International relevance of the DCCD

The purpose and content of the DCCD agree very well with the international cultural-historical research agenda in dendrochronology. In the first place, movable wooden artefacts that are part of the Dutch cultural heritage, such as ships and paintings, have become dispersed all over Europe and even further. These objects receive attention from researchers around the world. Dutch dendrochronologists often receive requests for advice about these objects. Earlier this year, for instance, the Western Australian Maritime Museum (Australia) asked the RING foundation to research a number of hull planks of the Dutch VOC-ship Batavia, which was built at the Pepper wharf in Amsterdam in 1627/1628 and sank on June 4th 1629, during its maiden voyage to Indonesia, along the West coast of Australia. RING confirmed the building date and proved that the planks were sawn from trees that grew in Poland, in a forest to the South of Dantzig. The provenance of the planks received national attention, because Rembrandt painted on oak from the same forest (e.g. national press: NRC, March 15th 2007). Had the DCCD already existed during the dendrochronological study of the Batavia, it would have been possible for the research team to get a fast overview of the geographical distribution of all dendrochronologically investigated wood in our cultural heritage derived from this same particular forest. It would even have been possible to identify which planks were sawn from the same individual trees within this forest and subsequently were separated for different purposes, some ending up as hull planks in the Batavia, others – possibly – in Rembrandts workshop. This would have been a great story both scientifically and for the larger public. However, at present such studies are very difficult to realize, because the required tree-ring data are dispersed over many laboratories. The actual collection of suitable data sets requires a lot of effort (‘advertisement’ of the intended research, travel, organization of contracts on collaboration and data exchange, reworking of data and retrieval of metadata (often in paper archives)) and therefore is only possible within subsidized research projects. The DCCD will change this situation by providing an integrated archive suited for just this type of study, enabling dendrochronologists and other researchers to tap into each others knowledge and allowing for fast combinations of data and research results both nationally and internationally.

In the second place, imported wood in our cultural heritage tells an ‘outlandish’ story about the forestry and trade activities of the wood-supplying countries (the Baltic countries, Germany and the Scandinavian countries). To continue with the Batavia example: the trees that were used to make its hull planks germinated around 1325 and were three centuries old when they were cut down. The tree-ring patterns of these oaks are characterized by extremely narrow rings (slow growth, due to a lack of light). The age and ring structure of the wood indicates that the forest where the trees grew was old, fully developed and very dense. Oaks from this type of forest can be split and sawn easily and yield straight, long planks and panels. Research by the RING foundation shows that Baltic wood in the Netherlands was used for ship’s building, art (paintings) and coffins (e.g., descendants of William the Silent). Interestingly, the RACM/RING archive does not contain series derived from Polish oak that date after 1650. A possible explanation is that the demands of art and shipbuilding took their toll on Poland’s oaks, the popular forests being depleted around 1650 (Bloemheuvel; http://www.museum.wa. gov.au/news/bataviatimbers.asp). Another reason may have been the British Navigation Acts, a series of laws dating in 1651 and 1660 that restricted Baltic trade by the Dutch (Jansma et al. 2004). In order to test these somewhat conflicting hypotheses, we need to combine our data with similar data managed at other laboratories: if we for instance combine historical Baltic tree-ring data with modern from still existing old-growth forests in the Baltic, we might be able to ascertain whether around 1650 a major disruption occurred in the age of the trees, which would be a very strong argument in favour of forest depletion and subsequent reforestation. Researchers in the Baltic countries show a keen interest to study this topic. Similar research questions exist in the other countries that previously supplied us with timber (Germany, the Scandinavian Countries).

Not only will the DCCD enable research that already is recognized as an international priority, it will also result in a redefinition of the international research agenda, because its rich content and many possibilities will certainly stimulate new international collaborations and research directions. 

Sampling of oak for cultural dendrochronology in The Netherlands