Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T02:25:04.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Tree-Rings and Droughts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Wilfrid C. Bailey
Wilfrid C. Bailey*
Affiliation:
Dept. of Anthropology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Harold S. Gladwin in a recent publication voiced a question of vital importance to Southwestern archaeology. Can dendrochronology tell us anything concerning the effects of climate on aboriginal agriculture?

Both Douglass and Schulman have claimed that correlations can be established between tree-growth and winter precipitation, but each of them has been explicit in saying that summer rainfall has little, if any effect upon the growth of trees. Since it would seem that summer rainfall, during the crop-growing months, is the only season of moisture which could effect the agricultural well being of Pueblo peoples, I do not see how narrow tree-rings can be regarded as providing any indications of economic disaster in ancient times.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , July 1948 , pp. 59 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1948

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anonymous 1941. “Climate and Man.” Yearbook of Agriculture. Washington: U. S. Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar
Clark, S. P. 1931. “Fifteen Years of Field Crop Work at Prescott Dry-Farm, 1912-1927.” Bulletin, University of Arizona Experiment Station, No. 136. Tucson.Google Scholar
Douglass, Andrew E. 1928. “Climatic Cycles and Tree-growth, Vol. II.“ Carnegie Institution Publication, No. 289. Washington.Google Scholar
Giddings, J. L. Jr. 1943. “Some Climatic Aspects of Tree Growth in Alaska.” Tree Ring Bulletin, Vol. 9, No. 4. Tucson.Google Scholar
Gladwin, Harold Stirling 1946. “Tree-ring Analysis; Tree-rings and Droughts.“ Medallion Papers. No. 27. Globe.Google Scholar
Hack, John T. 1942. “The Changing Environment of the Hopi Indians of Arizona.” Papers, Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Vol. 25, No. 1. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hauter, L. H.; Walker, A. L.; and Wells, O. V. 1930. “Five-year Economic Study of 125 Farms in Curry and Roosevelt Counties, New Mexico.“ Bulletin, Agricultural Experiment Station of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Art, No. 186, Part 1. College Station.Google Scholar
Hobart, Charles, and Harris, Karl 1946. “Fitting Cropping Systems to Water Supplies in Central Arizona.” Circular, University of Arizona Agricultural Extension Service, No. 127. Tucson.Google Scholar
Hoyt, John C. 1938. “Drought of 1936 With a Discussion in Relation to Climate.” Geological Survey Water Supply Paper, No. 820. Washington.Google Scholar
Lyons, C. J. 1936. “Tree-ring Width as an Index of Physiological Dryness in England.” Ecology, Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 457-78. Brooklyn.Google Scholar
Mcgregor, John C. 1936. “The Effects of a Volcanic Cinder Fall on Tree Growth.” Tree-Ring Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 11–13. Tucson.Google Scholar
Schulman, Edmund 1942. “Centuries Long Tree Indices of Precipitation in the Southwest.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 23, pp. 148-61, 204-17. New York.Google Scholar
Smith, George E. P., and Booker, L. J. 1940. “Forcasting Ground Water Supply in Deserts.“ Pan-American Geologist, Vol. 74, No. 2, pp. 94-8. Des Moines.Google Scholar
Smith, H. V. 1945. “The Climate of Arizona.” Bulletin, University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, No. 192. Tucson.Google Scholar