Veget Hist Archaeobot (2014) 23:355–365 DOI 10.1007/s00334-014-0463-1
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Dendrochronological analyses of wood samples from a Late Bronze to early Iron Age site at Lake Luokesa, Lithuania Niels Bleicher
Received: 11 April 2013 / Accepted: 23 April 2014 / Published online: 16 May 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014
Abstract Tree rings of 184 archaeological wood samples from two Late Bronze to early Iron Age lake sites at Lake Luokesa (Luokesai ezˇeras), Lithuania, Moletai district, were analyzed. Despite severe difficulties with synchronization, Pinus (pine), Quercus (oak) and Alnus (alder) yielded some cross-datable series. The general picture is that the settlers chose small trees as timber, which they used in their natural round shape. The trees did not grow in homogeneous even-aged stands, but show very different ages and growth levels. Despite the generally low numbers of tree rings in the individual samples, the strong archaeological framework allowed cross-dating of some series and the building of chronologies for single structures. Based on these attempts, a 90 year long first floating chronology of the settlement structures is presented. Luokesa Site 2 (L2) was mainly built within the relative year 53. Luokesa Site 1 (L1) was certainly in use from the relative year 74 onwards. All fences at L1 show their main building activity in the relative year 81, four years after the main building activities in the village itself. It can be concluded that the settlement L1 was in use for at least 16 years. Because of the lack of a standard dendrochronological curve for the Baltic region, wiggle-matching was applied to obtain an absolute date for both settlements. The data clearly show that all samples relate to the Late
Communicated by M. Latałowa.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00334-014-0463-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. N. Bleicher (&) Laboratory for Dendrochronology, Office for Urbanism, City of Zu¨rich, Seefeldstrasse 317, 8008 Zu¨rich, Switzerland e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected]
Bronze–early Iron Age. The period where all wiggle matching results overlap is the period between 625 and 535 BC (the 2r ranges are given). Based on the dating, duration and timber characteristics of the occupation, comparisons with Polish early Iron Age sites are made, which indicate a close resemblance in terms of wood use and settlement concept. Keywords Dendrochronology Wood analysis Wiggle-matching Baltic region Iron Age Pile dwelling
Introduction On the shore of Lake Luokesa (Luokesai ezˇeras), the first excavation of a Late Bronze–early Iron Age (LBA–EIA) wetland site in Lithuania was conducted. Such LBA–EIA wetland settlements are known from other regions and especially from Poland (Pranck_enait_e 2014). It was therefore important to understand whether studies with dendrochronology, such as the chronology and timber use, would show that Luokesa was really contemporary with sites in other regions and whether there are similarities with the Polish sites. Lake Luokesa is situated in the eastern part of Lithuania in the Mol_etai district (Fig. 1; Menotti et al. 2005; Motuzaite Matuzeviciute 2008; for more details of the geography and geology of the site, see Ismail-Meyer 2014; Pranck_enait_e 2014). The landscape around the lake was strongly influenced by the last glaciation and consists of hills and plateaus of moraine origin, which do not exceed a height of 160–170 m a.s.l. Between these hills, which are usually covered with woodland, there are often mires and swampy areas (Motuzaite Matuzeviciute 2008; Guobyt_e 1995; Guobyte and Satkunas 2011). Arable land is usually
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Fig. 1 Geographical location of Lake Luokesa (Luokesai ezˇeras) in northeastern Europe; the inlet shows the location of the two sites
situated on the gentle slopes of those hills. Lake Luokesa is 2.4 km long, 0.8 km wide and 47.8 m deep, and it is also connected to a myriad of small lakes (Menotti et al. 2005; Ismail-Meyer 2014, Fig. 2). An aerial photograph of the lake bed (Figs. 1, 2; Pranck_enait_e 2014) shows that at a depth of 5 m below the present lake level, a submerged morainic shelf still connects the peninsula to the present-day island. In 2000, on this elongated peninsula, an archaeological site was discovered by Mantas Kvedaravicius. Artefact typology dated the site to the transition period between the LBA and the EIA (Pranck_enait_e 2014). Radiocarbon dating proved to be difficult because all the dates lie within the well-known Iron Age calibration plateau (Menotti et al. 2005). The settlement (called Luokesa 1, L1) is fortified with a double palisade, or fence (Fig. 2). The organic cultural layer, which is up to 60 cm thick, also contained large amounts of lying timber (Pranck_enait_e 2014, Fig. 6). L1 covers an area of about 900 m2, whereas the whole surface within the palisade is around 1,800 m2. On the opposite shore of the lake, at a distance of approximately 800 m, there is another pile dwelling site (Luokesa 2, L2; Fig. 2), which was found a year after L1. L2 has not yielded any cultural layer; it only consisted of a wooden platform on piles, with a walkway to the shore. The extent of L2 is about 1,250 m2. Both sites were investigated from 2003 until 2009 and, in some areas, excavations are still continuing. Between 2008 and 2009, three 2 9 2 m squares were excavated (Pranck_enaite_ 2014), and the members of the SNF funded project, ‘‘Understanding wetland occupation in late
