Connecting Ships

This study combines standard dendrochronological analyses with network science and spatial analysis to determine the provenance of wood used to build river barges in the Roman period. The river barges studied were found in the Lower Rhine region and would have carried bulk goods, such as grain, military supplies, and building materials. The importance of these vessels in the supply of the local economy and military units is evident since many were found in the area, including some in the vicinity of military complexes. However, it remains unknown where these ships were built and how and where the raw materials for their construction were obtained. To better understand the provenance of the wood, network science was applied to visualise and understand the complex patterns of similarity between the tree-ring curves. For the interpretation of the networks we have studied the context, the position of the trees in the network and the use of these trees in shipbuilding. In addition, the shape of the converted timber was used to visualise the wood use patterns in this type of Roman-period shipbuilding. For the river barges, we were able to determine several possible regions for wood procurement. Based on the analysed material, we assume that there was at least one shipyard in the Lower Rhine region where two ships, found in separate excavations, were most likely produced at the same time

Agriculture · Archaeology · Geography · Paleoethnobotany · Procurement · Provenance · Shipbuilding · Shipyard · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Cultural Heritage Materials Analysis · Tree-ring climate responses · Geology · Paleontology

• Roman ‘Grand Strategy’ in Action? Claudius and the Annexation of Britain and Thrace

  Open Access•Erik P Graafstal•Britannia•2023

  Incluir item

• Sourcing Wood for Early Mediterranean Ships in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

  Open Access•Max MacDonald, Linda Hulin•The International Journal of…•2026

  Incluir item

• Collective dynamics of ‘small-world’ networks

  Open Access•Duncan J Watts, Steven H Strogatz•Nature•1998

  Incluir item

• Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks

  Open Access•Albert-László Barabási, Richard Albert et al.•Science•1999

  Incluir item

• Dendrochronological Provenance Patterns. Network Analysis of Tree-Ring Material Reveals Spatial and Economic Relations of Roman Timber in the Continental North-Western Provinces

  Open Access•R M Visser•Journal of Computer Applications…•2021

  Incluir item

• Late Roman Rhine vessels from Mainz, Germany

  Open Access•Olaf Höckmann•The International Journal of…•1993

  Incluir item

• Imperial timber? Dendrochronological evidence for large-scale road building along the Roman limes in the Netherlands

  Open Access•R M Visser•Journal of Archaeological Science•2014

  Incluir item

• On the similarity of tree‐ring patterns

  Open Access•R M Visser•Archaeometry•2021

  Incluir item

• The Economy of the Roman Empire

  G E M De Ste Croix, Richard Duncan-Jones•The Economic History Review•1975

  Incluir item