Wood was a vital part of the economy and infrastructure of nearly all human societies. Incorporated in the wood of many tree species are tree rings, annual growth increments.  The time-series of tree rings from many individuals of a particular tree species—living trees or trees preserved in buildings and archaeological contexts—may form long annually resolved chronologies. These chronologies yield at least two types of information. First, the tree-ring chronologies link dates of structures with archaeological or historical topics. Second, they incorporate evidence regarding the current year’s climatic / environmental conditions. Therefore, they are extraordinary archives of past climatic and environmental conditions, and they allow us to elucidate how past climate change interacted with human history. In this talk we will explore cases in which tree-ring evidence secures important dates for the Mediterranean-Near East over the last millennium and in the Bronze Age. We will consider how tree-ring evidence allows us to identify major climate episodes that likely had substantial historical relevance. Such events also act as warnings from the past towards our own time.

Dr. Sturt Manning is Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences in the Classics Department at Cornell University and Director of the Cornell Tree Ring Laboratory. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Cyprus Institute, a leading research institution in the Eastern Mediterranean region. His research interests focus on Mediterranean/Near Eastern archaeology and archaeological science, especially dendrochronology (tree-ring analysis), radiocarbon, and climate-related studies. Dr. Manning earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge, a Master’s degree from Macquarie University in Australia, and a Bachelor’s degree from the Australian National University.

This presentation is part of "Science in Archaeology: Using Natural Science to Uncover the Human Past" – a multi-day symposium presented by the Natural Sciences Division. All events listed are free and open to the public. This event will take place at the Meyer Science Center, 430 Howard St, Wheaton, IL 60187. For more details, visit our website.