Dating Techniques: Dendrochronology (Other Keyword)
1-22 (22 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,...
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....
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....
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, 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,...
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...
Obsession with an Icon: Sandals, Sandal Imagery, and Social Identity Across Thirteenth Century Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Transcending Modern Boundaries: Recent Investigations of Cultural Landscapes in Southeastern Utah" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancestral Pueblo people in southeastern Utah seem to have been obsessed with sandals and their depictions during the thirteenth century. Recent research has documented hundreds of sandal depictions on plaster and rock surfaces in the area dating to this period, but how should archaeologists...
Partnerships for Heritage Stewardship (2018)
The objective of my Master’s thesis was to formulate a history of the Carroll Cabin and farm, a historic log house located in Fayette County, Pennsylvania on Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) land. My research focused on how archaeological and historical records could be used to answer questions about the farm's extant home and the property's history. In Pennsylvania and other states (and at the federal level) multi-use public land managers are responsible for similar...
Prospects for Dendrochronology and Isotopic (14C) “Wiggle-Matching” in the Southwest/Northwest (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Isotopic and Animal aDNA Analyses in the Southwest/Northwest" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The contributions of tree-ring dating to American archaeology are well known but the benefits of the technique have largely been restricted to the uplands of the northern Southwest. While tree-ring dates have been successfully obtained from a handful of sites in the Southwest/Northwest, dendrochronology has been hampered in...
Radiocarbon Wiggle-Matching on a Dendrochronologically Dated Timber Sample from Paquimé (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, is one of the largest and most complex archaeological sites in the North American Southwest. Paquimé was of central and wide-reaching importance in the cultural region referred to as the Gran Chichimeca during the Medio period (AD 1200–1450), and therefore remains of crucial significance to borderland archaeology (Minnis 2003)....
Revisiting and Extending the Kobuk River Tree-Ring Master Chronology: A Unique Record for Paleo-climate and Archaeology in Northwestern Alaska (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Arctic Pasts: Dimensions of Change" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The first and only millennial tree-ring chronology (AD 978–1941) in northwest Alaska was developed in the 1940s by archaeologist and dendrochronology pioneer J. L. Giddings. Constructed from living trees and archaeological samples from the Kobuk River valley, Giddings’s sequence established the chronology of the “Arctic Woodland Culture.” As Alaskan...
Revisiting the Depopulation of the Northern Southwest with Dendrochronology: A Changing Perspective with New Dates from Cedar Mesa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Research, Education, and American Indian Partnerships at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The depopulation of ancestral Pueblo people from the northern Southwest has been a fascination of archaeologists for decades. Using a suite of social and environmental models, scholars have attempted to explain the processes that led tens of thousands of people to vacate hundreds of...
Stephen Williams and The Vacant Quarter Phenomenon (2018)
Stephen Williams proposed the idea of a Vacant Quarter based on the abandonment of numerous Mississippian polities throughout much of the Midsouth and Midwest. The unprecedented, large-scale depopulation of an approximately 130,000 square kilometer area has been linked with population movements as well as interpolity conflict. By taking a dendroclimatological approach we evaluate the role of climate change in this process, while also being cognizant of social processes. We postulate a staggered...
Teaching Tree Rings: Dendroarchaeology for Outreach and Education (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dendroarchaeology, the use of tree-ring analyses to understand past human societies, is an excellent subfield by which to introduce students and the public to archaeological science because of its accessibility: trees are a visible part of many peoples’ daily lives, and people often have basic knowledge of tree growth that can be drawn on to introduce the...
Tree-Rings Tales from Tijeras Pueblo (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and Public Education at Tijeras Pueblo, New Mexico" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper describes how Linda Cordell, working with colleagues, including me, used building timbers to (1) date room construction and village occupation at Tijeras Pueblo, (2) understand villager’s choices about wood use, (3) describe changing climate conditions associated with the village’s occupation,...