ABSOLUTE DENDROCHRONOLOGICAL SCALE FOR PINE (PINUS SYLVESTRIS L.) FROM UJŚCIE (NW POLAND), DATED USING RAPID ATMOSPHERIC ¹⁴C CHANGES

Abstract

Radiocarbon (14C) analyses are commonly used to determine the absolute age of floating tree-ring chronologies. At best, with the wiggle-matching method, a precision of 10 years could be achieved. For the early Middle Ages, this situation has been markedly improved by the discovery of rapid changes in atmospheric 14C concentrations in tree-rings dated to 774/775 and 993/994 AD. These high-resolution changes can be used to secure other floating tree-ring sequences to within 1-year accuracy. While a number of studies have used the 774 even to secure floating tree-ring sequences, the less abrupt 993 event has not been so well utilized. This study dates a floating pine chronology from Ujście in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland) (NW Poland), which covers the 10th century period and is critical for studies on the beginning of the Polish State to the calendar years 859–1085 AD using the changes in single year radiocarbon around 993/4 AD.

The Miyake Event in 993 Ce Recorded in Oak Sub-Annual Tree Rings From Kujawy (Poland)

“…The authors used the abrupt increase in concentration of the radiocarbon for the years 774/775 CE to precisely date the year of the cutting of timber for use in the historical Holy Cross chapel of the convent St. John the Baptist in Val Münstair, Switzerland. A similar method was used to date the Baitoushan Volcano eruption in China (Hakozaki et al 2018), and to obtain the absolute dendrochronological scale for pine trees from NW Poland (Krąpiec et al 2020) on otherwise floating chronologies.…”