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A.E. (Andrew Ellicott) Douglass (July 5, 1867, Windsor, Vermont – March 20, 1962, Tucson, Arizona) was an American astronomer. He discovered a correlation between tree rings and the sunspot cycle.
Douglass founded the discipline of dendrochronology, which is a method of dating wood by analyzing the growth ring pattern. He started his discoveries in this field in 1894 when he was working at the Lowell Observatory. During this time he was an assistant to Percival Lowell and William Henry Pickering, but had a falling-out with them, when his experiments made him doubt the existence of artificial "canals" on Mars and visible cusps on Venus Craters on the Moon and Mars are named in his honor. In 1909, Clark Wissler, of the American Museum of Natural History,
organized the Archer M. Huntington Survey. One objective of this survey
was to determine temporal arrangement of the American Southwest’s
prehistoric ruins. Wissler, who had read about Douglass’s work
concerning the relationship between precipitation and tree growth,
later contacted Douglass saying: Your
work suggests to me a possible help in the archaeological investigation
of the Southwest…We do not know how old these ruins are, but I should
be glad to have an opinion from you as to whether it might be possible
to connect up with your modern and dated trees specimens [with wood
specimens] from these [prehistoric] ruins by correlating the curves of
growth… I shall be glad to hear from you as to whether you think it is
possible for us to secure any chronological data from the examination
of this material. On
June 19, 1914, the curator of the American Museum of Natural History
wrote a letter to Douglass expressing his desire to begin archaeological analysis as early as possible. In
1916, Douglass began obtaining and analyzing archaeological samples
first collected during an expedition to northwest New Mexico by the
University of Colorado and the American Museum of Natural History. In
April 1918, Wissler asked Douglass whether or not it would be possible
to assign relative dates to samples that couldn’t be dated absolutely.
Although this information would not associate particular sites with
exact years, it would reveal whether or not ruins were constructed
within the same time period. On May 22, 1919, Douglass informed Wissler
that six specimens from Aztec Ruin, New Mexico, were cut down within a
two year period, and estimated that samples from Pueblo Bonito in New
Mexico were possibly 25 years older than those collected at Aztec Ruin.
Upon receiving this news, Wissler was certain that Douglass would make
a crucial contribution to archaeology. Douglass continued comparing
samples between the two sites and concluded Pueblo Bonito actually
predated Aztec Ruin by 40 to 45 years. These findings led to
realization that relative dating could be used on many of the other
ruins in the Southwest. Although promising steps had been made in
solving the mystery of the ruins in the Southwest, in 1920, the
American Museum of Natural History discontinued the funding of
Douglass’s research. In order to continue his dendro - archaeological
research, Douglass would have to find funding elsewhere.
On January 22, 1922, Douglass was informed that the National Geographic Society could
be a potential source of funding. By May of that year, the idea of a
Beam Expedition funded by the National Geographic Society was conceived. Beam Expeditions, funded by the National Geographic
Society took place in 1923 and 1928. These expeditions produced a
floating chronology of 585 years for Southwestern ruins, and extended
Douglass’s Flagstaff chronology of Ponderosa Pine, which was 500 years
long in 1914, to A.D. 1260. However, these expeditions failed to bridge
the gap that existed between these two chronologies.
In
1929, Douglass set out on a third Beam Expedition. This expedition
explicitly targeted samples that would potentially bridge the gap
between the two chronologies. Finally, on June 22, 1929, a beam labeled
HH-39 was extracted at the Show Low site in Arizona. This beam took the
Flagstaff chronology back to A.D. 1237. Later that day, the inner
rings of HH-39 were successfully crossdated against the outer rings of
Douglass’s floating chronology. Over 15 years after he began working
with Clark Wissler, Douglass had bridged the gap and, as a result, had
a continuous record of tree-ring data dating back to A. D. 700. For the
first time in history, dates could be assigned to Southwestern ruins
with certainty. Cliff dwelling at Tsegi Canyon, Mesa Verde, and Canyon
de Chelly dated back to the 13th century. It was determined that Aztec
Ruin was constructed during a period ranging from A. D. 1111 - A. D.
1120. Pueblo Bonito was found to be built in the latter portion of the
11th century. Douglass formally reported his findings in the December 1929 issue of National Geographic. He wrote: Its
inner rings overlapped the late decades of the old chronology by 49
years, the final ring resting on the year 537 of that sequence; its
outer ones overlapped the earliest 120 years of the new, the last one
reaching to 1380. Thus the 26 years from 1260 to 1286, which belonged
to both chronologies, were definitely matched and their union confirmed
by HH-39, which in American archaeology is destined to hold a place
comparable to Egypt’s Rosetta Stone… With careful archaeological study
we shall perhaps be able to trace the movement of clans and test tribal
traditions which have been so often quoted as the early history of
these people. Emil Haury, one of the men who helped extract HH-39, stated: For
the three of us [Emil W. Haury, Lyndon L. Hargrave, and Neil M. Judd],
the experience was unforgettable. To be present at the instance of the
celebrated breakthrough in science that set the chronological house in
order for the Southwestern United States was reward enough. But beyond
that, was the privilege to work for a time at the side of Douglass, the
scholar, the astronomer turned archaeologist. Douglass
returned to the University of Arizona where he became the first person
to formally teach classes in dendrochronology. In 1937, the science
continued to develop when Douglass established the Laboratory of Tree - Ring Research at the University of Arizona.
Since
Douglass’s famous discovery in the American Southwest, his
dendro - archaeological techniques have been used to date structures
around the world. Furthermore, dendrochronology has been applied in a
number of ways. Currently, tree rings are being used to reconstruct an
array of activity including: fire regimes, volcanic activity, hurricane
activity, glacial movement, precipitation, mass movements, and
hydrology. In many ways anthropologists, ecologists, geographers, and
geologists are able to analyze the past and predict future trends. All
of this is possible thanks to the archaeological achievement of A.E.
Douglass. |