Absolutely dated and annually resolved environmental and climatic information can be obtained from different tree ring parameters, such as ring width wood density, anatomical structures and chemical compositions. Dendrochronology thus offers a unique archive and precise tool for the analysis of human-environment systems at the interface of archaeology, biology, climatology and ecology. In this interdisciplinary lecture, the scientific potential and methodological limits of tree-ring research will be demonstrated. Examples of current research projects range from the cell to the hemisphere and from the present to the last ice age.

Ulf Büntgen (*1976) specialised in the structure and interpretation of tree-ring based climate reconstructions already during his geography studies at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. After obtaining his diploma in Bonn in 2003, he completed his doctorate in 2006 and his habilitation at the University of Bern in 2011. Since 2017, he has been Professor of Environmental Systems Research at the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge in the UK, as well as Senior Scientist at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Birmensdorf, Switzerland. For the past ten years, he has also been closely affiliated with the CzechGlobe Cluster for Climate Science in Brno, Czech Republic, where he is also Professor of Physical Geography at Masaryk University. Recognising, shifting and crossing disciplinary boundaries is an integral part of his research.