Tree-ring analysis of archaeological charcoal as a tool to identify past woodland management: The case from a 14th century site from Oudenaarde (Belgium)

The growth-ring pattern and basal area increment (BAI) of round wood charcoal fragments from Carpinus betulus, Corylus avellana, Fraxinus excelsior and Quercus sp. from a 14th century archaeological context has been studied and compared to those of modern samples from both coppice woodland and dominant trees in high forests. The archaeological charcoal fragments show a strong initial growth rate, but after 4–8 years this starts to decrease for all investigated taxa. For Fraxinus excelsior, the decrease generally occurs after 9–11 years. In general, this trend in ring width is comparable to the one observed on samples from modern day coppice and is clearly different for the samples from high-forest stands where ring width generally starts to decrease after a much longer period or at a much lower rate. BAI-values can be interpreted in a similar way, where these values for both the archaeological charcoal fragments and shoots from modern coppice reach a plateau or start a decreasing trend after 4–8 years. In contrast, BAI values for high-forest trees show a continuous increase. The results indicate that studying the tree-ring pattern and BAI of roundwood charcoal fragments from archaeological contexts might be a useful approach for the reconstruction of past woodland management and the identification of (pre)historic coppice.