dendrochronology

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

a scientific dating method that uses the patterns of annual growth rings in wood to assign precise calendar dates to timber samples, wooden structures, and objects made from wood; each year a tree lays down a ring of new wood whose width reflects the growing conditions of that year — wet warm years produce wide rings, cold dry years narrow ones — creating a unique fingerprint of the climate sequence in which the tree grew; by matching the ring patterns of overlapping samples from progressively older trees, researchers have built continuous master chronologies extending back thousands of years in many regions; dendrochronology provides absolute dates accurate to a single year and has been used to date medieval buildings, Bronze Age lake dwellings, ancient shipwrecks, and works of art painted on wooden panels, as well as to calibrate the radiocarbon dating curve essential to archaeological chronology worldwide