(in Approximation of Handicraft History)
 Edited by Gömöri János
Preface 
"Tree is eternal beauty" - said Leo Tolstoy and he was quite right. In our denaturating world both the green trees and the wood materials yield connections in space and time.

They connect our artificial environment with the natural environment, the ancient times with the present one. Green trees and wood mater ials are alsó sources of information. The tree species, its pollen, annual rings, its carbonized or in other way conserved matériái is a gold minefor an expert. With them he can reconstruct the plánt cover and the forests of earlier ages. The wood matériái formed by humán hands, - a tub-ship, thepiling ofa wooden bridge or a millwheel, - delivers a lot of information about the forest indus try, forest utilization, pwduction methods ofwoodworking tools and on the wood industry of our ancestors. The representatives of several professional fields, from dendrologists, xylotoms, palinologists on till ethnographers or evén archaeologists, deal with questions ofwood matériái. Perhaps this profession is made beautiful by its manifoldness. Hence this complex field can be approached in an interdisciplinary way - to use such a newly fashionable expression.
At a scientific conference organized in Sopron on May 9-10, 2007, the representatives of many professional fields proved that wood matériái is an inexhaustible source of information. Using ever improving techniques, new results can be obtained within a short time. It is fortunate that the edited version ofthe lectures can be published in this book. Their special value is that besides publishing data and discovering facts, the articles on melhodology give more colour to the topic. The methodological descriptions ofthe age determination ofwood materials, ofthe conservation ofarchaeological wood, or evén the investigation ofcharcoal can be sérve as reference sources for many special istsforyears to come. There are alsó interesting papers about the vegetat ion of forests, about the composition and utilization of reconstructed forest covers of ancient times as well as about the different forest industries, woodworking and building from wood ofour ancestors.
We have to thank to all organizers, lecturers and participants ofthe conference for the organizing work andfor the edition ofthis book. We are especially happy that this important conference could take place in Sopron. The conference was organized in the town, where the teaching in connection with green trees and wood matériái takes place in separate faculties in the university.
Prof. Dénes Bartha DSc University of West Hungary

Introduction
The Working Committee on Industrial Archeology and Archeometry of the Veszprém Academic Commitlee of the Hungárián Academy of Sciences - together with the Working Committee of Handicraft History, and with the supporting cooperation ofthe local profess ional museums - has organized annual scientifical workshops about the archaeologic, historic, and ethnographic relics ofthe matériái culture in the Carpathian Basin, and about the manifold investigation of the findings belonging to different groups of materials. The lectiires dealt with the working and utilization of three very important elements oflife, i.e. earth (clay, in 2004), wood (in 2005) and metál (iron, in 2006, 2007). After the Workshop in Budapest in 2004, "a thousandofyears ofpottery, "' we invited the specialists dealing with the investigation of "archeology and ethnography offorest and wood" to Sopron, in May, 2005.
Twenty researchers participatedin the workshop in Sopron, heldin the lecture hall ofthe Collection of History of Forestry, Wood Industry and Surveying of the Forestry Engineering Faculty ofthe University of West Hungary ("Forestry Museum "). Before an interested audience, the lecturers explained different points ofview the "element" nearest to life, i.e. forests and wood. The two day meeting was rather short. Hence the archeologists, ethnographers, históriám, restorers and foresters could only deal with somé main matters. They gave reports on environment archeology of ancient forests as well as archaeologic, ethnographic and historic relics ofthe wood industry with special regard to historic aspects ofhandicrafts. Lectiires were presented on age determination of woodremains as well as on the conservation of archaeologic wooden findings.
The texts of the lectures are presented here with the hope that, at the next meetings, those other fields will be reviewed, (which were outlined in the preparation ofthe Sopron Workshop from the Ethnographical Research Institute of the Hungárián Academy of Sciences), to use this immense scientific data on the research of forests and wood).2 We propose the following questions for disucssion: Wood working tools in the archaeologic and ethnographic collections; charcoal burning; analyses of the inventories compiled on the workshops and products of the craftsmen dealing with different kinds ofwood, the conclusions about the regulations of products ofcraftmen; the devastation of forests, forest protection and afforestation and their regulation on different limes during the different periods; wooden household objects, their manufacturing or acquisition; what was made at home, what was bought and from where.
Our working committees organized the Sopron Workshop in cooperation with the Sopron Museum. Mony thanks must be said to the Forestry Museum which gave place for the Workshop and to the Scarbantia Societyfor supporting it.
We have to express special thanks to the Sopron Scientific Society ofthe VeszprémAcademic Committee ofthe Hungárián Academy of Sciences for theirfinancial support given to the organization ofthe Workshop, as well as to the printing costs ofpublication ofthe lectures in this book.
Dr. Gömöri, János CSc Sopron Museum

Content
T. DOBOSI VIOLA: Arboreoiis Vegetation in the Upper Palaeolithic
MEDZIHRADSZKY ZSÓFIA - T. BÍRÓ KATALIN: Holocene Forests in the Surroimdings of Laké Balaton
JEREM ERZSÉBET : Landscape and Woodland Management in the IronAge
MORGÓS ANDRÁS: Dating of Wood – Dendrochronology and the Situation of Dendrochronology in Hungary
KERN ZOLTÁN: Tree Ring Research in South Bakony Mts and Balaton Highland
DÁVID SZILVIA - KERN ZOLTÁN: Dendrochronological and Dendroecological Research of Oakfrom Eastern Bakony Mts and Gerecse Mts, Hungary
Sz. JÓNÁS ILONA: Wood in the World of Medieval Man
TÓTH J. ATTILA: Raw Materials and Traditions in the Shipbuildirig ofAncient Periods
KERTÉSZ RÓBERT - MORGÓS ANDRÁS - NAGY DÉNES - SZÁNTÓ ZSUZSANNA:  Tisza Bridges Built during the Turkish Occupation in Reflection of Radiocarbon and Dendrochronological Investigations
MAGYAR KÁLMÁN: Excavation and Age Determination of a Medieval Logboat near Barcs
GÖMÖRI JÁNOS: Findings made ofwoodfrom the Román and Medieval Period in the archaeological collection ofthe Sopron Museum
FEHÉR SÁNDOR: Wood species identifiication in the archeological wood collection of Museum Sopron
RUDNER ZITA EDINA: Anthracology at Archaeological Sites 2. Implications
PETERCSÁK TIVADAR: Forest Industries and Activities in the Northern Mountain-Range
VARGA ÉVA TERÉZ: "Not madefrom swnach!" Suitable and Inappropriate Wood from the Standpoint o/Makers ofWooden Tools in Bakonybél
CSISZÁR ATTILA: Producing Center ofCarpentered Cases at the Edge of the Nagyerdő (Big Forest) in the County Sopron
OZSVÁTH GÁBOR: Carving millers, Mills, Frame-saws in the County Háromszék (Eastern Transylvania) in the 19lh-21sl century
SZULOVSZKY JÁNOS: Woodworking Professions in Hungary in 1892
MORGÓS ANDRÁS: Preservation of Archeological Wood
VARGA TAMÁS: The Collection ofHistory ofForestry, Wood-lndustry and Surveying ofthe Forestry Engíneering Faculty of the West-Hungarian University