Cornell University
Library
Cornell UniversityLibrary

eCommons

Help
Log In(current)
  1. Home
  2. Cornell University Graduate School
  3. Cornell Theses and Dissertations
  4. Multi-proxy dendroprovenance: methodological investigations in the East Mediterranean

Multi-proxy dendroprovenance: methodological investigations in the East Mediterranean

Access Restricted

Access to this document is restricted. Some items have been embargoed at the request of the author, but will be made publicly available after the "No Access Until" date.

During the embargo period, you may request access to the item by clicking the link to the restricted file(s) and completing the request form. If we have contact information for a Cornell author, we will contact the author and request permission to provide access. If we do not have contact information for a Cornell author, or the author denies or does not respond to our inquiry, we will not be able to provide access. For more information, review our policies for restricted content.

File(s)
McDonald_cornellgrad_0058F_15534.pdf (51.13 MB)
No Access Until
2028-06-22
Permanent Link(s)
https://doi.org/10.7298/2p5s-h898
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/126511
Collections
Cornell Theses and Dissertations
Author
McDonald, Liam
Abstract

Wood from archaeological sites is a potential treasure trove of information for archaeologists and climate scientists, but this will only be fully realized if the provenance of the wood can be determined. For archaeologists and historians, dendroprovenance can reveal patterns of wood supply and facilitate inferences about broader society including its economic systems and societal structures. For climate scientists, tree-ring records provide the most precise climate reconstructions possible, and archaeological wood offers the opportunity to extend records beyond the lifespan of living trees. In this dissertation I develop methods for determining accurate and specific wood provenance. The key insight is that mapping approaches which allow the probability of origin to be assessed continuously across a region can be adapted to tree-ring width and geochemical geographical proxies. This approach allows different methods to be combined to produce the most precise provenance determinations possible. I further show that regional climate reconstructions lose the spatial specificity which ultimately mediates the relationship between humans and their environment. This dissertation, thus, lays a foundation for the implementation of precise dendroprovenancing which can be used to produce spatially resolved climate reconstructions.

Description
409 pages
Date Issued
2026-05
Keywords
climate reconstruction
•
dendrochronology
•
dendroprovenance
•
Geospatial modelling
•
ICP-MS
•
stable isotopes
Committee Chair
Manning, Sturt
Committee Member
Sparks, Jed
Russell, Nerissa
Degree Discipline
Classics
Degree Name
Ph. D., Classics
Degree Level
Doctor of Philosophy
Type
dissertation or thesis

Site Statistics | Help

About eCommons | Policies | Terms of use | Contact Us

copyright © 2002-2026 Cornell University Library | Privacy | Web Accessibility Assistance