In 1954, archaeologists James Allen Lancaster and Don Watson and dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman asserted that a small grove of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirbel] Franco var. glauca [Beissener] Franco) trees in Navajo Canyon on the west side of Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park contained evidence of stone-axe-cut tree limbs. In 1965, archaeologists Robert Nichols and David Smith published an article entitled “Evidence of Prehistoric Cultivation of Douglas-Fir Trees at Mesa Verde,” in which they supported the Lancaster/Watson/Schulman assertion with tree-ring dates from suspected stone-axe-cut limbs. If correct, Nichols and Smith (1965) document the only trees in the entire U.S. Southwest that contain ancient stone-axe-cut stubs and evidence of precolumbian forest management. Rather than accept their interpretations at face value, we attempt to replicate their dates through the (re)analysis of archived and recently collected tree-ring samples, and through a controlled analysis and comparison of archived and published records. We could not confirm their results, and we have no option but to reject their claim that Schulman Grove contains evidence of precolumbian tree manipulation by Ancestral Puebloan inhabitants of Mesa Verde.

1954 年，考古学家詹姆斯·艾伦·兰开斯特 (James Allen Lancaster) 和唐·沃森 (Don Watson) 以及树木年代学家埃德蒙·舒尔曼 (Edmund Schulman) 断言，一小片花旗松 ( Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirbel] Franco var. glauca[Beissener] Franco) 位于佛得角国家公园查平台地西侧的纳瓦霍峡谷中的树木包含石斧砍伐树枝的证据。1965 年，考古学家罗伯特·尼科尔斯 (Robert Nichols) 和大卫·史密斯 (David Smith) 发表了一篇题为“梅萨佛得角花旗松树史前栽培的证据”的文章，其中他们支持兰开斯特/沃森/舒尔曼的断言，其中的树木年轮日期来自疑似石斧-切断四肢。如果正确的话，Nichols 和 Smith (1965) 记录了整个美国西南部唯一包含古代石斧砍伐树桩和前哥伦比亚森林管理证据的树木。与其表面上接受他们的解释，我们试图通过（重新）分析存档和最近收集的树木年轮样本来复制他们的日期，并通过对存档和已发布记录的受控分析和比较。我们无法证实他们的结果，我们别无选择，只能拒绝他们的说法，即 Schulman Grove 包含 Mesa Verde 的祖先普韦布洛居民操纵前哥伦布时期树木的证据。