SPECIES IDENTIFICATION AND RESEARCH POTENTIAL OF DENDROCHRONOLOGY TO TANG AND SONG DYNASTIES COFFINS IN NORTHERN JIANGSU PROVINCE,CHINA
Wooden remains from historical periods serve as crucial materials for studying past environments,climates,socio-economic conditions,and the relationships between ancient peoples and their geography.This study focuses on the wooden coffins from the ancient tomb complex located in the Haizhou District Gymnasium(34°33′51.17″N,119°09′46.38″E),Phase Ⅱ,Lianyungang City,Jiangsu Province.Through comprehensive analysis based on the tombs'construction,stratigraphic relationships,and accompanying artifacts,it was discovered that the tombs span from the Wei,Jin,Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Qing Dynasty,predominantly from the Late Tang,Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty.Notably,the coffins from the Late Tang,Five Dynasties(M1,M23)and Northern Song Dynasty(M10,M12,M32)tombs were well-preserved.Eighteen coffin boards from these five coffins were selected for wood species identification using wood anatomy methods,revealing that all samples from the Tang and Song periods were made of fir.However,the northern boundary of fir distribution during the Tang and Song periods might not have extended to the Haizhou area(present-day Lianyungang),suggesting that the fir may have been transported via timber shipping trade from the richly forested mountains of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River,facilitated by the convenient water transport conditions provided by the development of the Grand Canal,thus becoming an important wood type for coffin manufacturing in the region.Additionally,the exploitation of fir trees over 200 years old reflects the existence of primary fir forests in the Yangtze River basin during the Tang and Song periods.Moreover,the study applied dendrochronological methods to some fir boards,establishing a 238-year tree-ring width chronology for the Late Tang and Five Dynasties period and a 412-year chronology for the Northern Song period using six and thirteen sequences,respectively.The high consistency and mean sensitivity among these samples indicate that the coffin tree-ring samples are suitable for dendrochronological research,laying a foundation for establishing a millennial tree-ring chronology and analyzing the fine processes of ancient climate evolution in China's subtropical regions.This research provides a significant window into the study of the coupling relationship between regional climate environmental evolution and human adaptation.
tree ringTang and Song Dynastiescoffinwood identificationwood utilizationChinese fir
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
