Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 36 (4) 2008

Annotation:  Environmental Changes in the Mongolian Altai during the Holocene New Data on Radiocarbon Chronology of Neolithic Ceramics from the Volga-Kama Region 1929 Year Tree-Ring Chronology for the Altai-Sayan Region (Western Tuva) Early Urilsky Culture Assemblage from Bukinsky Kluch, Bureya River Representations of Warriors on Early Medieval Turkic Bronze Plaques from Eastern Central Asia New Categories of Wooden Artifacts of the Mid 1st Millennium AD from the site of Vis II (Vychegda Ba The Han Chariot from Noin Ula Mound 20 (Mongolia) Defense Constructions of Fort Umrevinsky (Based on 2002–2004 Archaeological Excavations) Petroglyph Sites of Kazakhstan and Western Central Asia as Part of the Archaeological Landscape: Ne Zoomorphic Images in Eastern Slavic Embroidery of Southwestern Siberia New Ethnic Holidays in the Sayan-Altai The Origin of the Early Nomadic Populations of Tuva: Craniometrical Evidence The “Mediterraneans” of Southern Siberia and Kazakhstan, Indo-European Migrations, and the Origin of Human Humerus from Khoroshevsky Island: History and Context   

1929 Year Tree-Ring Chronology for the Altai-Sayan Region (Western Tuva)

V.S. Myglan, O.C. Oidupaa, A.V. Kirdyanov, and E.A. Vaganov.

The current paper presents a new 1929-year tree-ring chronology for the Altai-Sayan region (Western Tuva) based on analyses of wood material from living trees and trunk remains of Siberian larch (Larix sibirica Ldb) from the upper treeline (2400 m asl). The correlations between tree-ring indices and meteorological data suggest that maximum effect on radial growth is produced by temperatures in June and July. This makes it possible to use the resulting chronology for early summer temperature reconstructions in the Altai-Sayan region. In respect to archaeology, a chronology of this length provides the opportunity of dating ancient wood samples, i.e. for exact defi nition of the calendar dates of the archaeological objects in the relevant territory over the entire period of the chronology.