Chronologies are fundamental to interpreting the timing and rates of past environmental changes. On-going developments in analytical techniques and modelling of data have improved the accuracy and precision of chronologies and widened the range of lake derived materials which can be used for dating or comparison to other palaeoenvironmental records. These include: improvements in analytical equipment and methodologies for ¹⁴C, Ar/Ar, ³²Si, ²¹⁰Pb, U-series, OSL and tephrochronology dating techniques; Bayesian modelling techniques for ¹⁴C data and continuing efforts to improve ¹⁴C calibration using terrestrial based records. Despite these improvements, there are still challenges to obtaining reliable chronologies and future directions in developments of interest to the palaeolimnological community will be driven by future research priorities which will determine sampling areas and availability of material types.