TREE RING DATING FOR SOUTHEASTERN 



MOUNDS 



By Florence M. Hawley 



Assistant Professor in Anthropology, University of New Mexico, and 

 Consulting Dendrochronologist, Tennessee Valley Authority, 1984-85 



Since 1927, when Dr. Andrew E. Douglass, of the University of 

 Arizona, first published dates on prehistoric southwestern pueblos, 

 archaeologists working in that area have been able to assign definite 

 periods and years to their sites and to their chronologies. His 

 material consisted principally of pine beams and of other wood 

 specimens found in the ancient ruins of northern and central Ari- 

 zona, of southern Utah and Colorado, and of northeastern New 

 Mexico. Subsequently W. S. Stallings, working for the Laboratory 

 of Anthropology at Santa Fe, worked out a master chart for the 

 difficult Rio Grande area, and sites of that region took their definite 

 places in historical sequence. Where wood was lacking or was of 

 some variety unsuitable for dating by tree-ring analysis, cross finds 

 of pottery between dated and undated ruins provided approximate 

 dates for the latter. Charcoal debris from house fires dated pottery 

 sequences taken from the strata of refuse mounds. Southwestern 

 chronologies were on a sound basis. 



With dating by tree-ring analysis a proven success in southwestern 

 archaeology, the archaeologists of the Middle West and of the South- 

 east began to wonder whether wood from the Mound Builder ruins 

 might not be used for dating the numerous proponents of that cul- 

 ture. In the spring of 1934 Dr. Fay-Cooper Cole, director of the 

 Department of Anthropology of the University of Chicago, proposed 

 that an investigation be made of the possibility of application of 

 dendrochronology to the Mound Builder area. 



With this investigation as the object, 6 weeks of field work was 

 proposed for the summer. Dr. Carl Guthe, of the University of 

 Michigan, chairman of the committee on State Archaeological Sur- 

 veys, Division of Anthropology and Psychology, National Research 

 Council, sent out a bulletin which announced the project to archaeol- 

 ogists and asked for aid in location of modern timber tracts and in 

 preservation of wood specimens excavated from any mounds on 

 which they might be working. 



In answer to this proposal many workers offered their cooperation. 

 Maj. William S. Webb, Head of the Department of Anthropology 



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