Dendrochronological dating of the Puerto Madero vessel, Buenos Aires, Argentina

MUNDO, I.A.; GIRARDCLOS, O.

Tucson

Conferencia; Second American Dendrochronology Conference; 2013

Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research - University of Arizona

Although dendrochronology has been used to date ships throughout the world, it has not yet been used in South American nautical archaeology. In 2008, workers digging foundations of an apartment complex in Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires, uncovered the remains of a wooden-hulled vessel. Archaeological evidence indicated that this vessel might be an 18th century Spanish ship. Dendrochronology was used to provide an accurate date of construction based on a reference oak chronology from France developed by Principal Component Analysis. We estimate the vessel timbers were probably cut between 1776 and 1793. Although the correlation statistics between the vessel chronology and the reference chronology (r = 0.44 and t-value = 3.92, n = 66 years) do not provide a strong, conclusive match, this dating is consistent with other archaeological evidence. This study is a promising prelude to future dendrochronological studies that could be carried out on many ship remains along the Argentinean coasts.