In her analysis of late medieval Baltic timber trade, wood anatomist Teresa Soler examined the dendrochronological profiles of oak beams utilized in the construction of fourteenth-century Hanseatic granaries in Gdańsk. Soler observed that while the majority of structural timbers harvested prior to 1350 exhibited wide, irregular annual growth rings characteristic of lowland floodplains along the Vistula River, timber felled after 1370 displayed narrow, highly uniform ring series. Soler attributed this shift not to localized climatic fluctuations—as earlier scholars had conjectured—but to the exhaustion of primary riparian oak stands, which compelled merchants to source timber from upland, slow-growth forests in the sub-Carpathian interior. Crucially, Soler demonstrated that timber originating from these upland interior regions possessed a markedly lower sapwood ratio, rendering it significantly less susceptible to infestation by wood-boring beetles (*Anobium punctatum*) than the riparian oak favored in earlier decades. Consequently, granaries constructed during the late fourteenth century required far fewer structural repairs during their first fifty years of service, despite facing identical humidity levels as earlier edifices.
Based on the passage, which of the following statements regarding the oak timber used in Gdańsk granaries constructed after 1370 is explicitly supported? Select all that apply.
- It was harvested from upland interior forest regions rather than lowland river floodplains.Cevap
- It contained a lower proportion of sapwood than the oak timber utilized prior to 1350.Cevap
- CIts narrow growth rings resulted primarily from localized climatic shifts in the late fourteenth century.