Description

[From first paragraph] Dendrochronology may be defined as the study of the chronological sequence of annual growth rings in trees. The concepts and techniques of the science, as presented here, reflect the work and practice of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Development of the science of dendrochronology - as opposed to the simple counting of rings in a stump - began in 1901 with an observation on aridity in relation to elevation by Andrew Ellicott Douglass, an astronomer interested in sunspots, and continues up to our strongly computer-oriented age. The objective of this paper will be to acquaint the reader with some of the fundamentals so that he may better understand the tree-ring studies done on living trees as well as in archaeological material.