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Prehistoric Europe’’ (carried out at IPAS, Basel University, No. K-13K1-117893/1), collected samples for later analyses. These were wood samples for dendrochronology (this paper), a series of profile columns along transects for sediment micromorphology (Ismail-Meyer 2014), archaeobotanical analyses of plant macroremains (Pollmann 2014) and pollen analyses (Heitz-Weniger 2014). Earlier scientific investigations included three 55 cm long profiles collected for micromorphology (Lewis 2007). The first aim of the dendrochronological study was to find an absolute date for both sites, L1 and L2, and to verify whether they were synchronous. Until now, however, no dendrochronological reference data have been available from the Lithuanian Iron Age. Therefore, no standard curve exists and an easy absolute dendro-dating is not possible. In order to aid in the construction of a future Baltic standard chronology, floating chronologies have been built. This means that tree ring chronologies have been constructed from individual tree ring series that are synchronized with each other on a relative scale, but without knowing their absolute date. Since it was known from some 14C dates from the site that they would lie within the Iron Age plateau of the calibration curve (Menotti et al. 2005; IntCal09; Reimer et al. 2009), it was recognized that better results may be achieved by using wiggle matching (Bronk Ramsey et al. 2001). Dendrochronology can help in this process because it gives the exact gap between radiocarbon samples and it also aids enlarging the gap if rings from different wood samples are used that have been synchronized on a relative scale.
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Fig. 2 Plans of the sites L1 and L2
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It was not clear from the stratigraphy of L1 if it represents one or possibly two phases. Since there is no stratigraphic relationship between the palisades and the settlement, it was also impossible to state that all documented palisades relate to the same settlement phase and are hence synchronous. For this reason, the second aim of the tree ring studies was to use lying stratified timber and posts from the settlement and the palisades to test the hypothesis of synchronicity. If possible, it was hoped to recognize indications about the development of the settlement and its duration and structure. The third aspect was to characterize the timber that was used for building and to collect data on woodland use. For this purpose we collected data on the taxon, shape and size of the wood specimens, and used the tree ring series as a proxy for the ecological setting of the tree stands. Finally, the reconstructed mode of timber use is compared with the results of the other applied bioarchaeological disciplines, enabling a more complete reconstruction of human impact on the surrounding landscape.
Materials and methods Altogether, 184 samples of archaeological wood from L1 and L2 were sent for analysis at the competence centre for underwater archaeology and laboratory for dendrochronology in the office for urbanism in Zu¨rich, Switzerland. They were taken by the excavation team, in collaboration with B. Pollmann, during the 2008 and 2009 fieldwork campaigns, and they attempted to obtain an exact location for each sample. In the excavated trenches, wood samples were taken from horizontally lying timber, but also (mainly) from piles. Each wood piece was wrapped in plastic foil and a sample was selected for the dendrological analysis. The wood pieces outside the excavation trenches were sampled by a diver. Because the existing documentation of the piles was not always congruent with the situation under water, in some cases it was not possible to identify the exact location of the individual samples on the plan of the piles, although it is well known from which part of the site the samples come. All samples were examined macro- and microscopically. The taxa were identified using standard wood anatomical keys (Schweingruber 2011), the presence of pith and last ring were checked, the number of rings counted under a stereo microscope, and finally, size, shape and anatomical anomalies were documented. Most samples were well preserved in a waterlogged condition. Accordingly, the taxon identification was successful in all cases. In a second step, the samples for further dendrochronological measurement and cross-dating were selected. The criteria for this were the presence of at least 30 measurable
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rings (with one exception having only 29 rings), a shape and radius which indicated that the sample was derived from stem wood, and the absence of any hindering features such as branches or larger wounds. Unfortunately, most of the samples showed very few rings and were of little value for dendrochronology. Measurement of the rings was carried out using measuring tables and DendroPlus software. The quality of cross-dating matches was assessed using Gleichla¨ufigkeitspercentage (Schweingruber 1988), t values after transformation into Wuchswerte (Hollstein 1980) and visual verification. In the beginning all taxa were measured in order to check their potential. After the first 40 series it was found that for both Acer (maple) and Betula (birch) the tree ring series of individual trees could not be cross-dated against each other to build taxon specific chronologies, due to shortness of tree ring series and the low similarity between trees. Even tree ring series from the same palisade, where one would