Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory

• Aegean and Near East
• North America
• Dendrochemistry
• Dendro Data Standards

Aegean Dendrochronology Project

Our key long-range goal is to build long multi-millennial scale tree-ring chronologies in the Aegean and Near East that will extend from the present to the early Holocene to cover, broadly speaking, the last 10,000 years of human and environmental history. Our raison d'être is to provide a dating method for the study of history and prehistory in the Aegean that is accurate to the year. This kind of precision has, up to now, been lacking in ancient studies of this area. Indeed, few archaeological problems stimulate as much rancor as chronology, especially that of the Eastern Mediterranean. The work of the Aegean and Near Eastern Dendrochronology Project aims to help to bring some kind of rational and neutral order to Aegean and Near Eastern chronology from the Neolithic to the present.

We also aim to provide a fundamental climate and environmental studies resource for a region which was the cradle of a number of civilizations central to human history from the origins of agriculture through to the Classical period, the Medieval period, and beyond.

To date, more than 10 million tree-ring measurements have led to the compilation of chronologies covering (but not wholly covering) some 9,000 years. Our aim is to fill in the gaps. See our bargraph to get an idea of the time periods covered. The most difficult periods for us are the first half millennium B.C. and the first millennium A.D. If you have relevant samples, please contact us!

Sample of Gordion 3 timber (Juniper) from the Midas Mound Tumulus, Turkey

Oak samples from Northern Turkey

Israel Dendrochronology Project

The Israel Dendrochronology Project is a lab sub-project started in 2007 as part of lab member Brita Lorentzen's PhD thesis. Our aim is to (i) develop robust tree-ring records of century-plus scale from a range of the different environmental zones in Israel, using samples from modern forests and from archaeological or heritage sites; (ii) analyze these to establish their dendroclimatic potential; (iii) reconstruct pre-modern long-term precipitation and drought histories for the region whose scale exceeds that currently available from meteorological data; (iv) explore variations in tree-ring growth over a centennial to millennial timeframe; and (v) provide dendrochronological dates for wood from historical and ancient sites in the southern Levant. Building up the tree-ring database in the southern Levant will improve our ability to provide precise dendrochronological dates in the region and provide unprecedented information on long-term climate and environmental trends.

We are interested in wood from the present back to the early Holocene. This may include archaeological charcoal or wood from excavations or museum studies; old wood from historic buildings or other monuments or shipwrecks; wood from old trees from forestry, construction, or other work; and subfossil trees. Suitable tree species include pine, cedar, juniper, and deciduous oak. Olive, acacia, and tamarisk cannot be dated. (Please see our submitting samples page for more information.)

If you have any relevant samples please contact either Sturt Manning or Brita Lorentzen.