Dating Coastal Archaeological Wood From Pingusugruk (15th–17th CE), Northern Alaska: Preliminary Results and Methodological Perspectives in Dendrochronology

• Published in: International journal of wood culture 2022-10, Vol.2 (1-3), p.89-116
• Main Authors: Taïeb, Juliette, Alix, Claire, Juday, Glenn P., Jensen, Anne M., Daux, Valérie, Petit, Christophe
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Archaeology and Prehistory; Humanities and Social Sciences
• ISSN: 2772-3186; 2772-3194
• DOI: 10.1163/27723194-bja10006

Along the coasts of northern Alaska, in a treeless tundra environment, the primary wood resource for coastal populations is driftwood, a seasonal and exogenous resource carried by the major rivers of western North America. The potential of Alaskan coastal archaeological wood for tree-ring research was first assessed in the 1940s by archaeologist and tree-ring research pioneer J. L. Giddings. Despite his success, the difficulties of dendrochronological studies on driftwood and the development of radiocarbon dating during the 1950s resulted in the near-abandonment of dendrochronology to precisely date archaeological sites and build long sequences using archaeological wood in Alaska. In this study, we explored the possibilities and limitations of standard ring-width dendrochronological methods for dating Alaskan coastal archaeological wood. We focus on the site of Pingusugruk, a late Thule site (15th–17th CE ) located at Point Franklin, northern Alaska. The preliminary results have been obtained from the standard dendrochronological analyses of 40 timber cross-sections from two semi-subterranean houses at Pingusugruk. We cross-correlated individual ring-width series and built floating chronologies between houses before cross-dating them with existing regional 1000-year-long master chronologies from the Kobuk and Mackenzie rivers (available on the International Tree-Ring Databank, ITRDB ). Additional work on various dendro-archaeological collections using an interdisciplinary approach (geochemical analyses of oxygen isotopes and radiocarbon dating) will help develop and expand regional tree-ring chronologies and climatic tree-ring sequences in Alaska.