Dendrochronological Dating Of The Lund-Spathelf House, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Abstract

The Lund-Spathelf House is located at 1526 Pontiac Trail in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During a recent renovation, the owner sought information regarding the construction of the house by searching through numerous written records. Despite an extensive history of the land on which the house currently sits, neither a construction year nor general period of construction could be obtained. Therefore, four samples of oak (Quercus spp.) were extracted from floor boards throughout the house for dendrochronological dating. The four samples crossdated conclusively with each other both visually and statistically and were used to build a floating 126-year tree-ring chronology. We used COFECHA to statistically evaluate the absolute temporal placement of this chronology against a nearby regional chronology (MI005.CRN) from the Cranbrook Institute, Michigan. The Lund-Spathelf House chronology was anchored in time with the regional chronology from A.D. 1720 to 1845 with a correlation coefficient of 0.62 (p < 0.0001, t < 8.76, n = 126). All four oak samples provided conclusive cutting dates of A.D. 1845, indicating the year the Lund-Spathelf House was constructed.