Abstract
Oak wood was highly appreciated and widely used for construction in past centuries. As population sizes expanded in some regions of Europe, local forests were depleted of high-quality timber. Therefore, regions of soaring economies were importing timber initially from the European market and eventually from other continents. Origin of archaeological or historical timber is usually identified by means of dendroprovenancing, i.e. statistical matching of tree-ring-width (TRW) series of timber of unknown origin with TRW reference datasets. However, this method has pitfalls and limitations and therefore alternative techniques are needed. Here, we used three different DNA analysis methods to investigate the potential of using ancient (a)DNA, extracted from oak timber derived from historical buildings and shipwrecks from a variety of countries. All the material had also been analysed dendrochronologically, so its dating and provenance is demonstrated. We included heartwood samples in this analysis, for which DNA extraction is especially challenging as it contains chemicals that inhibit DNA amplification. We succeeded in amplifying DNA for at least one marker from 56% of samples (including heartwood samples), yielding crucial information that allowed us to identify the potential source area of centuries old timber buildings in Latvia and Denmark and of 750-year-old shipwreck material from Germany. Our results prove the strong potential of DNA analyses for identifying timber origin to the regional scale, but by combining these with the dendrochronological results, we can control the exactitude of the aDNA approach and demonstrate a more nuanced examination of the timber sources for these historic structures.
Highlights
Oak wood was highly appreciated and widely used for construction in past centuries
Of a total of 26 heartwood samples, allele scores were obtained at least for one marker from 13 samples (50%, Table S1), with a higher success rate for historical samples compared to archaeological samples (64.7% and 22.2%, respectively)
Tion of timber origin, e.g. a sufficient number of rings, specific climatic gradients in the study area or distinct differences in bedrock material etc. Additional methods such as dilution of 1:10 and 1:20 (DNA)-based source tracking is relevant to enhance the precision of timber provenance identification as it contains alternative information on timber origin which is independent of growing conditions and can be used on a small amount of material
Summary
Oak wood was highly appreciated and widely used for construction in past centuries. As population sizes expanded in some regions of Europe, local forests were depleted of high-quality timber. Oak wood (Quercus spp.) was highly appreciated for its mechanical properties and its durable h eartwood[7], and oak timbers of widely varying dimensions are commonly found as archaeological remains e.g.8,9 and in standing historic buildings These remains are valuable archives for retrieving the age and the origin of timber which in turn provides information on local availability of timber resources and the organization of past timber trade e.g.10–13. The genetics of ring-porous European oaks has been intensively studied, and altogether 32 distinct haplotypes were defined, from trees growing across E urope[25] The availability of such an extensive dataset on oak haplotype distribution potentially allows pinpointing wood origins from regional up to country level within the continent, Scientific Reports | (2020) 10:20316. Object code JMT011 JMT031 ARR031 SVT031 SVT061 H011001 H011005 F042003 F042010 F042011 JK-I JK-B JKd2 CesDt2 CesDt3 CesDt5 CRL32 Z255002 Z018.605.029 Z018.605.040 Z0922319a Z092332a Z092313a Z092314a Z092324b Z223004
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