Dendroarch Field School 2022!

June 24, 2022
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Two women collecting timber samples

Dendroarchaeology participants Susan Goss and Yunbei Xu collecting samples in western New Mexico

The School of Anthropology and the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research offered “Dendroarchaeology” field camp (Anth/Geos 497i/607j) during Presession 2022 for the 20th time!! The course teaches the basics in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting tree-ring samples from archaeological and historical contexts. As part of the course, students collect samples from a field site and bring them back to Tucson for analysis. This year’s students and participants hailed from China, Canada, Macedonia, and the US. Our field work examined the timing and ecological impacts of small-scale commercial timber harvesting in a mixed-conifer forest of western New Mexico in the early 20th century. We determined that at least 10,000 Ponderosa pine trees were removed from the Cebolla Creek drainage, possibly in as little as 14 months. The results will be incorporated into a thesis by an incoming MA in Applied Archaeology student.