Prehistoric humans made records by painting on caves and rocks. Representative historical sources include Ulsan Bangudae Petroglyphs depicting whale hunting, boats and fishermen. Also, Russia’s Kalbaktash Petroglyphs depicting tiger hunting and using floats. Through petroglyphs, descendants were able to learn how to hunt. Afterwards, with the invention of writing, mankind began to transmit and accumulate information and knowledge over a long and wide range through recording media.

  The history of records exists not only in mankind but also in nature. Pollen fossils, coral skeletons, and tree rings are information repositories for studying natural history. The tree rings, which are usually created once a year, are accumulated until just before the tree dies, and contain a vast amount of history and information during the tree’s growth period. A tree is a recording medium that can contain information and knowledge as a single entity.

  In Korea, there is one place that studies environmental information contained in trees, and that is the CBNU Tree-Ring Research Center (TRRC). The only tree ring research center in Korea does research in collecting a variety of timber considering extensive regions in Korea, preparing long-term annual chronology and constructing palaeoclimatic information. Find out more about the TRRC through an interview with Professor Seo Jeong-wook (Dep. of Wood and Paper Science), who is the center director of the TRRC.

  Established in 2001, it is the only research center for tree ring analysis in Korea. The TRRC is a place to measure the age of the tree using tree rings in the wood and analyze various environmental information stored in the tree rings to provide this information to academic fields that need it. In addition, we are conducting research to find out whether the wood distribution in the wood market is accurate through the wood species and to reveal the wood species used to make the relics.

  A variety of information is stored in tree rings. Representative information is time information. One ring is made per year. So, if you only know the year of harvest, you can give each ring the exact year it was created. In addition, since you can know when the wood products were made using the felled wood, you can know the year of manufacture of the old wood products. The study of this information is Dendroarchaeology.

  The next thing to know is the place of origin. Each year the rings are made in a different width, and the pattern of this width change varies from region to region. This is because different regions have different climate patterns that change from year to year. Therefore, even for the same species, different regions have different ring width patterns, and this difference can be used to determine where the tree was harvested. Dendroprovenancing is the field of study that reveals the logging areas.

  The width of the rings varies according to the growing conditions. When the growing conditions are good, the width is wide, and when the growing conditions are bad, it becomes narrow. Based on this connection, the fields to study changes in past climatic conditions or growth environments using tree rings are Dendroecology and Dendroclimatology. The reason these studies are necessary is to enable us to precisely predict the future climate changes based on past climate and ecosystem changes.

  There are many different types of research going on. The most representative research is to measure the age of wood excavated from the ground based on the year of growth of the tree rings, and at the same time, doing research to find out which species of wood were used in ancient structures or excavated wood products.

  Next, we are also conducting research to reveal the cause of death of conifers and pine trees that have recently died due to climate change through their tree rings. A few years ago, it was revealed where the trees damaged by rosin harvesting, during the Japanese colonial period, were located using the tree rings. 

Lastly, we are conducting research to analyze climate change over the past hundreds of years using tree rings. When this study is completed, it will be possible to understand more accurately the patterns of climate change that have occurred in the past, and important basic data necessary for the development of models to predict future climate change will be prepared.

  First, let’s me tell you about archeology. The most important information in archeology is temporal information. You need to know when it was created in order to accurately evaluate the value of the relic and to accurately interpret the time period. The methods used for chronological analysis in archeology are the external characteristics of the remains, the excavated soil layer, and documentary records. Methods other than documentary records contain some chronological errors. In the case of documentary records, the historical value of the artifact cannot be known if the records are missing or do not exist. However, if the exact year of creation can be given to the tree rings remaining on the wood relic, an accurate value assessment of the wood relic is possible. The only way to accurately date a year is through a tree ring.

The same is true of changes in ecosystems such as landslides, wildfires, earthquakes, and pest damage in forests, as well as climate change that occurs every year. A study of tree rings is the only way to reveal exactly when all the changes occurred and how they affected tree growth on an annual basis. Therefore, tree ring research is an essential field for various related studies.

  The impacts of climate change we are experiencing right now are the results of our own actions. We do not yet fully understand exactly when the damage started and how severe it is. It is the tree ring that can answer this lack of understanding. In addition, the tree rings contain a way to know when and what type of wood the old wooden relics were made of. This information is reliable because the tree adapts to natural changes once a year and produces only one ring. I earnestly ask you to pay attention to how trees adapt to nature. Then we will find the answer to how we can live together with nature.