ped reveal how their construction was organised, and also the related matter of woodland management. Billamboz writes:“…the tree ring data is evaluated within a palaeoecological and palaeoclimatical perspective in order to highlight the relationship between human behaviour and environmental conditions of a settlement.” One particular group who are concerned with the archaeological implications of dendrochronology are a team of researchers from Cornell University who form the university’s Aegean Dendrochronology Project. Each year their research adds to the already documented chronologies, in 1996, work in Turkey bore significant archaeological implications.Essentially they managed to construct a tree ring sequence, from patterns preserved in wood and charcoal at some 22 sites throughout the eastern Mediterranean, of 1,503 years; from 2200 to 718 B.C. They established from this research, for example, that timber used to build the inner chamber of the Midas Mound Tumulus ( A tomb for the Phrygian king, Midas ) was cut in 718 B.C. By examining these samples they also revealed important findings involving the eruption of the Aegean volcanic island Thera, which occurred in the second millennium B.C. The eruption drastically influenced the environment and climate, even as far as the U.S.A. Because sunlight was compromised at this time, temperatures dropped and weather became generally wetter. Dendochronological experiments carried out on American bristlecone pine ring patterns revealed frost damage in this era, possibly as a result of this unusual situation. However in Porsuk in Turkey, about 840km from Thera, the effects differed greatly. This light reduction and an increase in moisture levels in the earth led to the pine ( also cedar and juniper ) samples from Porsuk bearing tree rings up to eight times wider than usual. Essentially what is crucial about these findings is that the bizarre state of the tree rings has...
