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Abstract
The world’s longest tree-ring chronology is comprised of thousands of oak and pine series from Germany and continuously covers the Holocene back to 12,325 cal BP. A lack of relict wood from the Younger Dryas cold reversal ∽12,900–11,700 cal BP, however, challenges the extension of this absolutely dated ring width record further back in time. Here, we combine 646 high-resolution stable oxygen isotope and 795 radiocarbon measurements from subfossil pines that grew during the Younger Dryas at three different sites near Zurich, Switzerland, to extend the record. Coherency of the oxygen isotope variations secures internal crossdating, and radiocarbon wiggle-matching places the final 425-year-long ring-width chronology between 12,716 and 12,292 cal BP with an uncertainty of ±8 years. Our study describes an important step towards annual dating precision further into the Late Glacial period. Source: meridian.allenpress.com.