expect the same cutting date, could not be synchronized. As a consequence focus was placed on Pinus (pine), Quercus (oak) and Alnus (alder), which yielded at least some cross-datable series. Another problem was that those samples which had more than 50 rings were mostly either Pinus or Alnus that had experienced phases of severe growth suppression. This means that within some of the tree ring series, some groups of rings were very narrow due to significant factors limiting external growth, such as competition between trees and shading (Bleicher 2009a, 2013). The ring width series of these samples bear little signal that is common to all other sampled trees, but rather show a very individual history that makes cross-dating in several cases impossible. The best samples were thus Quercus and Pinus in the range of 40–60 rings. Since the cross-dating of series with as few rings as this is generally insecure, it was decided to begin by cross-dating samples exclusively from the same archaeological structures, thus only samples from the same palisade or only from L2. Since previous dates from the site (Menotti et al. 2005) showed that the radiocarbon dates would lie within the Iron Age plateau of the calibration curve (IntCal09; Reimer et al. 2009), it was hoped to achieve better results by wiggle-matching using OxCal 4.1.7 (Bronk Ramsey et al. 2001; Bronk Ramsey 2009). This was done for each chronology individually. The radiocarbon measurements and locations are given in ESM Table 1. The strategy for obtaining as precise as possible data was to measure the radiocarbon content of two samples of each chronology while aiming for the largest possible gap between the samples. Furthermore we used the longest single series from L1, which was from Pinus (153 rings; Sample 23 L1 A2). This single series is not included in the Pinus chronology, since it could not be cross-dated against the other
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Fig. 3 Timber characteristics from different building structures from L1 and L2; the blue triangle in settlement L1 is also Alnus, however halfround
Pinus series from L1. It was therefore possible that it belonged to another phase of the settlement. By using this sample we could check at the same time for other possible building phases and obtain two AMS radiocarbon dates with a very large gap between them, which was expected to be valuable in the wiggle matching process. AMS radiocarbon measurements were carried out at the Laboratory for Ion Beam Physics at the ETH Zurich.
Results
round timber as well, but was much more diverse in terms of taxa, with a slight dominance of Betula with 10 cm diameter. In contrast, L2 was constructed nearly exclusively from round Quercus stems between 9 and 15 cm diameter. Twenty six wood samples could not be clearly attributed to one of the structures because they were collected in an earlier campaign by the University of Oxford and the documentation deviated from the system applied later (F. Menotti, personal communication). Since their characteristics closely resemble those of L1 it appears probable that they were also collected there (ESM Fig. 1). The data for all samples are given in ESM Table 2.
Timber characteristics Dendrochronology The timber from L1 is characterized by the predominance of Pinus, around 10 cm in diameter (Fig. 3). While smaller diameters were probably not sampled, it is obvious that all samples were smaller than 20 cm. Although the diameters are fairly homogenous (between 8 and 15 cm), the number of rings is very heterogeneous, ranging mostly from 15 to 55 rings. This shows that average growth and growth conditions of Pinus was very variable. All but one piece of Alnus was left round and not split. The main timber from the inner fence of L1 was Alnus and nearly all stems had diameters between 10 and 16 cm. Again, all pieces of timber except for one Quercus were left round and the numbers of rings as well as the average growth of the trees were very heterogeneous. The outer fence of L1 was built from
Despite the generally low numbers of tree rings in the individual sample timbers, the strong archaeological framework allowed the cross-dating of some series and the building of chronologies for the single structures. All synchronizations reported here heavily rely on this archaeological framework. On dendrochronological and statistical grounds alone and without the archaeological information the series would all be undatable. Timber from inside site L1 The site yielded a number of measurable Pinus samples, 22 of which could be cross-dated. 20 of these were used to
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construct the chronology (single series in synchronous position and mean curve are given in ESM Fig. 2). Their growth shows a large amount of noise, as variation in the ring width series that is not the common signal, but individual deviation (Briffa and Jones 1990, p 146). The pith dates scatter over a period of 40 years. Of the 22 samples, 16 were cut at an age of less than 55 years. The maximum number of rings is 63 and the average is 47. A strong and sudden growth reduction for three consecutive rings, which was recognizable in 12 out of 14 samples in the early part of the chronology, was helpful in the cross-dating process. On the basis of the synchronization it was possible to conclude that most felling dates lie within a short period of only four years. Only three samples were cut within the following 13 years. Because this is the only datable group of wood from the settlement, we have no indication of a second phase of building activity.
