Book of abstracts

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Book of abstracts

Edited by

Ignacio García-González & Manuel Souto-Herrero

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Organizing Committee

Chair:

Ignacio García González

Secretary:

Manuel Souto Herrero

Committee members:

Marta Domínguez Delmás Dieter Eckstein

Guillermo Guada Prada Gonzalo Pérez de Lis Castro Tomasz Ważny

Organized by

University of Santiago de Compostela Department of Botany – Campus of Lugo

Working group on Dendrochronology and Wood Anatomy

EuroDendro 2014 Programme

Sunday, September 7

^th

11:00-19:00 Dendrochronology on the street (activity for the citizens of Lugo)

Monday, September 8

^th

18:00-20:00 Registration 21:30 Welcome dinner

Tuesday, September 9

^th

9:00-9:30 Official opening

Historical dendrochronology I Chair: Kristof Haneca

9:30-9:45

Thomas Frank, Nadia Balkowski, Manuel Broich, Ronald Busch, Barbara Diethelm, Elisabeth Höfs, Georg Roth

Which tree are you from? An approach to achieve a high probability in assigning timbers to their origin trees

9:45-10:00 Michael Grabner, Andrea Klein, Sebastian Nemestothy

Questions about historic woodworking – answered by dendrochronology

10:00-10:15

David M. Brown, Michael G.L. Baillie

Is there anyone there? The Irish dendrochronological framework for the period from 300BC to AD600

10:15-10:30

Sebastian Million, André Billamboz

Seeking the last ring: Dendroarchaeological investigation on the Celtic princely tomb of Bettelbühl

10:30-10:45

Pascale Fraiture, Armelle Weitz, Sjoerd van Daalen

Dendrochronological research on beech in Belgium: the case of 12^th graves from the Nivelles Abbey (Hainaut) and future archaeological prospects 10:45-11:00 Rūtilė Pukienė

The earliest water supply and sewage systems in Vilnius, Lithuania

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

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Historical dendrochronology II Chair: Tomasz Ważny

11:30-11:45

Marta Domínguez Delmás, Eduardo Rodríguez Trobajo

Swedish borne, planks and panels: dendroarcheological investigations on the 16^th century Evangelistas altarpiece at Seville Cathedral (Spain)

11:45-12:00

Ünal Akkemik

Wood identifications of old Byzantine ships in Yenikapı (İstanbul) and wood use changes from 6^th to 11^th century

12:00-12:15

Kristof Haneca, Aoife Daly

Tree-Rings, Timbers and Trees: a dendrochronological survey of two 14^th- century cogs, wrecked near Antwerp (Belgium)

12:15-12:30

Nigel Nayling, Josué Susperregi

The Newport medieval ship and development of oak ring-width chronologies in Northern Spain

12:30-12:45 Aoife Daly

A 17^th century ship with timber cargo

Introduction to poster session Chair: Gonzalo Pérez-de-Lis & Joana Vieira

12:45-13:00 Short presentations of posters

14:00-15:30 Lunch break º

Historical and/or regional dendrochronology Chair: Niels Bonde

16:00-16:15 Anne Crone

Dendrochronological studies of alder (Alnus glutinosa) on Scottish crannogs

16:15-16:30

István Botár, András Grynaeus, Boglárka Tóth

Roofs, towers, and wood installations. Dendrodating in Transylvania (Romania)

16:30-16:45

Tomasz Ważny, Oliver Rackham, Jennifer Moody, Brita E. Lorentzen

The Cretan Tree-Ring Project: Investigating the dendrochronological and dendroclimatological potential of the Mediterranean cypress (Cupressus sempervirens L.)

16:45-17:00 Katarina Čufar, Maks Merela, Michael Grabner, Willy Tegel, Martín De Luis Advances and challenges of dendrochronology SE of the Alps

17:00-17:15 Anna Cedro

Dendrochronology of yew in Poland and western Ukraine

17:15-17:30

Kurt Nicolussi, Sonja Vospernik, Thomas Pichler, Herbert Formayer, Jose Groff, David Leidinger, Heinrich Spiecker

Growth trends of Picea abies and Pinus cembra trees at altitudinal transects in the central Alps

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17:30-18:30 Poster session I

19:00-20:15 Guided city tour (by courtesy of the City of Lugo)

20:30-open Official reception by the City and Province of Lugo

Wednesday, September 10

^th

Whole day excursion Northern Galician coastline

8:00 Departure from Lugo (Hotel Méndez Núñez) Castro de Viladonga (Celtic ruins) and museum As Catedrais (famous monumental beach)

San Martiño de Mondoñedo (oldest former cathedral in Spain) 14:30-15:30 Lunch (picnic on the beach at Xilloi)

