A doctoral student who used facilities at the Fairbanks
Experiment Farm to study driftwood logs used in ancient houses in northwest
Alaska presented her research at the 21st World Wood Day Virtual Symposium
March 21-23.

Archeological timbers were found at
several sites in Northwest Alaska.

Emeritus Professor Glenn Juday said Juliette Taïeb completed
tree ring work in 2018 using his lab and wood-handling facilities at the
experiment farm.

Her presentation was titled “Climatic value of Thule
architectural wood remains from northwestern Alaska (AD 850-1650): a
dendroarchaeological approach,”  which she co-authored with Juday and
other members of her doctoral committee. Taïeb is studying at the University of
Paris Pantheon Sorbonne.

The tree ring research involved the study of driftwood logs
used in ancient houses at several sites on the northwest coast of Alaska and
the Seward Peninsula area, including old Kotzebue.

Juday described highlights
of the research. “We have successfully cross-dated dozens of archeological
timbers that now have dramatically improved the sample numbers of ring width
chronologies that are available to reconstruct climate from 1000 AD to 1650s
AD. Previously only one or two trees contributed to the reconstruction of a few
of the early centuries, making the reconstructions weak or suspect. Juliette also
extended the cross-dated tree ring chronology back to AD 812, over one
additional century from what was available previously.”

She will join Juday and another committee member, Claire
Alix, for a joint presentation at the annual meeting of the Society of American
Archeology (online) April 15-17.