In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Andrew. E. Douglass founded the science of dendrochronology— the technique of dating events, environmental change, and archaeological artifacts by using the characteristic patterns of annual growth rings in timber and tree trunks.

Who developed tree-ring dating?

astronomer A. E. Douglass Developed by astronomer A. E. Douglass in the 1920s, dendrochronology—or tree-ring dating—involves matching the pattern of tree rings in archaeological wood samples to the pattern of tree rings in a sequence of overlapping samples extending back thousands of years.