DENDROCHRONOLOGY AND RADIOCARBON DATING

Both dendrochronology and radiocarbon (C-14) dating have their roots back in the early to mid-1900s. Although they were independently developed, they began to intertwine in the 1950s when the founder of dendrochronology, A. E. Douglass, provided dated wood samples for Willard Libby to test his emerging C-14 methods. Since this early connection, absolutely dated tree-rings have been key to calibration of the Holocene portion of the C-14 timescale. In turn, C-14 dating of non-calendar-dated tree-rings has served to place those samples more precisely in time, advance development of long tree-ring chronologies, and bring higher resolution to earlier portions of the C-14 calibration curve. Together these methods continue to shape and improve chronological frameworks across the globe, answering questions in archaeology, history, paleoclimatology, geochronology, and ocean, atmosphere, and solar sciences.