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Abstract
Research on Holocene climate variability and human history greatly benefits from annually resolved and absolutely dated tree-ring chronologies. The quality and quantity of such records, however, decline back in time, with little tree-ring evidence available for the Early and Middle Holocene. Here, we present a tree-ring width (TRW) chronology from 100 subfossil yews (Taxus baccata L.) excavated from peat-rich soils in the Fenland region of eastern England. To precisely date the record, we measured stable oxygen (δ18O) isotopic ratios of over 1500 tree rings from a subset of 12 disc samples and used an absolutely dated oak (Quercus spp.) δ18O chronology from the same region for cross-dating. Statistically significant isotopic agreement between the two species precisely dates the yew TRW chronology from 2668 to 2213 years BCE (r = 0.4, t-value = 7.9, probability of error > 106, Isolation Factor > 103). This 456-year period in the mid-Holocene marks the Neolithic-to-Bronze Age transition, coincides with the spread of the Bell Beaker culture across the British Isles, and precedes the still debated 4.2 ka climate anomaly. Emphasizing the advantages of tree-ring stable isotopes, our absolutely dated yew record offers new opportunities for archaeological interpretations and palaeoclimatological reconstructions in eastern England and beyond. We further expect our results to help dating the Icelandic eruptions of Katla and Hekla 4 and refining the next radiocarbon calibration curve.