Douglass, Andrew Ellicott

Douglass, Andrew Ellicott (1867–1962) astronomer; born in Windsor, Vt. A researcher at the Lowell Observatorry in Flagstaff (1894), he became a physics and astronomy professor at Arizona University (1906) and later directed the Stewart Observatory (1918–38). He investigated the relationship between sunspots and climate by examining the growth rings of ancient Arizona pine and sequoia and established the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research in 1937. He coined the term "dendrochronology" (tree-ring dating) in his Climatic Cycles and Tree Growth (3 vols. 1919–36), and it soon became an invaluable means for archaeologists to date prehistoric remains.