Happy Atheist Forum

First of all, let me say I think it's me who must be missing something here.

I was reading how Dawkins' says that dendrochronology can "take us back to 11,500" years. He's not alone, it's also stated on this website. (http://proteus.brown.edu/fieldarchaeology10/8508) However the almighty Wikipedia says the oldest trees only go up to 4,000 to 5,000 years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees) I can't find any record of an 11,000 year old tree dated by ring counting on the interwebs.  

It works by comparing the rings of dead trees as well petrified trees... I'll try to find a link.

Edit: found one that explains the basic concept: http://sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html (http://sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html)

Ah, thank you kindly Davin.    Would it be fair to say this little passage from that site explain it all:

QuoteThe bristlecone pine chronology in the White Mountains currently extends back almost 9,000 years continuously. That's to 7,000 BC! Several pieces of wood have been collected that will extend this date back even further. The hope is to push the date back to at least 8,000 BC. This will be important as the last Ice Age ended about 10,000 years ago, and to have a record of this transition period would offer scientists a wealth of information.

Yeah, while there has never been a tree live that long, we can see patterns in the widths of the individual rings (The exact length of that years winter)  between different trees. Each ring is a winter. Each tree has recorded a ton of winters.  Between all the trees in history (including petrified trees) we probably do in fact have a solid record of 11,500 years that can be dated through dendrochronology!

I wonder what age the timber used in the ark would be?

Prometheus would have been the oldest tree had the scientist taking core samples not had it cut down!  :mad:       5000 years old

http://www.neatorama.com/2007/03/21/10- ... the-world/ (http://www.neatorama.com/2007/03/21/10-most-magnificent-trees-in-the-world/)

The Lonely Tree of Ténéré featured in the above article is a particularly sad story.

One method ice cores can be dated by counting annual markings like tree rings. I was curious as to how far back this method can take us with ice cores. Looks like we're luckier with them. This one continuous core goes back over 750,000 years (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4121-oldest-ever-ice-core-promises-climate-revelations.html).

Quote from: "Sophus"One method ice cores can be dated by counting annual markings like tree rings. I was curious as to how far back this method can take us with ice cores. Looks like we're luckier with them. This one continuous core goes back over 750,000 years (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4121-oldest-ever-ice-core-promises-climate-revelations.html).

A 3200m core sample?  :shock: