Support for University of Arizona Dendrochronological Laboratory

对于对最近的过去感兴趣的学者来说，树木年代学是最精确的考古测年方法。树木年轮在年度和通常是季节性的分辨率水平上是准确的，许多其他的年代测定技术都是用树木年轮校准的。在评估人类/环境相互作用、定居和生存变化的假设时，这种解决办法至关重要。该项目的社会效益包括增加我们对人类对社会文化和环境变化的长期适应的理解，以及对过去环境变化的了解，这两者对于制定环境和社会政策都很重要。亚利桑那大学的树木年轮研究实验室（LTRR）是唯一一个活跃于树木年代学研究各个方面的机构。实验室研究计划的一个主要组成部分是对史前和历史考古背景下的木材和木炭进行分析和定年。因此，LTRR已成为考古树木年轮资料的主要处理者，世界多个地区树木年轮日期的主要来源，以及世界上最大的考古树木年轮样本库。将测年计划整合到实验室的树木年轮研究、教学和推广活动中，创造了一个独特的跨学科环境，最大限度地提高了考古树木年轮样本和年表的科学价值，并为各种公众提供了享受研究的机会。该项目对考古研究的主要贡献包括精确的年代和年表的建立，以及对理解人类行为、人类与环境的相互作用以及社会文化稳定、变异、变化和进化过程至关重要的主题。该项目有助于理解那些未被文字记录的人类活动，这些活动要么发生在文字记录之前，要么发生在未被记录的地区。该项目利用传统和新的创新技术，为利益相关者提供了一个了解过去人类土地和资源利用的长期视角。该项目的研究结果几乎立即被整合到亚利桑那大学的课程中，包括针对非科学专业的本科通识教育第二级科学课程，以及人类学学院、地球科学和可再生自然资源系的本科/研究生课程。该项目直接为美国亚利桑那大学、北亚利桑那大学、华盛顿州立大学等高校学生的博士、硕士论文研究提供资助。该项目直接促成了广泛的外展活动，去年已惠及12000多人，包括K-12课程、研究生和本科生、来自世界各地的访问学者，以及为政府、私人和美洲原住民文化资源管理项目提供实地培训。该项目与许多美国和国际大学、政府机构和私人咨询公司进行合作研究和培训。LTRR树木年轮样本收集和数据档案是无与伦比的，易于访问的考古，历史和环境研究资源。项目成果通过讲座、报纸、广播、电视和互联网向公众发布。项目人员直接为联邦、州、地方和部落土地管理机构制定记录、抽样和保护文化和自然资源的政策做出了贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Dendrochronology is the most exact archaeological dating method available to scholars interested in the recent past. Tree-rings are accurate at the annual, and often seasonal, level of resolution and many other dating techniques are calibrated using tree-rings. Such resolution is critical when assessing hypotheses of human/environment interaction, settlement and subsistence change. Societal benefits of this project include increasing our understanding of long-term human adaptation to sociocultural and environmental variability and from knowledge of past environmental variability, both of which are important for developing environmental and social policy. The Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (LTRR) at the University of Arizona is the only institution active in all aspects of dendrochronological research. A major component of the Laboratory's research program is the analysis and dating of wood and charcoal from prehistoric and historic archaeological contexts. Thus, the LTRR has become the leading processor of archaeological tree-ring materials, the primary source of tree-ring dates in multiple regions of the world, and the largest repository of archaeological tree-ring samples in the world. The integration of the dating program into the full range of dendrochronological research, teaching, and outreach activities at the Laboratory creates a unique interdisciplinary context that maximizes the scientific value of archaeological tree-ring samples and chronologies, and provides a variety of publics to enjoy the research. The project's primary contribution to archaeological research involves exact dating and chronology building, topics crucial to understanding human behavior, human-environment interactions, and processes of sociocultural stability, variation, change, and evolution. The project contributes to understanding past human activities that remain outside written history, either because they occurred prior to written records or were in areas that were not recorded. Using traditional and new innovative techniques, the project offers stakeholders a long-erm perspective in which to understand past human land and resource use. The findings of the project are almost immediately integrated into University of Arizona classes including an Undergraduate General Education Tier II science course for nonscience majors and undergraduate/graduate courses in the School of Anthropology and departments of Geosciences and Renewable Natural Resources. The project directly contributes to PhD dissertation and MA thesis research by students at the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University, Washington State University, and other colleges and universities. The project contributes directly to extensive outreach activities that have reached more than 12000 people in the last year, including K-12 programs, graduate and undergraduate students, visiting scholars from around the world, and field training for government, private, and Native American cultural resource management programs. The project engages in cooperative research and training with many US and International universities, government agencies, and private consulting firms. The LTRR tree-ring sample collections and data archives are unparalleled, easily accessed resources for archaeological, historical, and environmental research. Project results are distributed to the public through lectures, newspapers, radio, television, and the internet.. Project personnel have contributed directly to formulating policy for documenting, sampling, and protecting cultural and natural resources by federal, state, local, and tribal land management agencies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.