Tree-rings are extraordinary archives of information. The growth patterns recorded, and chemistry stored within the cellulose of each tree-ring, can potentially provide key information for architectural history, art history, archaeology, palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental studies, and much more, ranging from dating information to the sources of wood used in the past, to records of past fires, temperature and rainfall.

This presentation will look at recent work in Cyprus, the east Mediterranean, and North America and a number of important new contributions from tree-rings that write or re-write history. Examples include the resolution of Old Assyrian/Old Babylonian chronology in the earlier second millennium BC, a unique monumental wooden structure in northern Italy from the mid-second millennium BC, closely dating the 4th century BC Mazotos shipwreck off the south coast of Cyprus, investigating the Byzantine to Ottoman heritage of Cyprus, and reconsidering the accepted timeline for Indigenous sites during the period of initial European contact, invasion and then settlement in North America.