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Fig. 4 Ring with compartmentation in the sapwood and abnormal anatomy, featuring diffuse pores; Quercus from L2
Fences from L1 Only two measurable pieces of Quercus were recovered from the innermost fence. They have 69 and 74 rings respectively and were well cross-datable. Both show a phase of sapwood within the heartwood (ESM Fig. 3). According to Dujesiefken and Liese (1986) such features are caused by long-lasting heavy frosts, and these have also been found in Polish subfossil Quercus (Kra˛piec 1999). The inner fence yielded 14 samples of Alnus, 13 of which were measured. Nine samples could be cross-dated, making use of the assumption that a palisade should be built within a short time span (ESM Fig. 4). Assuming a longer time for the construction would either result in a wide spacing between single posts or limited units of few metres of palisade, both possibilities which would hardly serve as a fence. So the range of possible cross-dating positions was defined as a maximum of ±10, giving room for possible re-use and repair. The single series had an average of 37 and a maximum of 46 rings. As with the Pinus chronology from inside the settlement, there is quite a lot of noise in the chronology, the beginnings are scattered and the trees were younger than 50 years when felled; most trees were cut down in the same year. From the outer fence of L1 only two samples of young Alnus and one Quercus were further analysed (ESM Fig. 5), since Betula could not be cross-dated, even within the same palisade.
Fig. 5 Suggested synchronous positions of series between building structures in Alnus and Quercus. No. 101.0 (Quercus) refers to L2, all the other curves to L1. For better visibility, curves are distributed vertically. In black, mean curves from the inner fence and L2; in grey, single series from the outer fence
large amount of noise. During the process of identification an unusual anatomical anomaly was found in many series. Aligning the series in the most probable cross-dating position resulted in a good synchronicity of these anomalies which took place within the same three years (ESM Fig. 6). In the wood anatomical literature (Schweingruber 2001) no close analogies were found for this anomaly that was accompanied by a strong dark compartmentation (Fig. 4). The closest resemblance appears to show anomalies that took place after flooding experiments (U. SassClaassen and P. Copini, University of Wageningen, personal communication).
Timber from L2 Cross-dating A total of 26 Quercus samples were analysed from L2, of which 16 could be measured and cross-dated. They had between 30 and 53 rings with an average of 41. As in the other chronologies, the growth of Quercus also showed a
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The archaeological data indicate that the palisades of L1 formed concentric circles around the village (Fig. 2); they might therefore be interpreted as more or less synchronous.
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Fig. 6 Suggested synchronous positions of all structures and taxa. In black, the group means. Grey the longest series, the dotted line indicates that the earlier part is omitted here. All the curves except No. 101.0 (Quercus) refer to L1
Fig. 7 Positions of the samples used in the wiggle matching. The rectangles indicate where the radiocarbon samples have been taken. All the curves except No. 101.0 (Quercus) refer to L1
But since this is one of the main archaeological hypotheses that are to be verified by independent methods such as dendrochronology, we cannot use this context as a criterion to assist in the cross-dating process. So the chronologies from the single structures need to be compared without using archaeological information. However, as shown by the results, the chronologies are of limited quality and even cross-dating within the same taxon and same structure was difficult. Therefore, also cross-dating across taxon boundaries can by no means be called secure. Nonetheless, trying to correlate samples from the different contexts of L1, two Alnus samples from the outer fence appear to fit the chronology of the inner fence
(Fig. 5). One sample from the outer fence was of Quercus and also shows a possible cross-dating position with Quercus from the inner fence and L2 (Fig. 5). Quercus from both sites (L1 and L2) shows a good match (Fig. 6); L2 appears to be some 25–30 years older than L1. It is interesting to note that there is a rise in average growth level in Quercus from L1 in the years after the cutting of L2. Given that the dating is correct we might conclude that the trees grew in the same stand, because such a release event would result from reduced competition after selective cutting. There is also a possible cross-dating position between Pinus and Alnus chronologies from L1 (Fig. 6). The most
