WoodNDame - Reconstructing the climate and medieval woodland management strategies from the charred woods of Notre-Dame de Paris: contribution of dendrochronology, wood anatomy and carbon isotope data

The unfortunate event of April 15th 2019, the Notre-Dame de Paris’s cathedral (NDP) fire, brought a unique and extraordinary opportunity to study past environmental conditions prevailing in the Paris Basin through charred oak wood pieces.

Partly dated between the 11th and 13th centuries, the charred woods from the roof structure of the NDP open a unique window into the Medieval Climate Anomaly (≈ 950–1250 CE), a period characterised by warm and dry summers that profoundly influenced society during the High Middle Ages (HMA), especially in Europe.

Furthermore, the major pieces of the roof framework correspond to trees of ca 20-25 m in height with small diameters (30-50 cm), which suggest specific woodland management.

By investigating uncharred and charred tree growth rings from NDP, the WoodNDame project will aim to provide an annual and seasonal high temporal resolution reconstruction of the interaction(s) between climate–forest–woodland management systems during the HMA.

To reach this goal, the project will first develop a pioneering and interdisciplinary methodology - combining dendro-anatomical features and state-of-the-art isotopic (δ13C) analysis – to provide (i) a comprehensive picture of the impact of carbonisation on oak wood anatomical and chemical properties at inter- and intra-ring scales and (ii) a modern reference using these multiproxy approach based on 15 wood stands in the Paris Basin for disentangling dendroclimatological and woodland management signals.