The world's oldest tree may have been standing for centuries when the first boulders were erected at Stonehenge, new research suggests.
The ancient giant, an alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides) known as the "Gran Abuelo" (or great grandfather in Spanish) that towers over a ravine in the Chilean Andes, may be roughly 5,400 years old, a new computer model suggests. If that date can be confirmed, it would make the Gran Abuelo nearly 600 years older than the current official record holder(opens in new tab) for world's oldest tree, a Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) in California known as "Methuselah."
However, the alerce's exact age is still somewhat contested, because confirming that requires analysis of the tree's rings — a method known as dendrochronology, and the gold standard for determining a tree's age — and that data is currently incomplete. The underlying data for the model has not yet been publicly released or submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
