HUBER AND GERMAN DENDROCHRONOLOGY

The original efforts in establishing dendrochronology in Germany were undertaken by Bruno Huber in the early 1940’s (Brongers, 1973) .  Huber worked with A. E. Douglass, the founder of modern dendrochronology, on several projects and began to compile dendrochronological data in Central Europe (Huber, 1943) .  He expanded his work greatly in the 1950’s and 1960’s and was among the first dendrochronologists in Europe (Brongers, 1973) .

Huber produced several chronologies from living trees and established a long floating chronology using the methods of A. E. Douglass and Waldo Glock (Glock and Pearson, 1937, Douglass, 1937) .  The chronology was broken somewhere in the Roman Period, but the exact dates were unknown.  Huber estimated the date of the floating chronology through radiocarbon dating available in the early 1960’s which was not as accurately calibrated as with modern radiocarbon dates (Becker, 1993) .  Nonetheless, the wood sampling from the region did not yield any Roman Age wood that would link the floating chronology with the dated chronology (constructed from living trees and historic buildings, which stretched back to about AD 700).

            In the 1960’s, a schoolteacher by the name of Ernst Hollstein undertook the task of bridging the gap between the floating chronology and the dated chronology.  Although most of his work was on the side, since it was difficult to make a living as a dendrochronologist in Europe in the 1960’s, Huber managed to get samples from several Roman archaeological sites and set Hollstein to compile the chronology.  Because of the potential success of this venture, all of the German laboratories gave Ernst Hollstein their samples from the Roman Era to help bridge this gap.  In 1976, Hollstein managed to bridge the gap between Huber’s floating and dated chronology to make a chronology that spanned to the Early Roman Period ~ 1000 BC (Hollstein, 1980, Brongers, 1973) .

            The only conflict with this “new” form of dating, dendrochronology, and the historic record was that there was a 27-year difference between the tree-ring dated material and the historic record.  The historians checked the validity of the calendar date of the Roman bridge in Mainz, which was dated in the historic record but given a different date by the Hollstein Chronology.  The German historians returned to their texts and produced information that was in conflict with Hollstein’s results.  This raised questions with the historians about the reliability of dendrochronology as an independently accurately dating technique.  This doubt remained with German historians for quite some time.

            Meanwhile, Huber invited an individual by the name of Burkhard Frenzel on a retreat to discuss the future of dendrochronology.  On this retreat, Huber told Frenzel that he was retiring and would like him to take over the dendrochronology ventures at the University of Höhenheim.  Frenzel agreed to the proposition and brought with him his Ph.D. student, Bernd Becker.  In the early 1970’s, Huber gave all of his data and samples to Frenzel to continue working on the chronologies at the University of Höhenheim.