Humans have lived on earth for more than two million years, and 5,000 years ago we began to leave the first written records of ourselves.
But long before the cities of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia marked the rise of civilization, there stood a massive, dense coniferous tree in a forest in what is now Chile. At its very own pace, it stretched its branches up towards the sun as the globe spun around again and again, and again.
According to a group of scientists, it still does – over 5,000 years after it saw its first streak of sunlight.
Given name for national park
The tree is a so-called patagonia cypress. It is the only known needle-living species of the genus Fitzroyas – a genus of conifers belonging to the cypress family.
In English, the tree species is called Alerce and it has given its name to Alerce Costero National Park, which protects the trees against felling. The trees also grow in some places in Argentina, and fossil varieties have been found in Tasmania.
THREATENED FIGHT: In recent times, the Patagonian cypress has been heavily taxed through felling, and the largest trees are now gone. Photo: Reuters / NTB
sea view
The old giant sounds the nickname «Great-grandfather» and the massive trunk has a diameter of solid four meters.
A group of researchers has worked to map how old “Great-grandfather” actually is. Among other things, they have used a method that involves taking a sample from the tree so that you are able to count the rings without felling it.
“This method tells us that 80 percent of all possible growth pathways indicate that this living tree has an age higher than 5,000 years,” Jonathan Barichivich explains to the news agency Reuters.
– The chance that the tree is younger is only 20 percent, he explains.
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Crushing American record holder
Barichivich has led the study to find out the age of the old giant. He says that the researchers’ research shows that the tree is up to 5484 years old.
The estimated age will thus break the current record holder – a 4853-year-old pine tree in California – into sticky wood by more than half a millennium.
OLD RECORD: Until now, a bristlecone pine in the White Mountains area of eastern California has been considered the world’s oldest living tree. Furua, called “Methuselah”, has an estimated age of either 4844 or 4845 years. Photo: Shutterstock / NTB
sea view
– If you compare it with the trees that have already been dated where all the rings have been counted, it is one of the oldest living trees on the planet, Barichivich says.
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Concerned about the future
Civilizations have come and gone during the more than 5,000 years of rings found under the bark of “Great-grandfather”. Barichivich is concerned about its prominent place in the Alerce Costero National Park.
– Visitors often leave the observation platform set up by the tree. They step on the roots and even take pieces of the bark, he elaborates.
