Absolute Tree-Ring Chronology for the Last 5000 Years for the Eastern Mediterranean

东地中海地区过去 5000 年的绝对树轮年表

• 批准号: 0314282
• 负责人: Peter Kuniholm
• 金额: $ 24万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-09-01 至 2006-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0314282&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Absolute; Tree; Ring; Chronology; Last

With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Peter Kuniholm and collaborators will continue to construct a master tree-ring curve for the Eastern Mediterranean and to provide precise dates for sites of archaeological interest. Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) is the most accurate known dating technique with a theoretically possible resolution of one year, sometimes under ideal circumstances to a specific season within the year. Because the thickness of annual growth increments is affected by temperature and rainfall, internannual variations allow the researcher to start with living trees, plot a thickness or density curve back from today's starting date, and then extend the series further backward in time with the addition of samples from archaeological and geological contexts. These absolutely-dated tree-ring sequences are also being used as a proxy for palaeoclimatic reconstruction in the period before instrumental measurements exist. Dr. Kuniholm and his colleagues have worked for many years (10 million microscope measurements so far) to construct master chronologies for Greece, Turkey, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, and other countries in the Eastern Mediterranean, now covering some 6,500 of the last 9,200 years. Already their work has demonstrated a need for a re-interpretation of some radiocarbon dates with offsets of 20-30 years during periods of global cooling. The focus of their work for 2003-2006 will be the centuries on either side of the AD/BC transition, currently a "gap" in their chronology because of the large number of Roman buildings built in stone and which therefore did not collapse and preserve the wooden architectural members in the same way that Bronze Age mudbrick buildings do. Over the next three years the team will focus on fleshing out this "gap" by radiocarbon wiggle-matching the 82 discontinuous chronologies or ring-sequences already developed for that period. They will also visit and analyze wood from 40-50 sites a year in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East. The end-product by the end of June 2006 should be a complete, continuous, and therefore absolute chronology for the last 5000 years, the entire period of literate civilization as we know it. The project is extremely important because the resulting sequence will permit the absolute dating of large numbers of archaeological occurrences to the year. Because the laboratory involves many undergraduate students (over 20 a year) it will continue to play an important role is science education. More than 40 graduates of the lab have gone on to Ph.D. degrees, more than 29 to M.D. degrees, and over 100 to a Masters degree of one kind or another.

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Peter Kuniholm 博士和合作者将继续构建东地中海的主树木年轮曲线，并为考古遗址提供精确的日期。 树木年代学（树木年轮测年）是已知最准确的测年技术，理论上可能的分辨率为一年，有时在理想情况下可达一年内的特定季节。 由于年生长增量的厚度受到温度和降雨量的影响，年际变化允许研究人员从活树开始，绘制从今天开始日期开始的厚度或密度曲线，然后通过添加来自考古和地质环境的样本，将序列进一步向后延伸。 这些绝对日期的树木年轮序列也被用作仪器测量出现之前时期古气候重建的代理。 Kuniholm 博士和他的同事多年来一直致力于为希腊、土耳其、意大利、前南斯拉夫、黎巴嫩和东地中海其他国家构建主年表（迄今为止已经进行了 1000 万次显微镜测量），目前涵盖了过去 9,200 年中的约 6,500 年。他们的工作已经表明，在全球变冷期间需要重新解释一些放射性碳测年法，并抵消 20-30 年的影响。他们2003-2006年的工作重点将是公元/公元前过渡时期两侧的几个世纪，目前他们的年代顺序上存在一个“空白”，因为大量的罗马建筑是用石头建造的，因此不会像青铜时代的泥砖建筑那样倒塌并保存木质建筑构件。 在接下来的三年里，该团队将专注于通过放射性碳摆动匹配该时期已经开发的 82 个不连续年表或环序列来充实这一“差距”。 他们还将每年访问并分析来自东地中海和近东地区 40-50 个地点的木材。 2006 年 6 月底的最终产品应该是过去 5000 年（我们所知的整个文字文明时期）的完整、连续且绝对的年表。 该项目极其重要，因为由此产生的序列将允许对大量考古事件进行绝对年代测定。由于该实验室涉及许多本科生（每年超过20名），因此它将继续在科学教育方面发挥重要作用。该实验室已有40多名毕业生继续攻读博士学位。学位，超过 29 个获得医学博士学位，超过 100 个获得某种类型的硕士学位。