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Preface: An Introduction To Dendroarchaeology In The Southeastern United States

Dendroarchaeology has a discontinuous history in the Southeastern United States, mostly
because of misconceptions (the Southeast is too mesic), bad sampling practices (no standard protocol exists for preserving prehistoric wood samples), and a lack of reference tree-ring chronologies long enough to date wood from the abundant prehistoric sites. The majority of archaeological applications in recent years has focused on the dating of historic sites and structures to verify the documented year(s) of construction largely in response to requests from historical agencies to verify when a particular structure was built. We have found that most structures are one to two generations younger than their reported date(s) of construction, but most agencies find this information useful as tree-ring dating lends historical credibility to any site. The future of dendroarchaeology in the Southeast is encouraging but many more trained experts are needed to meet the demand of dating historical structures and sites. Furthermore, once a sampling protocol becomes standardized for retrieving wood from prehistoric sites, the potential for absolute dating of these sites is enormous given that abundant wood is archived in locations throughout the Southeast.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/622590
Date01 1900
CreatorsGrissino-Mayer, Henri D.
ContributorsLaboratory of Tree-Ring Science, Department of Geography, The University of Tennessee–Knoxville
PublisherTree-Ring Society
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle, text
RightsCopyright © Tree-Ring Society. All rights reserved.
Relationhttp://www.treeringsociety.org

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