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therefore a systematic error such as the unexplained systematic offset by 30 years, which has previously been reported in serial measurements of wood (Wacker et al. 2009). Therefore, as an experiment, the data were corrected by being made 30 years younger and the wiggle matching was retried. As a result all statistical tests were passed satisfactorily. The data clearly show that all samples belong to the LBA–EIA transition period (Fig. 8). In particular, the data from the palisades and the village L1 are relatively homogeneous. If it is therefore assumed that the suggested dendrochronological positions are correct (the difficulties due to short series have been outlined above), and the period in which all the wiggle matching results overlap can easily be identified—this is the period between 625 and 535 BC (the 2r ranges are given). The results of the wiggle matching are also in accordance with the dendrochronological evidence that L2 is about 25 years older than L1. Floating chronology of the Luokesa settlements
Fig. 8 Result of the wiggle-matching. In yellow, the modelled 2rprobabilities of the single wiggle matchings. In orange, the common period; the lowermost sequence refers to L2
probable position is exactly the one where all chronologies from L1 are more or less synchronous. Nevertheless, this is far from a secure cross-dating position. Therefore, it was decided to check these positions by means of AMS radiocarbon dating.
Based on the dendrochronological and wiggle matching results, we can present a 90 year long floating chronology of the settlement structures given in relative years (Fig. 9). L2 was mainly built within the relative year 53. One sample was eight years earlier. Without more material it cannot be judged whether this is re-used wood or whether there was an earlier structure. L1 was certainly in use from relative year 74 onward. A single sample from year 66 indicates that there may have been earlier buildings, but recycled timber is another possible explanation for this outlier date. Building activity is testified for various years from 74 until 90. All fences at L1 show their main building activity in the relative year 81. Several felling dates from the preceding years exist, but it is doubtful whether the settlers drove single posts into the ground in the locations of three later palisades and completed them years later. It is therefore suggested that these are reused or leftover pieces of timber from the settlement.
Wiggle-matching
Discussion and conclusions
The positions of the sampled rings within the chronologies are given in Fig. 7 and the results of the radiocarbon measurements are given in ESM Table 1. The first attempt to produce wiggle matching results yielded modelled data that were statistically not completely satisfying, as the v2 tests of the wiggle-matching procedure failed. This outcome was surprising, because the gaps between the samples appeared to be correct and the measurements were homogeneous. One possible explanation for this was
Generally the samples from Luokesa are from a dendrochronological perspective close to a worst-case scenario— the short series from different taxa with low common signals made the construction of chronologies very difficult. In spite of great difficulties with synchronization, Pinus, Quercus and Alnus yielded at least some crossdatable series. Although most of the samples showed small numbers of tree rings, the strong archaeological framework allowed the cross-dating of some series and the building of
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Fig. 9 Bar plot of all relatively dated samples. Triangles indicate the presence of pith, dotted grey lines mark sapwood in oak, half bars at the end hint at insecure last rings, full bars show secure last rings. Dots at the end indicate that rings are missing. The numbers of the samples are given on the right; fence data refer all to L1
chronologies for the single structures. It should be kept in mind that, given the methodology described above, these dates are not dendrochronological dates alone, but rather heavily based on the archaeological framework. Because of the lack of a standard dendrochronological curve for the Baltic region, wiggle-matching was applied to obtain an absolute date for both settlements. The data clearly show that all samples belong to the LBA–EIA transition period in Lithuania. The detailed results of the wiggle matching rely on the assumption of a systematic 30 year offset. The period in which all wiggle matching results (2r ranges) overlap spans between 625 and 535 BC. Based on these attempts, a 90 year long floating
chronology of the settlement structures is presented. L2 was mainly built within the relative year 53. L1 certainly contains wood from the relative year 74 onward. The most important tree felling activities however were carried out in the relative year 77. Whether building activities began as early as the relative year 74 or whether older wood was reused is unclear. All fences at L1 show their main building activity in the relative year 81. This is four years after the main building activities in the village itself. So, it can be concluded that L1 was in use for at least 16 years. We have not so far found indications that it was in use much longer. Similar short periods of use are also known from other similarly dated settlements:
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Evidence of about 40 years of use in Biskupin, with most felling dates concentrating on only four years. The few later dates were most probably from repairs (Wazny 1994, 2009). 40 years of occupation for the Polish early Iron Age sites of Mołtajny and Pieczarki (Gackowski 2000, p 47). An only single phased settlement history of the site at Piłakno jezero made of timbers laid crosswise, according to archaeological stratigraphical evidence (Gackowski 2000).