A Capelada and Ortegal Cape (coastal cliffs and landscape) 20:00-22:15 Seafood dinner

23:30 Arrival at Lugo

Thursday, September 11 ^th

Wood formation dynamics Chair: Ingo Heinrich

9:00-9:15

Kyriaki Giagli, Vladymír Gryc, Hanuš Vavrčík, Ladislav Menšík

Cambial activity and wood formation in European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) growing in the Czech Republic

9:15-9:30

Jožica Gričar, Peter Prislan, Vladimír Gryc, Hanuš Vavrčík, Martín de Luis, Katarina Čufar

Plastic and locally adapted phenology in cambial seasonality and xylem and phloem formation in Picea abies from temperate environments

9:30-9:45

Václav Treml, Jakub Kašpar, Hana Kuželová, Vladimír Gryc

Differences in intra-annual wood formation in Norway spruce along the treeline ecotone, Giant Mountains, Czech Republic

9:45-10:00

Walter Oberhuber, Roman Schuster, Irene Swidrak

Intra-annual dynamics of cambial phenology and radial growth reveal that species-specific climate-growth relationships are not related to different timing of maximum radial growth

10:00-10:15 Short break

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10:15-10:30

Joana Vieira, Sergio Rossi, Filipe Campelo, Helena Freitas, Cristina Nabais Stem radial variation of maritime pine in a drought-prone environment: daily and seasonal pattern

10:15-10:30

Georg von Arx, Alberto Arzac, Patrick Fonti, David Frank, Roman Zweifel, Arthur Gessler, Lucia Galiano, Andreas Rigling, José Miguel Olano

Spatio-temporal dynamics of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC) and radial rays in the stem sapwood of Pinus sylvestris to drought and long-term irrigation 10:30-10:45 Cyrille B.K. Rathgeber, Henri E. Cuny

Growing is not putting on weight!

11:30-12:30 Poster session II

Novel methods in dendrochronology Chair: Marta Domínguez

12:30-12:45 Daniele Castagneri, Giai Petit, Marco Carrer

Long cell chronologies shed new light on Norway spruce response to climate 12:45-13:00 Ryszard J. Kaczka, Barbara Czajka

Blue Reflectance – new dendrochronological tool

13:00-13:15

Christian Zang, Isabel Dorado Liñán, David Frank, Emilia Gutiérrez, Annette Menzel

The ecology of inhomogeneous variance in tree-ring widths 13:15-13:30 Georg von Arx

ROXAS – a powerful image analysis tool for tree-ring anatomy

13:30-13:45

Laura Fernández-de Uña, Nate G. McDowell, Isabel Cañellas, Guillermo Gea-Izquierdo

Disentangling the effects of competition, climate and CO2 concentrations on tree growth and water use efficiency

13:45-14:00 Announcements of future events (EuroDendro and Fieldweek in 2015)

14:00-15:30 Lunch break

Ecology and dynamics Chair: Reyes Alejano

15:30-15:45

Renata Cristina Bovi, Miguel Cooper, Mario Tomazello Filho, Matheus Peres Chagas, Renata Santos Momoli, Virgínia Dominguez Castillo

Determination of erosion rates through the use of dendrogeomorphology

15:45-16:00

Tobias Scharnweber, John Couwenberg, Ingo Heinrich, Martin Wilmking Reactions of oak (Quercus robur L.) to a sudden peatland rewetting – implications for bog-oak research?

16:00-16:15

Tuomas Aakala, Frank Berninger, Mike Starr

Using tree-ring based reconstruction of stand structure to assess tree growth variation in high-latitude boreal forests

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16:15-16:30

Muhammad Waseem Ashiq, Madhur Anand

Spatial variability in growth – Climate relationships of red pine in Ontario, Canada

16:30-16:45

Lucía DeSoto, José Miguel Olano, Vicente Rozas

Female trees can grow and store more than males under favourable environments

16:45-17:00

Maris Hordo, Evar Dubolazov, Leevi Krumm, Andres Kiviste

Climate effect to larch growth on abandoned oil shale quarries in Sirgala (Estonia)

Dendroclimatology Chair: Michael Grabner

17:30-17:45

Ingo Heinrich, Antje Knorr, A. Bieber, Karl-Uwe Heußner, Tomasz Ważny, Michal Slowinski, Gerhard Helle, Sonia Simard, Tobias Scharnweber, Achim Brauer

Climate reconstructions from tree-ring widths for the last 850 years and the need for new tree-ring proxies in northern Poland

17:45-18:00

Jan Esper, Paul J. Krusic, Fredrik C. Ljungqvist, Marco Carrer, Jürg Luterbacher, Rob J.S. Wilson, Ulf Büntgen

Reviewing tree-ring based temperature reconstructions for the past millennium

18:00-18:15

Weiwei Huang, Jørgen Bo Larsen, Anders Ræbild, Lisbeth Thygesen, Jon K.

