You have answered your question with your own photograph: Tree ring dating. Archeologists use it on wooden huts, tools, or furniture to estimate when those implements were constructed.
Old empresario is right! The answer is right here. The age of a tree is determined by counting the tree rings, and dendrochronology is the science thereof.
Dendrochronology is the dating of objects or historical events by the study of the annual growth rings of trees. Tree trunks grow in diameter by producing a thin layer of woody cells around the circumference. These cells arise from an actively dividing tissue, called the cambium, just beneath the bark. In temperate regions, such growth occurs only seasonally, creating annual layers, or rings.
At the beginning of the spring-summer growing season, conditions for growth are generally optimum; the woody cells produced are larger and more thin-walled than those produced later when conditions are less favorable. The change from one season's layer of large woody cells to that of the next makes one annual ring. By counting the annual rings inward from the outside, the dates of droughts, fires, and other occurrences that affect tree growth can be reliably established. A chronology of over 7,000 years has been established with this technique.
Copyright © 2018 HubPages Inc. and respective owners.
Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners.
HubPages® is a registered Service Mark of HubPages, Inc.
HubPages and Hubbers (authors) may earn revenue on this page based on affiliate relationships and advertisements with partners including Amazon, Google, and others.
terms of use privacy policy (0.61 sec)