Following in Giddings' Footsteps - Tree-ring signal, dendro-provenance, travel time and climate sensitivity of Alaska river driftwood, a key to tree-ring dating of archaeological wood in coastal Alaska

Summary

Giddings’ pioneering dendrochronology research in Alaska and his extensive and impressive sample collections were left mostly untouched since the 1960’s. For the last 10+ years, we have undertaken an effort to re-establish a library of dendrochronologies from live trees along the main driftwood-producing rivers in Alaska to re-initiate archaeological tree-ring research in Arctic coastal regions. We are now examining Giddings’ original samples, most of which were never measured. We believe these samples have the potential to lengthen chronologies characteristic of different forest types and to confirm regional tree-ring signals in the state. Trees from interior Alaska fall in the rivers and are transported downstream to the sea. Some logs get stuck in the rivers, others sink in the ocean, while a few end up on the coast and are used by people. Over the centuries, wood remains have been frozen into archaeological middens, which are under-utilized for chronological and climatic reconstructions. In this paper, we refine Giddings’ original conclusions, propose an average transit time for driftwood between place of origin and first use, and discuss applicability of chronologies to archaeological wood. Potentially, Giddings’ trees also share common climate signals, which would be useful for long-term climate reconstructions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Envisioning and Re-envisioning Arctic Archaeology: The Enduring Legacies of J. Louis Giddings (1909-1964)

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