A Five Thousand Year Old Tree?

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If I said “Methuselah,” who would you think of? Probably the man from the Bible who lived nearly one thousand years.

But did you know he shares a name with a bristlecone pine tree in California that’s believed to be nearly five thousand years old? That supposed age comes from the tree’s rings.

You see, it’s believed that each of these rings is an annual ring. But it’s been shown that this just isn’t true. Droughts, fires, and years with too much rain can affect how many rings a tree produces. You can’t just count the number of rings and get an exact age.

Methuselah is an old tree—but he’s not that old! It likely started growing shortly after Noah’s flood, about four thousand years ago.

Dig Deeper

• Radiometric Dating
• Dating Techniques