ABSTRACT
With its high-resolution dating potential, dendrochronology has proved to be a key method for the investigation of archaeological wood remains. This is particularly the case within the field of pile dwelling research, where the preservation of abundant waterlogged timber offers suitable opportunities for the large-scale application of the tree-ring dating process. Along with methodological improvements in wetland archaeology and the possibilities provided by computing techniques, dendrochronology applied to this field of research and based on dendroarchaeological methods (Kaenel and Schweingruber 1995) has developed exponentially during recent decades. In the north Alpine range, the occupation of Neolithic and Bronze Age bog and lake-shore settlements can now be followed on a calendrical time scale, a level of precision which the archaeologists dealing with the shifts of contemporaneous dynasties in the ancient world can only envy.
