Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (4) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.4.109-113

Annotation:  Ivory Figurines and the Symbolic Context of a Paleolithic Dwelling at Kovrizhka IV on the Lower Viti On the Interpretation of Stelae in the Cult Complexes of Northern Mesopotamia During the Pre-Pottery A Study of Finds from Excavation I at Suchu Island, the Lower Amur (the 1974 Field Season) Jade Artifacts from Bronze Age Cemeteries in the Cis-Olkhon Area, the Western Coast of Lake Baikal Sherubai-1: An Andronovo (Fedorovka) Cemetery in Central Kazakhstan Technologies Involved in Manufacturing Wooden Horns for the Ceremonial Masks of Horses from the Pazy On the Time and Context of the Earliest Bronze Mirrors in the Northern Pontic Region Procession of Horsemen on a Gold Plaque from the Siberian Collection of Peter I A Mongolian Era Female Headdress from the Upper Ob Basin Ancient Irrigated Soils of the Bozok Archaeological District, Northern Kazakhstan (11th to 12th Cent Chthonic Animals in the Traditional Buryat Culture Reconstruction of Wooden and Earthen Buildings in 17th to 18th-Century Russian Forts in Siberia: The Application of the Blue-Intensity Method for Dating Wooden Buildings in Siberia The Eastern Slavic Population of Central Asia After the Collapse of the USSR: Ethno-Demographic Proc An Unusual Burial of a Xiongnu-Sarmatian Era Warrior in the Western Siberian Forest-Steppe: Results Armed Violence Among the Altai Mountains Pastoralists of the Xiongnu-Sarmatian Age “Abandoned, Tied, Flexed”: An Anthropological Study of an Unusual Late Sarmatian Burial in the South   

Application of the Blue-Intensity Method
for Dating Wooden Buildings in Siberia

V.S. Myglan¹, Z.Y. Zharnikov¹, M.O. Sidorova^{1, 2}, V.V. Barinov¹, and A.V. Tainik¹

¹Siberian Federal University, Pr. Svobodny 79, Krasnoyarsk, 660041, Russia

²Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

Despite the success achieved in the tree-ring dating of wood samples from archaeological excavations over the recent years, attempts to apply this method to relatively recent wooden constructions in central Siberia run into considerable difficulties, because the increment of wood in that area shows little variation owing to the virtual absence of limiting factors. To solve this problem, we used the blue-intensity method, based on measuring the optical density of wood. This method is more sensitive to environmental changes of annual growth rates, and is optimal in terms of efficiency and cost. This article describes the techniques of sample preparation, measuring the optical density of annual rings, and the construction of chronologies from this indicator. The efficiency of the method is assessed by comparing it to the traditional approach based on tree-ring width for dating wood from the temperate zone of Siberia. The results of dating two wooden buildings (Gromov’s house (1870) and Gafarov’s store (1909)) in the city of Yeniseysk indicate that the new method is efficient, and virtually without limiting factors that might affect increment rates.

Keywords: Blue-intensity, method, wooden architecture, Siberia, calendar dating