Hansen

The tree growth to changing climate and drought conditions in East Denmark

18:15-18:30

Fabio Natalini, Javier Vázquez-Piqué, Reyes Alejano

Plasticity in the dendroclimatic signal of Pinus pinea in connection to climate variability within its distribution range

18:30-18:45 Short break

18:45-19:00

D. Ovchinnikov, A. Mordvinov, I. Kalugin, A. Darin, V. Myglan

Solar-terrestrial relations of the paleoclimatic archives in the South Siberia (Altai Mountains, Russia)

19:00-19:15

Lea Schneider, Felix Pretis, Jan Esper, Jason E. Smerdon

Detection of large volcanic events based on their climatic fingerprint in a hemispheric wood density network

19:15-19:30

Martin Wilmking, Allan Buras, Martin Schnittler, Jelena Lange, Kerstin Treydte, Pascal Eusemann

Does tree-genetics help resolve the “divergence effect”?

19:30-19:45

Markus Lindholm, Maxim G. Ogurtsov, Risto Jalkanen

Common temperature signal in six proxies based on the growth of Scots pine from northern Fennoscandia

19:45-20:15 Closing ceremony 21:30-open Farewell dinner

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Friday, September 12 ^th

9:00 Departure

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Which tree are you from? An approach to achieve a high probability in assigning timbers to their origin trees

T. Frank¹, N. Balkowski¹, M. Broich¹, R. Busch¹,B. Diethelm¹, E. Höfs¹, G. Roth² University of Cologne, Germany

1 Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology - Laboratory of Dendroarchaeology;

2 Institute of Ethnology - study project ‘Environmental Archaeology’

The question ‘Which timbers originate from the same tree?’ aims for insights into historic timber economics and construction processes. Here it is addressed to wooden linings from early Neolithic wells excavated in the Rhineland region in Western Germany.

Neolithic wooden relics, especially from the early Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture (LBK, 5500 to 5000 BC), are very rare in Central Europe. In the Rhineland wooden samples from three early Neolithic well sheetings excavated in Erkelenz-Kückhoven (EK, n=86), Arnoldsweiler (AW, n=36) and Merzenich-Morschenich (MM, n=24) have been dendrochronologically analysed. The felling dates of the youngest trees are 5090 BC (EK, waney-edge), 5097±10 BC (AW, sapwood, preliminary date) and 5052±5 BC (MM, sapwood).

Nearly all boards of the linings are made of oak (Quercus spp.) and only dated tree-ring series from this species are used for the analysis. A data set from recent trees serves to check the reliability of the results. We apply two established approaches to analyse the tree-ring width sequences in regard to their common origin.

1. Visual comparison of the growth-curves and statistical analysis of their correlations (e.g.

Tegel et al. 2012).

2. The ‘dendro-allocation’ by Mom et al. (2011).

Starting from Mom et al. (2011) one of us (GR) refined some aspects of the computation using the package vegan (Oksanen et al. 2013) written in the statistical computing language ‘R’ (R Core Team 2012). The results of this procedure are checked against those of the above mentioned approaches. An R-code for the analysis can be provided by GR.

REFERENCES

Mom, Vincent; Schultze, Joachim; Wrobel, Sigrid; Eckstein, Dieter (2011): Which timbers were cleft from the same tree? In: Wolfgang Börner (ed.): 15th International Conference on "Cultural Heritage and New Technologies" Vienna, 15.-17. November 2010 // Proceedings. Vienna: Museen der Stadt Wien, Stadtarchäologie, 582–591.

Oksanen, Jari; Guillaume Blanchet, F.; Kindt, Roeland; Legendre, Pierre; Minchin, Peter R.; O’Hara, R. B.;

Simpson, Gavin L.; Solymos, Peter; Stevens, M. Henry H.; Wagner, Helene (2013): vegan: Community Ecology Package. R package version 2.0-8. [http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=vegan].

R Core Team (2012): R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. ISBN 3-900051-07-0. [http://www.R-project.org].

Tegel, Willy; Elburg, Rengert; Hakelberg, Dietrich; Stäuble, Harald; Büntgen, Ulf (2012): Early Neolithic water wells reveal the world’s oldest wood architecture. PLOS One 7: 1–8. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0051374.

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Questions about historic woodworking – answered by dendrochronology

M. Grabner, A. Klein, S. Nemestothy

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna - BOKU, Vienna, Austria

Dendrochronological dating can provide precise dates on a calendar-year basis. In some cases, a differentiation between growth period and winter time is possible. But what is the significance of these dates? The importance of the waney edge (Waldkante, bark ring) as well as the presence/absence and the amount of sapwood have often been discussed.

