The Laboratory of Tree-Ring and Archaeological Wood Analysis at Georgia (TRAWG) is in Room 170 of the Riverbend North Research Labs and is directed by Dr. Brita Lorentzen. The TRAWG Lab team investigates past human interactions with climate and environment, primarily using dendrochronology (tree-ring science), stable isotope analysis and radiocarbon, and wood anatomy and broader archaeobotanical methods. The scope of our research spans materials from modern ecosystems, cultural heritage and wooden artwork, terrestrial and underwater archaeological sites, and paleoecological contexts, to interpret human-earth system interactions at multiple temporal and spatial scales and apply our work to current environmental and cultural heritage conservation and sustainability efforts. | Dr. Lorentzen collecting tree-ring data by scanning a Byzantine icon in Cyprus. We examine wood materials from sites worldwide, with specialization in underwater and maritime heritage sites (including harbor infrastructure and wooden shipwrecks), wooden heritage in Greece and the Levant, and Indigenous and historical sites in the Northeast US and Canada. We are also developing dendrochronological and environmental archaeological research on heritage sites here in Georgia as part of UGA student research. Our facilities include wet lab space and microtomes for wood and plant tissue sectioning and slide preparation, a drying oven and a muffle furnace for botanical reference specimen preparation and charring, cold storage for waterlogged timbers and botanical materials, incident and transmitted microscopes with cameras for examining and documenting plant and wood specimens, workshop benches and tools for collecting and preparing forest cores and dry wood samples, and flatbed scanners and tree-ring measuring stations for dendrochronological analysis. We collaborate with the Georgia Electron Microscopy facilities and neighboring Center for Applied Isotope Studies (CAIS) for further research requiring high-resolution microscopy, materials dating, characterization and sourcing, and paleoenvironmental analysis. PhD student, Seungyeon Hong, working on charcoal samples in the lab.
