Archaeometry teaching tip: tree-ring dating

This week I started several weeks of labs on dating methods in my undergraduate archaeometry class. For tree-ring dating, I like using the skeleton-plotting exercise from the University of Arizona Tree-Ring Research Laboratory's web pages. You can start with a good overview of the method, and then go on to Try Skeleton Plotting for Yourself! You get a cool Java applet which generates a tree-ring "sample" for you to work with, a master chronology to match against, and the chance to peek at the Answer. You can make your life tough if you want to by including missing or double rings.

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Try it for yourself. What do you think? Do you know of other useful online resources, especially applets, for teaching archaeometry?

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