Anton Hansson

Large amounts of dendrochronological data sets exported from the SEAD database have in this study been used to analyze timber trade and provenance from the three Scandinavian towns of Copenhagen, Stockholm and Nya Lödöse/Gothenburg during the medieval and early modern era. In total, 964 dendrochronological samples with a dating and provenance description were compiled in this study and compared with written historical sources regarding timber trade in order to investigate their coherence and discuss possible deviations. The results indicate that Copenhagen and Nya Lödöse/Gothenburg used oak timber up until the 1600s, with a later shift towards coniferous timber, whereas Stockholm relied on coniferous timber since its founding around 1250. More or less consistent for all three investigated towns is the early reliance on more local wood that later shifted into more distant wood sources as the local areas became depleted. However, the Swedish towns relied on imports from within the kingdom, whereas Copenhagen saw timber imports from other countries. This historical records and dendrochronological data are largely coherent, but we see that extrapolation of historical data back in time is often not in accordance with the dendrochronological records. This case study show the potential of dendrochronological big data analysis and importance of research­focused databases such as SEAD for maximizing research output.