1929-YEAR TREE-RING CHRONOLOGY FOR THE ALTAI-SAYAN REGION (WESTERN TUVA)

The current paper presents a new 1929-year tree-ring chronology for the Altai-Sayan region (Western Tuva) based on analyses of wood material from living trees and trunk remains of Siberian larch (Larix sibirica Ldb) from the upper treeline (2400 m asl). The correlations between tree-ring indices and meteorological data suggest that maximum effect on radial growth is produced by temperatures in June and July. This makes it possible to use the resulting chronology for early summer temperature reconstructions in the Altai-Sayan region. In respect to archaeology, a chronology of this length provides the opportunity of dating ancient wood samples, i.e. for exact definition of the calendar dates of the archaeological objects in the relevant territory over the entire period of the chronology.