In comparison with all these sites we find further similarities such as predominance of round stems from deciduous trees with small diameters, which were encountered in many contemporary Polish early Iron Age sites (Gackowski 2000, p 45). Compared with these sites we need to conclude that the short time of occupation at Luokesa is nothing very unusual. Maybe it was even somewhat shorter-lived than at other sites, but given that only a small part of the site has been excavated up to now, this is hard to prove. The example of Biskupin shows that the size and obviously large amounts of resources that were used in the construction of a site cannot be used as a proxy for its duration. It remains to ask why the settlements were in use for only short periods. Wa_zny (2009) thinks of the quick decay of the timber as an explanation for these short occupation phases and argues using circum-alpine sites as analogies. It should however be kept in mind, that there are also examples from the circum-alpine lake sites where individual houses lasted 60 years and longer (Bleicher 2009a, b). Furthermore it is difficult to explain why people did not carry out repairs or erect a new building right next to the older one if they wanted to stay there. One should keep in mind that moving away would also have meant that a completely new infrastructure would have had to be built at the new place. If one moved only a short distance, fields and pathways could be kept. In case of moving a settlement too far, new fields would have had to be made, and the labour of making clearings and the like was enormous. A cultural landscape can be thought of as an asset that needed to be managed (Bleicher and Herbig 2010). One should therefore also think of other possible reasons for this shortlived settlement concept such as declining soil quality, for example. Using the analogy of the circum-alpine lake dwellings, it is interesting to note that in the late Horgen settlement of Sipplingen-Osthafen, which was inhabited for over 60 years, the archaeobotanical record shows indications of declining soil quality and overexploitation (Herbig 2009). Looking closer at timber choice, the data from Luokesa suggest that the settlers chose small trees as timber that they used in its natural round shape. The trees did not grow
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in homogeneous even aged stands but show very different ages and growth levels according to average ring width. Most probably they were chosen for their useful size and shape and cut selectively from dense stands in the surrounding woodland. The individual building structures clearly differ in terms of the predominant trees used. We can therefore exclude one dominant timber source providing homogenous material. It might be hypothesized that the homogeneity within the building structures mirrors the use of an individual timber source for each construction event, when a nearby stand was chosen and felled. In this respect Luokesa clearly differs from some Neolithic and Bronze Age Swiss and southern German wetland sites, where heavy timber use induced a strict woodland management, which led to more or less uniform pieces of timber in terms of taxon, shape, dimensions and number of rings (Billamboz and Ko¨ninger 2008; Bleicher 2009a; Bleicher 2013, p 53). Timber was certainly selected according to its intended purpose, yet we cannot agree with Girininkas (2010, p 130) that the restricted size of the timber reflects the limited technical possibilities, because we find excellently worked large beams made from respectably sized trees as early as the 6th millennium BC (Tegel et al. 2012). Pydyn and Gackowski (2011, p 145) believe in scarcity of wood in Polish lake dwelling sites, because of small diameters and the use of various deciduous trees—as is the case at Luokesa. The tree ring series from Luokesa, however, do not indicate wood scarcity, because we find abrupt growth releases and low common signals in Quercus and Pinus. These point to relatively dense stands with a certain amount of competition. The pollen data also show that it was only after the beginning of the settlement that the coniferous woodland became more open, and a structured cultural landscape developed (Heitz-Weniger 2014). Consequently we cannot postulate wood scarcity at the beginning of this period. Given that we find similar timber from the 8th century BC to at least 600 BC we should think of cultural choice rather than an economic necessity. We can summarize that Luokesa closely resembles the Polish sites in terms of timber use and the short duration of occupation. However, we reject the hypotheses that these features were related to wood scarcity or the inability to work larger diameters and construct more durable buildings. The reasons probably lie in a more general economic concept that yet needs to be identified and defined. Acknowledgments The author thanks Britta Pollmann for sampling wood on the excavation and documenting the location of the wood samples. This work was part of the project ‘‘Understanding wetland occupation in later prehistoric Europe’’ and funded by the Swiss National Foundation for Scientific research, Project No. K-13K1117893/1. Special thanks to B. Jennings for many corrections.
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