Medieval plague and the Thirty Years’ War fought in 17th century Europe both had devastating effects on building and development on the continent. That’s the conclusion of a massive new analysis of the timber used in historical European buildings, dated using tree ring methods.

Wood from archaeological sites is routinely collected, analysed and dated using dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating . Researchers scoured through earlier studies to compile data on nearly 50,000 such pieces of wood used for constructing buildings from 1250 to 1699. …