Andrew Ellicott Douglass and the Giant Sequoias in the Founding of Dendrochronology

Abstract

The Giant Sequoia played several crucial roles in the founding of the modern science of tree-ring dating. These included at least two central theoretical constructs and at least two minor ones; however, historical studies of dendrochronology are actively continuing and this list is expected to expand. Second only to the importance of the ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) in the earliest days of the infant science, the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) was at the very center of the establishment of the discipline of dendrochronology. How the sequoia came to be used by A.E. Douglass, and what vital information and how it provided such information is the topic here.