Abstract
Abstract Wood is one of the most important sustainable natural resources. Throughout centuries, large cities as well as regions of very high wood demand (for example, areas of salt production and iron processing) had to be supplied with wood for building and burning. One of the largest forests in Austria can be found in the National Park covering the range of mountains called “Limestone Alps.” Within this region, a wide network of dams was set up to transport single logs (“Holztrift”). Due to the dendrochronological dating of the surviving dams, regional chronologies spanning a length of almost 600 years for Norway spruce, Silver fir and European larch were set up. These chronologies serve as the background for dendro-provenancing timber. Dendro-provenancing checks the similarities between samples and different regional chronologies. The highest statistical figures give hints of the origins of the wood. Archival analyses show that many logs were transported to Vienna as rafts. For example, in 1865, more than 1504 rafts arrived in Vienna, all from different origins. The logs were used as building material as well as for burning. Further archival analyses showed that logs from this region were also used for building the roof of the Hofburg Castle in Vienna. Several hundred samples from the roof construction were dendrochronologically dated and used for dendro-provenancing. The origin of the logs was confirmed to be the wider region of the Northern alpine foothills. This meant that rafts from the rivers Alm and Traun as well as from the rivers Steyr and Enns had floated down to Vienna.
Highlights
Wood was, and still is, one of the most important multi-purpose and sustainable natural raw materials
There were many different regions where there was a high demand for wood in Austria – on one hand, places where goods were manufactured and on the other hand, cities with a high demand of both construction and burning material
It was possible to set up tree-ring chronologies for different regions as a background for dendro-provenancing, especially for the Reichraminger Hintergebirge
Summary
Still is, one of the most important multi-purpose and sustainable natural raw materials. Map of Austria presenting some places of high demand on wood (Eisenerz, Wien, Salzburg), places of interest (National Park Limestone – Reichraminger Hintergebirge, city of Wels) and the most important rivers relevant for the transport of timber to Vienna. In Austria, the exploitation of iron ore took place in the area of Eisenerz, in Styria, about 70 km from the Reichraminger Hintergebirge The utilization of this important raw material was under governmental control, since enormous amounts of burning material were necessary for smelting iron. The areas of salt production in the “Salzkammergut” in Upper Austria required a system of 75 dams and 25 rakes to transport sufficient amounts of burning wood (Neweklowsky 1960, 174). The single-log transportation (“Trift”) of long logs for construction purposes was confined to the rivers Steyr and Alm (Upper Austria, see later; Neweklowsky 1960, 176)
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