Support for University of Arizona Dendrochronological Laboratory

树状年代学是最近对过去感兴趣的学者所能获得的最准确的考古年代测定方法。年轮在年度和通常是季节性的分辨率水平上都是准确的，许多其他测年技术都是使用年轮进行校准的。在评估人与环境相互作用、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异性的长期适应的了解，以及对过去环境变异性的了解，这两者对制定环境和社会政策都很重要。亚利桑那大学年轮研究实验室(LTRR)是唯一活跃在树轮年代学研究各个方面的机构。该实验室研究方案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年代测定。因此，LTRR已经成为考古树轮材料的主要加工者，世界多个地区树轮日期的主要来源，以及世界上最大的考古树轮样本库。将测年计划整合到实验室的树状年代学研究、教学和推广活动中，创造了一种独特的跨学科背景，最大限度地发挥了考古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准确的年代测定和年代学建立，这些主题对于理解人类行为、人与环境的相互作用以及社会文化稳定、变异、变化和进化的过程至关重要。该项目有助于理解在书面历史之外的过去人类活动，因为它们发生在书面记录之前，或者在没有记录的地区。该项目使用传统和新的创新技术，为利益相关者提供了一个长期的ERM视角，让他们了解过去人类土地和资源的使用情况。该项目的发现几乎立即被整合到亚利桑那大学的课堂上，包括面向非理科专业的本科普通教育二级科学课程，以及人类学学院、地质科学和可再生自然资源系的本科生/研究生课程。该项目直接为亚利桑那大学、北亚利桑那大学、华盛顿州大学和其他学院和大学的学生的博士论文和硕士论文研究做出贡献。该项目直接促进了广泛的外联活动，去年已有超过12000人参加，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课程提供的实地培训。该项目致力于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树轮样本收集和数据档案是考古、历史和环境研究无与伦比的、易于获取的资源。项目成果通过讲座、报纸、广播、电视和互联网向公众发布。项目人员为联邦、州、地方和部落土地管理机构制定记录、采样和保护文化和自然资源的政策做出了直接贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.