Dealing with historical wood utilization, questions about wood working arise. At which time of the year were the trees felled? When were they trifted and floated? At which condition were the logs transformed to beams and how long where they dried prior to setting up? How long was the seasoning time of timber to produce furniture? How many rings were lost due to wood working?

At the prehistoric salt mine of Hallstatt, 88% of the mining timber (572 round logs) were felled during winter. Their outermost ring shows complete latewood and 63% of these logs still have bark on them. Just two percent were felled during the growing season.

Studying hundreds of samples from Austrian log houses, just two percent of the samples were felled in summer (incomplete latewood) within the alpine region. At houses situated at the alpine foothills four percent showed incomplete latewood.

Working marks for counting the beams can be easily found at roof constructions. Sometimes it is obvious, that the crack due to drying of the wood separated the marks into two pieces.

Therefore, the crack must have appeared after carving the marks. As wood working (with the broad axe) was done on fresh wood, the cutting to length and the mortise of connections must have been done prior to cracking, too.

In historic Vienna, the completion of a building had to be officially announced as soon as the facade was ready. Archive studies of these announcements revealed that they were often submitted two years after the felling dates of the roof beams. This two-years-gap (varying between one and five to seven years) includes the time of trifting, floating, hewing, setting up the roof construction and finishing the facade – another proof, that the wood was used in fresh conditions.

Dating furniture does usually not provide waney edges. 947 pieces from furniture, casks and vats from Austrian farm houses were dendrochronologically dated. For every object, as many elements (boards or staves) as possible were measured. Due to the grouping of the dated outermost ring, it was possible to get an educated guess of the felling dates. For example, a cupboard painted with the calendar year 1819 was dated at 1814. This five-years-gap was due to drying and due to wood loss; proofing short drying durations and that as little as possible of the high-quality outermost wood was removed.

Questions about historical wood working are more complex to answer than the question about the felling date alone, but dendrochronology can be a tool to answer these questions.

Supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF TRP 21-B16.

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Is there anyone there? The Irish dendrochronological framework for the period from 300BC to AD600

D.M. Brown,M.G.L. Baillie

School of Geography, Archaeological and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom

In Ireland, the period from the Middle Iron Age, based on the first appearance of the La Tène art style, through to what is now called the Early Middle Ages, includes some of the most puzzling centuries in the whole of Irish history. In this paper we will look at several strands of information that have become available from dendrochronological analysis.

The interpretation of dendrochronological results works best when there is other data and information to exploit. In this period one of the best sources of parallel information has to be records of atmospheric chemistry. This information has been obtained from the ice cores drilled at various locations across Greenland. Integrating this well dated climate information with evidence from precisely dated tree rings, palaeoecological studies, and occasionally from history, allows us to outline a series of events that form the beginnings of an understanding of this period.

The dendrochronological results can be summarized by a notable building pulse of trackways and ritual sites in Ireland, which characterizes this stage of the Iron Age, from about 160BC to 40BC. Evidence after 50BC from ice records and other evidence from Swedish and bristlecone pine frost rings suggests that whatever happened environmentally put a stop to this building phase of trackways in Ireland’s raised peat bogs.

Following 40BC we see no dendrochronologically dated structures until after AD400, except for a few random worked wood samples. The Irish “Iron Age Lull” is just not confined to dendrochronological dating. The massive reduction in archaeological activity and the significant decline in radiocarbon dated sites indicates a reduction in all forms of activity implying a significant decline in population numbers.This low level activity is incomplete contrast to the massive pulse of building in the 1^st and 2^nd centuries BC. It is also in notable contrast to the great phase of construction with oak timbers after AD540 following the acute double environmental events in AD536 and AD540-543.

The outline of Irish archaeology between a few hundred years BC and a few hundred years AD is now well defined. What is required are new strategies to ascertain the environmental, economic and social events that were going on during this period. However, even with two further decades of the most intense archaeological sampling ever completed in Ireland it has been possible to add very little to the overall archaeological story.

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Seeking the last ring: Dendroarchaeological investigation on the Celtic princely tomb of Bettelbühl

S. Million, A. Billamboz

Landesamt für Denkmalpflege Baden-Württemberg, Hemmenhofen, Germany

In 2010 an archaeological team of the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (coordination D. Krausse) began with the re-excavation of an already known Iron Age burial mound at Bettelbühl (Herbertingen, SW Germany). The site is situated on the ancient riverbed of the Danube at the foot of the oppidum Heuneburg. A well-preserved wooden chamber tomb was found with several evidences for a burial with peculiar goods and ornaments of two women. For this reason, the complete funeral was transferred at the end of the same year to a dry and safe place for an indoor-excavation (see Fernández-Götz & Krausse 2013).

