Ancient Bristlecone Pines

So the Bristlecone pines are very cool. I would like to go back and do more hiking there and in surrounding areas. It was very quite and peaceful. The trees are neat looking because they are so gnarled. The video was quite fascinating at the visitor’s center. The living trees are up to 4000+ years old. The oldest trees are called Methuselahs. The dead trees on the ground date back 7000-10,000 yrs old because there is so little decay in the high dry elevation. The Bristlecone pines mostly live in the White Mountains because they seem to like the Dolomite mineral which makes the rock white.

Apparently the trees actually verified & corrected the carbon dating technique. They took core samples of many trees, marked the rings, then lined the marks up. This way they were able to line up marks for up to 7000 years. Then there is a gap from 7000-10,000 then the marks start up again for another couple thousand years. From this they compared wood from archeological sites and were able to date that wood which dated the artifacts in turn. Even though the wood from the archeological site may have been from the another continent, the average environmental conditions for earth were comparable which affects tree growth & the tree rings. That is how the comparison was made. Pretty cool from an anthropological standpoint.

On a side note…I always like anthropology: how man evolved and the first ancient civilizations.

Pictures here!