EditorialT he recording and dating methods used in nautical archaeology are constantly being developed and improved. This was very clear at the excellent ISBSA conference held in Gdańsk in September 2015, where several fieldwork projects were presented that made use of photogrammetry or Structure from Motion (SfM) to record underwater sites in 3D. Equally, on land, laser scanning now enables the acquisition of accurate 3D models of ship structures and other finds. As Kotaro Yamafune stated, however, these are rapid methods for collecting detailed data, but do not replace the archaeologist. The challenge now is to allow researchers time and means to analyse the digital record, in the same way we observe a site or object when making a drawing by hand, in order to understand it. As these methods are developing, the IJNA has new guidelines for the online publication of 3D models.At the same time, a strong symbiotic relationship has grown up between wood scientists and nautical archaeologists, with dendrochronological studies now an integral part of wooden ship research. Close examination of timbers allows us to explore not only dating, but also provenance, trade, conversion methods and the shipbuilders' working practices. Dendrochronological dating is, however, easily misunderstood and misquoted. The IJNA has adopted new guidelines for publishing dendrochronological data to set a standard for authors and readers. I have asked Nigel Nayling, Professor of Archaeology at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and lead nautical archaeologist for the ForSEAdiscovery programme (http://forseadiscovery.cchs.csic.es/), to elaborate here.Miranda Richardson
Quotation of Tree-ring DatesIt is symptomatic of the widespread acceptance of treering dating as a key tool within nautical archaeology that the contributing dendrochronologists involved in the recent authoritative publication of the Copper Ship were able, in the opening sentence of their report, to state that 'dendrochronology is the default method used for dating wooden shipwrecks' (Krąpiec and Krąpiec, 2014). The utility of dendrochronology is also demonstrated by the frequency with which treering dating results are quoted by authors within this journal. In some cases, articles have been written by dendrochronologists as the primary publication of the results of a particular study, with dating and provenance outcomes supported by the presentation of appropriate levels of replicated correlation between a ship's timbers and absolutely dated ring-width chronologies (Daly, 2007;Daly and Nymoen, 2008;Domínguez-Delmás et al., 2013;Haneca and Daly, 2014;Nayling and Susperregi, 2014;Vermeersch et al., 2015;Daly and Belasus, 2016). In other cases, treering dates are quoted by authors that are the result of dendrochronological studies carried out by other researchers. It is essential in both cases that treering dates are quoted consistently and in such a manner that the results are widely understood. A convention for the quoting of tree-ring dates, broadly in line with conven...