Question

In the early twentieth century, astronomer A.E. Douglass sought to determine whether solar activity influenced terrestrial climate patterns by analyzing the annual growth rings of ponderosa pines in the American Southwest. Douglass posited that sunspot cycles—periodic fluctuations in solar radiation—would correlate directly with local precipitation variability, which in turn dictated tree-ring thickness. Although his primary ambition was to establish a predictive model for solar astronomy, his meticulously compiled tree-ring chronologies unexpectedly provided archaeologists with a precise calendar for dating prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan structures. Before Douglass’s cross-dating technique was applied to wooden beams retrieved from sites like Chaco Canyon, scholars had relied exclusively on relative artifact typology, which could only establish chronological sequences rather than absolute calendar dates. Ironically, while Douglass’s dendrochronological methodology revolutionized southwestern archaeology, his original astronomical hypothesis faced persistent skepticism: subsequent statistical analyses revealed that local microclimatic factors and soil moisture retention often obscured direct solar signals in tree-ring records.

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage regarding archaeological research in the American Southwest prior to the implementation of Douglass’s cross-dating technique?