The chamber was principally built of oak wood (Quercus sp., 21 elements preserved), with exception of two silver fir beams (Abies alba Mill.) in the floor. Two sleeper beams, eleven floor beams and ten mainly badly preserved wall or ceiling boards are the remaining timbers of the whole grave. A first dating, obtained from on site coring of oak heartwood with an increment borer, indicated a construction from the very beginning of the 6^th century BC. Within four years, systematic sampling (55 samples) had been conducted for tree-ring analysis parallel to the excavation progress. Particular attention has been paid to conserved sapwood and waney edge below bronze findings. Finally, a silver fir beam revealed the “last ring under the bark” in the second decade of the 6^th century BC by contact with metal. Cross-dating the 102-rings long silver fir sequence with those of the Heuneburg-Vorburg is supported by strong Gleichläufigkeit and the same felling date. The result is in agreement with the parallel dating of the 288-years long oak site chronology.

Oak dendrotypology (timber categorisation according to cambial age, growth patterns and degree of stem conversion) shows the use of four to five oak trees having grown in different environments. This raises the question of a possible reduction of oak timber sources in relation to landscape opening at the end of a flourishing settlement expansion around the Heuneburg during the 7^th century BC. This observation is supported by the supply of silver fir, a rather rare tree-species in the nearby region. Consequently, dendro-provenancing was addressed in cooperation with S. Ponton (INRA, Nancy-Champenoux, France) by measuring the mineral content of the xylem on the two silver fir beams. Futhermore, oak vessel analysis was conducted in cooperation with P. Fonti and G. von Arx (WSL Birmensdorf, Switzerland) for anatomical comparison on four samples assigned dendrotypologically to different trees.

REFERENCES

Fernández-Götz, M. & Krausse, D. (2013). Rethinking Early Iron Age urbanisation in Central Europe: the Heuneburg site and its archaeological environment. Antiquity 87: 473-487.

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Dendrochronological research on beech in Belgium: the case of 12

^th

graves from the Nivelles Abbey (Brabant wallon) and future

archaeological prospects

P. Fraiture¹, A. Weitz¹, S. van Daalen²

1 Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels, Belgium

2van Daalen dendrochronologie, Deventer, The Netherlands

In 2011-2013, the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage was entrusted with the dendrochronological analysis of approximately one hundred planks from the graves of two zones of cemeteries that were excavated on the grounds around the Nivelles Abbey by the Archaeological Service of the Service Public de Wallonie (SPW-DGO4). These planks, mostly in beech (Fagus sylvatica), have been well preserved for almost ten centuries, in the humid subsoil of the Grand Place.

The objectives of the dendrochronological research were several:

- Find relative dating between planks/graves/cemeteries - Date absolutely the graves/cemeteries

- Enrich the technical study of the wooden graves

- Bring information on the beech forests which supplied Nivelles cemeteries - Locate the provenance zones of these beeches.

The project encountered a huge initial challenge, as hitherto there was no historical beech chronology available for Belgium (and more generally few for western Europe). A second challenge was to record reliable tree-ring series on planks made of a species that can form partial rings (ring which are not visible on the whole circumference of the trunk). From a practical standpoint, these two challenges brought with them many difficulties. However, they were largely surpassed and yielded interesting and original results; this paper will present our main conclusions.

Relative dating between the woods reveals some contemporaneity between the graves and absolute dating determined periods of intense use of both cemeteries, in terms of termini post quem. Furthermore, the dating of these wooden samples has allowed for the construction of the first beech chronology for Belgium, running from 902 to 1149 AD.

Although the delivered planks were selected to be best suited for dendrochronology, technical information could be obtained from this material, for instance the growth rhythm of the trees, cutting methods, identification of planks from the same tree(s), either in the same grave or in different ones, etc.

The research of the geographical origin of the trees used in Nivelles reveals – at first sight – a local provenance of the beech, although it seems difficult to locate it precisely due to the response of Fagus to local climatic conditions, in opposition to species such as oak.

Forest management is being studied, with the help of agronomists and forest historians. It shows many different patterns in the growth of the trees that probably reflect different growth environments, those having still to be better described.

Since this study, other projects on archaeological remains from different sites in Belgium, ordered to van Daalen dendrochronologie, have been undertaken, which have led to good results and have allowed for extending this beech chronology of a century back in past.

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The earliest water supply and sewage systems in Vilnius, Lithuania

R. Pukienė^1,2

1 Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania

2 National Museum the Palace of Grand Dukes of Lithuania, Vilnius, Lithuania

Due to the high groundwater level, a number of wooden underground objects had remained in the Vilnius Lower Castle territory from different periods. Dendrochronological investigation of ancient infrastructure elements helped to determine more accurately the building and maintenance history of this most central part of Vilnius.

