capturing rainfall runoff in a water-efficient method of irrigation to combat the aridity of the Southwest. The terraces’ effective use of runoff rainfall and space supported the Pueblo's population growth and Plains-Pueblo...
Forest, Frost, and Agriculture: Measuring Three Centuries of Environmental Change at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest (2018)
This paper highlights ecological discoveries made during a survey of natural and cultural resources along a new 2.2 mile parkway at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. Poplar Forest is Thomas Jefferson’s former retreat home and plantation located in Bedford County, Virginia. In addition to locating archaeological sites and mapping aboveground features, 10 forest plots were established within stands of increasing age adjacent to the proposed path of the parkway. By measuring tree diameter,...
The Forests and the Trees: Soucing Construction Timbers at Aztec Ruins, NM (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Obtaining materials from distant landscapes is a hallmark of the Chacoan world. The movement of nonlocal materials into Chacon Canyon, and around the Chacoan sphere, has fascinated archaeologists for decades. Large construction timbers, in particular, have been subject to intense research because so few trees grow in or near the canyon. At Aztec Ruins,...
Historically Contingent: Case Studies in the Interpretation of Tree-Ring Date Distributions (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. After 95 years of archaeological tree-ring dating in the American Southwest, there are now tens of thousands of tree-ring dates with which scholars can guide their analyses. When dealing with randomly distributed datasets, large samples sizes can mean more reliable statistical inferences. When dealing with spatially,...
In-Built Age in Archaeological Tree-Ring Samples and Behavioral Implications (2025)
This is an abstract from the "Tree-Ring Materials as a Basis for Cultural Interpretations" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Age disparities between wood and charcoal and their archaeological contexts are a common problem in archaeological chronometry. With high precision dating techniques such as dendrochronology and wiggle-matching, even small age-offsets could affect the accuracy of chronological inferences and thus behavioral interpretations. In...
Insights into Paleoenvironment and Cultural Resilience on the Ancient Georgia Coast and Implications for Sustainability in the Twenty-First Century (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We discuss key insights into over 5,000 years of environmental change on the Georgia Coast derived from tree-ring analyses of a deposit of ancient bald cypress from the mouth of the Altamaha River, including changes in coastal forests through time. Human-environment interactions, such as the resilience of estuarine-based societies and ecosystems during periods...
Landscape Dendroarchaeology: 150 Years of Human/Environment Interaction in the Cebolla Creek Drainage of Western New Mexico, USA (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Landscapes tell stories. They contain evidence of past cultural and environmental change and the relationships between the two. Dendroarchaeology—the use of tree-ring data from past human activities—is uniquely positioned to provide the fine-grained temporal resolution necessary for understanding these relationships. This paper examines 150 years of...
Maize, Construction, and Population Changes: One Way to Identify Sunk Cost Behaviors in Central Mesa Verde (2021)
This is an abstract from the "People, Climate, and Proxies in Holocene Western North America" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When the environment changes, sedentary people choose whether to stay and invest more in their current adaptive strategy, or abandon their land and residence to go somewhere with greater opportunities. For a well-understood portion of the upland US Southwest we ask: when the maize niche shrinks, do people continue investing...
Marxist Dendroarchaeology: Examining Labor’s Effects on Landscapes and Living Conditions in Cebolla Canyon, New Mexico (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The effects of unregulated (laissez-fair) capitalism on working class people and on landscapes are often only beneficial in the short-term. The 1930s were especially difficult times for Americans as people became displaced during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Many were forced to move into new areas in search of work and better living conditions...
New Dendrochronological and Radiocarbon Dates for Northwest Mexican Cliff Dwellings (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the years, several thousand archaeological wood samples have been collected across Northwest Mexico, but dating them has proven problematic because of short tree ring sequences, poor sample quality, and complex growth patterns. A majority of these originated in cliff dwelling sites, which form a central part of an inter-regional network of relatively...