Historical floods and dendrochronological dating of a wooden deck in the Old Mint of Segovia, Spain

Abstract

AbstractDuring recent archaeological work carried out in the 16th‐century Segovia Mint, Spain, a wooden deck of Pinus sylvestris was revealed covering the hydraulic canals. Dendrochronological analyses allowed us to estimate the dates that trees were felled in order to effect repairs to canals damaged after extraordinary flood events. There are at least three age clusters: (1) 1677–1678; (2) 1690–1698–1700; and (3) 1713–1720–1721–1742. By comparing dendrochronological data with both documentary records of repair work and the inventory of historical floods, the dates of the main floods affecting the building between 1583 and 1771 can be identified. Our work is innovative in that it uses tree‐ring dating in historical buildings to reconstruct past flood events, which are then linked to documentary records. It has three main applications: validating documented flood dates, estimating their relative magnitude, and locating new non‐documented flood events or previously unknown historical repair work at this UNESCO World Heritage Site. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.