Among the key needs of living in densely populated areas are water supply and sewage management. During archaeological investigation of the castle elements of wooden water supply system and sewers were found.

Two types of finds were discovered during archaeological excavations of the site that were related to the underground water-supply network. They were wooden water pipes and their remains, as well as the metal couplings used to join them. Wooden water pipes were made from pine logs, with the central part hollowed by a long auger. The diameter of the pipes ranged from 25 to 40 centimeters and their length measured 9 meters. The pipes were joined to one another using iron cylinder-shaped couplings with diameters of 11 to 17 centimeters and length of 10 to 13 centimeters.

The beginning of water pipeline network is dated back to 1501 by arguable historical sources in Vilnius. The earliest remaining wooden water pipes found in the Lower Castle were dendrochronologicaly dated to 1529. This first pipeline supplied with water the newly built grand duke’s palace. In the 1540s–1550s major development of the water-supply system in the Vilnius Lower Castle occurred. Pipes were dated to 1545, 1551 and 1558. During the reign of grand duke Sigismund Augustus (1544-1572), water flowed into the most important buildings of the castle.

In 2002 and 2008 also parts of a wooden sewer were discovered north of the grand duke’s palace. The sewer was meant for kitchen waste and was assembled in sections. Each section consisted of a flume made up of four sawn longitudinal boards resting upon cut out sections of log mudsills and covered by transversal boards. There are rafting holes in some of mudsills.

The covers of the sewer were made from oak and the rest parts – from pine timber. An 83 year-long oak tree-ring series was dated to 1530 against English oak chronology of the Baltic origin BALTIC1; however, some external rings were missing. After investigation of pine parts, tree-ring series with the duration of 248 years was made. The mudsills were preserved up to the bark edge. The constructed pine tree-ring series was dated against Vilnius pine chronology to 1539. Since the last ring is a bark-edge one, the dating shows the trees for the sewer were felled in the period from autumn of 1539 to spring of 1540.

Dendrochronological analysis of remnants of water supply and sewage systems has revealed the 16^th c. was the time of rapid development of conveniences and sanitary in Vilnius.

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Swedish borne, planks and panels: dendroarchaeological investigations on the 16

^th

century Evangelistas altarpiece at Seville

Cathedral (Spain)

M. Domínguez-Delmás^1a, E. Rodríguez-Trobajo²

1 University of Santiago de Compostela, EPS, Dep. of Botany, Campus de Lugo, 27002 Lugo, Spain;

University of Huelva, Faculty of Humanities, Dep. of History I; Av. de las Fuerzas Armadas s/n, 21007 Huelva, Spain

2 Centro de Investigación Forestal, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Agrarias, Crta. La Coruña km. 7.5, 28040 Madrid, Spain

The results of the dendroarchaeological research carried out on the 16th century altarpiece from the Evangelistas chapel at Seville Cathedral (Spain) are presented. The altarpiece consists of nine panels and was commissioned from the Flemish artist Hernando de Esturmio in AD 1553, who signed the completed work in AD 1555. The research aimed at i) registering information about the processing of the wood and panel making, ii) verifying the AD 1555 construction date, and iii) finding out the provenance of the wood.

The observed technological features in the five researched panels allowed the reconstruction of the production process from borne (oak wainscots) to the final product and, based on that, two types of panels were identified. However, dendrochronological research showed that the wood employed represents a rather homogeneous group that originates from the same area, implying that the raw material was probably transported to Seville in the same batch, and was prepared and assembled using slightly different techniques to meet the requirements stipulated by the contract. Sapwood was identified in 12 of the 33 planks selected for research from the five panels. Using a Bayesian approach we estimated the felling date of the trees between AD 1549 and 1553. Interestingly, our research provides evidence that the wood originated from the southwest of Sweden, representing an alternative source to the south-eastern Baltic oak commonly used for art pieces in northern Europe. This is the first time that such procurement source is reported by dendrochronology in an altarpiece. Wood technological features observed in the panels are compared to those of contemporary altarpieces in Spain and Portugal, and possible reasons for the use of this alternative procurement source are discussed.

a Affiliation at the time of the research: Ring Foundation (Stichting Ring) – Netherlands Centre for Dendrochronology, PB 1600, 3800BP Amersfoort, The Netherlands

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Wood identifications of old Byzantine ships in Yenikapı (İstanbul) and wood use changes from 6

^th

to 11

^th

century

Ü. Akkemik

İstanbul University, Faculty of Forestry, Department of Forest Botany, 34473 Bahçeköy – İstanbul, Turkey

Archaeological excavations in Yenikapı revealed valuable information about the human life and trade for Byzantine period. The biggest ship archive in the world was obtained by excavating 37 wooden ships from that area. We studied 27 of them and the identifications on the latest one (YK37) will not be started yet. The purpose of this study is (1) to identify the woods of the 27 ships (24 trade ships and the rest 4 galleys) from Byzantine period, (2) to investigate the wood use change from 6^th century to 11^th, and (3) to find possible origins of the ships. Because of being very soft wood pieces, the thin sections were taken by using very sharp razor blades, and by using standard wood identification techniques, 3122 (619 from the galleys and 2503 from the trade ships) wood samples from 27 ships were identified.

In the galleys; (1) Black pine, Taurus cedar, and Spanish chestnut were used in building of planking, (2) Oriental plane and Elm trees were preferred as floor timber, (3) Keels were Oriental plane and oak trees, and (4) Treenails were Spanish broom and oak.

In trade ships; (1) during 5^th-6^th centuries Cypress, Calabrian pine, Stone pine, Black pine and red oak were used in building of planking. During 7^th to 9^th centuries a similar wood use was observed. On the contrary, after 9^th century and during 10^th – 11^th centuries mainly White oaks and Chestnut were used, (2) a few samples of ceiling from 9^th – 11^th centuries were founds. The wood use is about the same with that of planking, (3) in building of keel a periodical change was not observed. White oak, Red oak, beech, Oriental plane, Stone pine, Calabrian pine and Mediterranean cypress were used in different times. However, use of gymnosperm woods was also left in later centuries like in that of planking and ceiling. Oak, pine, chestnut, beech, hornbeam and plane trees were used in the trade ships during 6^th century to 11^th century, (4) when Stone pine, Calabrian pine, White oak, Red oak, Evergreen Oak, ash and elm trees were used during 5^th-9^th centuries, only White oak and Ash woods were identified in the floor timber/futtock during 9^th-11^th centuries, and (5) in making of tree nails Oak and Spanish broom were used.

A very clear change in wood use was observed from earlier time (5^th - 6^th) to later (7^th- 9^th and10^th – 11^th). During 6^th–8^thcenturies generally conifer woods were preferred. Later, during 9^th – 11^th broad-leaved trees (elm, oak, chestnut species) had been used. The reasons of this change may be (1) Preferring more resistant woods and (2) Obtaining possibilities the wood material.

Conifer trees (especially Mediterranean cypress) in earlier ships might be from the planted areas by the Bosporus. Because historical records showed some plantations were made with this species. Later to 11^th century completely broad-leaved trees were used and these probably were from northern forests of Istanbul. Because all the main woods used in the ships were (are still) native to the northern forest of Istanbul and represented with good quality stems.

Most of the ships have also very low number of different woods such as walnut, poplar and hornbeam. These woods may indicate some small repairs in the ships.

Because taking big samples are forbidden and the woods are very soft, we could not perform dating of the old ships with dendrochronology methods.

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Tree-rings, timbers and trees: a dendrochronological survey of two 14th-century cogs, wrecked near Antwerp (Belgium)

K. Haneca¹, A. Daly²

1 Flanders Heritage Agency, Brussels, Belgium

2 Dendro.dk, Brønshoj, Denmark

In 2000, the remains of a cog, Doel 1, were found in Doel, Belgium. Two years later, the remains of a second cog ship were found nearby. Wood species identification of all ship timbers and smaller elements was performed. European oak was the dominant species, followed by alder that was used for the fairings of Doel 1. In total 150 ring-width series were recorded on Doel 1 and 27 on Doel 2. The construction date for Doel 1 was set at AD 1325/26 and the timbers proved to originate from forests along the rivers Elbe and Weser. For the bottom strakes a strict symmetrical layout was observed. The keel plank was hewn from a trunk with potentially a slightly earlier felling date. Repairs were performed with high-quality boards, some with a southern Baltic provenance. Although contemporary (the felling date for Doel 2 is situated between 1327 and 1341 AD) a completely different wood provenance was found for Doel 2. All investigated ship timbers originate from trees growing in northern Poland. Some of the repair planks were probably inserted some years after the construction of the ships, as is supported by the tree-ring dating.

The dendrochronological research on both ships not only provides accurate dates for their construction, but also on wood procurement, shipbuilding techniques and the level of professionalism of the shipwrights. Furthermore, given the extensive tree-ring dataset that was built up during this research project, guidelines regarding sampling strategy of similar ship finds can be formulated.

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The Newport medieval ship and development of oak ring-width chronologies in Northern Spain

N. Nayling¹, J. Susperregi²

1 University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Lampeter, Wales

2 Arkeolan Foundation, Laboratorio de Dendrocronología, Irun (Gipuzkoa), Spain

The Newport Ship is the most substantial late medieval vessel excavated and recovered in Britain in recent years. It was abandoned after extensive salvage, possibly following attempts at repairs to the hull. More than 23 metres of the clinker-built ship were recovered, along with significant artefact and environmental assemblages. Finds point to strong Iberian connections during the active life of the ship, which arrived in Newport, in the Severn Estuary, after the spring of AD 1468 (Nayling and Jones 2014). At the time of the discovery of the ship, it proved impossible to date the timbers used in its original construction through the application of dendrochronology. Associated British timbers and artefacts provided dating to the mid- fifteenth century. The development of regional oak ring-width chronologies in the Basque Country, and their extension back in time to overlap with the ring-width mean developed for the Newport Ship has allowed absolute dating and provenance of the timbers used in the ship’s original construction (Nayling and Susperregi 2014). Further research is required to both clarify the source of the ship’s timbers and provide a network of tree-ring data for the region for the dating and analysis of other historic assets including ship finds originating in the Basque Country.

REFERENCES

Nayling, N. & Jones, T. (2014). The Newport Medieval Ship, Wales, United Kingdom International Journal of Nautical Archaeology: Early View.

Nayling, N. & Susperregi, J. (2014). Iberian Dendrochronology and the Newport Medieval Ship International Journal of Nautical Archaeology: Early View.

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A 17

^th

century ship with timber cargo

A. Daly

Dendro.dk, Copenhagen, Denmark and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark A shipwreck, recently found at the mouth of the River Elbe in Northern Germany was identified and documented by Martin Segschneider, Archäologisches Landesamt Schleswig- Holstein, in 2013. The dendrochronological analysis has shown that the ship is from timber felled in AD 1618.

While the timbers from the ship itself, through provenance determination, can be shown to be from trees that grew in Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany, the ship’s large cargo of oak timber, by contrast, originated from the Southern Baltic region. The timber cargo consists of two standard timber dimensions, and adds yet another piece to the large knowledge we have, through dendrochronology, of the extensive so-called Baltic timber trade over many centuries.

With the extensive evidence for trade in timber available through archaeological finds and historical documents, how can we utilise the dendrochronological evidence to increase our knowledge of the extent and mechanisms of trade in timber through the region through time?

In this talk I will present the dendrochronological analysis of the Elbe ship and cargo, and try to draw a picture of other insights that the dendrochronological dataset is providing, for timber trade across Northern Europe.

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Dendrochronological studies of alder (Alnus glutinosa) on Scottish crannogs

A. Crone

AOC Archaeology Group, Edinburgh, Scotland

On most Scottish crannogs that have been investigated alder is the species most extensively used for construction and therefore has the potential to provide fine chronological resolution for these sites. Dendrochronological studies of alder have now been undertaken on three crannogs, with mixed results. On the Early Historic crannog at Buiston, Ayrshire the construction of a single comprehensive alder chronology has contributed significantly to the overall chronology of the crannog, whereas on the later prehistoric crannogs at Oakbank, Perthshire and Cults Loch 3, Dumfries & Galloway it was only possible to construct numerous small chronologies which have limited value for chronological resolution on the sites.

Comparison between the datasets suggest that factors such as the structure of the parent tree, ie whether it comes from multi-stemmed coppice or single maiden trees, as well as the presence of multiple sources are likely to be a significant factors in the successful dendro-dating of the species. These observations will be tested this summer on a fourth assemblage of alder, from a later prehistoric loch village at the Black Loch of Myrton, Dumfries & Galloway, and will be reported in this paper.

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Roofs, towers, and wood installations. Dendrodating in Transylvania (Romania)

I. Botár¹, A. Grynaeus², B. Tóth³

1 Csíki Székely Múzeum, Csíkszereda, Romania

2 Hungarian Dendrochronological Laboratory, Budapest, Hungary

3 University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

Systematical collection of dendrochronological samples from historical structures and archaeological sites in Transylvania started in 2003 thanks to a Hungarian project. This research leaded to the founding in 2008 of the Transylvanian Dendrochronological Laboratory which since then continuously focuses on dating local historical wood structures and installations. Due to this work we can use two main chronologies for oak and silver fir materials from the 14^th- 20^th centuries so dendro dating became a routine in the last years. Thanks to regular appearances in conferences and publications the method is finally accepted and more and more required by architects before and during restoration processes of monuments. Beside building dates dendrochronology has a important contribution to the typology of the roof structures and also for reconstructing some effects of historical events such as Turkish invasions.

The main purpose for the future is to enlarge the validity of our chronologies both geographically and chronologically towards the firs millennium and the Carpathians.

The presentation will present some examples of these researches regarding medieval roofs, reconstructions, and dated ecclesiastical installations

Book of abstracts