9,500-Year-Old Tree Found in Sweden Is The World’s Oldest Tree
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The world’s oldest tree, a 9,500-year-old Norwegian Spruce named “Old Tjikko,” after Professor Leif Kullman’s Siberian husky, continues to grow in Sweden. Discovered in 2004 by Kullman, professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University, the age of the tree was determined using carbon-14 dating.
“During the ice age sea level was 120 meters lower than today and much of what is now the North Sea in the waters between England and Norway was at that time forest,” Professor Kullman told Aftonbladet. Winds and low temperatures made Old Tjikko “like a bonsai tree…Big trees cannot get as old as this.”
More info: National Geographic (h/t: mymodernmet, aftonbladet)
Image credits: Karl Brodowsky
Image credits: Leif Kullman
Image credits: Carkrull
Image credits: Patrik Qvist
Image credits: IBL/Rex Features
Image credits: Petter Rybäck
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Hate to be a buzzkill but this isn't actually true. Old Tjikko is what you call a clonal organism. Imagine that when you got old, a copy of you budded off your thumb, and when you died and shriveled up that copy could go on living. When that copy aged it would repeat the process over and over. After 9000 years, the currently living clone would not be the original "you", but you could argue that each clone was attached to the last and the overall organism is 9000 years old. That's what has happened with this tree, growing and dying off, and a new copy branching off of the root system. This process has been going on for 9550 years, but the existing tree (trunk, branches, leaves, etc) is no more than a few hundred years old. The oldest individual tree is an unnamed bristlecone pine, aged about 5,065 years. Old Tjikko isn't even the oldest clonal organism - that distinction belongs to a colony of aspen in Utah called Pando, which has been growing for at least 80,000 years.
good informative stuff Alan, wiki says that the Pando colony seems to be the largest living organism known having a huge underground interconnected root network
Hmm The Great Yew of Fortingall in Scotland MAY be nearing its 10000th birthday. Its heartwood has long gone so it is impossible to measure its age accurately but it is at least 5000 years old. The lifespan of these trees is really beyond our understanding.
lets not forget how they communicate. fungi. a whole cover story. they have their own kingfom!!!! thanks for the good info Alan.
it does have a name; Methuselah. The oldest living Bristlecone pine that is. There was one older, but it was killed by the team taking its core sample.
Nah! Mr. Marble, do not kill a good story. We need here at Scandinavia good PR especially in forestry domain; we are living trough forestry industry... So I am gonna share this article forward anyway... Swedish are always played dirty with their national and international PR-stunts... They are selling this tree as "the eldest spruce in the world": http://sciencenordic.com/oldest-spruce-northern-europe-532-years-old That spruce being 532 years old. However we have this fine pine here at Finland... confirmed to be of 780 years [!!] old: http://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2015/11/11/suomen-vanhin-puu-yha-pystyssa Ok, they both are old ones.
Look at the big brain on brian marble, thanks for the enlightenment dude
Would that mean that at least part of the root system is thousands of years old?
Good points. However, they did say "the oldest living tree" and not "the oldest living individual tree". I think one should include Pando as a "tree" because I don't think there is decent justification not to do so, considering it is all one organism. If it is connected beneath the earth, it is several trees, but if it is connected above the Earth, it is one tree? Disagree. Pando doesn't get the recognition it deserves. It is anywhere from 80k to 800k years old and the heaviest single organism on Earth. Stop the arbitrary discrimination against Pando! =P
One of my many lamps I make out of Ancient Cedar IMG_7795.jpg
Interesting. Thank you. Funny I have a tomato plant that is nearly two years old then. The original plant just frozde out but I still have a green stem rooting from it. Love how that works.
It is not uncommon for a writer use a misleading topic phrase to entice one to read further. Thank for for explaining the system that has allow this organism to become 9,500 by rejuvenation.
My instincts told me it couldn't be true. Authors will usually by stretching the truth in the top phrase to entice a reader to continue to read. Thank for the information.
it is part of an older root system which dates back thousands of years. The trunk of the tree may die and regrow multiple times, but the tree's root system remains intact and in turn sprouts another trunk
I have visited and created the highest quality didgeridoos on the planet from the Pando Aspen. I create jewelry as well and only from dead branches. See here: https://www.facebook.com/MachuDidgeridoo/?ref=hl
I have visited and created the highest quality didgeridoos from dead Pando branches: https://www.facebook.com/MachuDidgeridoo/?ref=hl
Dear God, it's a Doctor Who tree - it regenerates!
Never heard of any species of spruce capable of sprouting out of its roots once it's lost its green top.
Wouldn't the roots be 9,500 years old?
Thanks for the info! Hope Bored Panda paid attention.
Would that mean that you
Are a different person after all of your cells regrow and the originals die?
Ahh, the good old Ship of Theseus paradox! That one's for the philosophers to answer.
These trolls also say that it's not the same tree because the cells are not the same as the original. Duh, These trolls, such as Alan are not respectably skeptical and will go beyond stupidity.
A bit misleading. The actual part of the tree you show in the photos is no more than 600 years old. It's a clonal tree, where individual stems grow and die but then a new trunk will sprout from the root system, or from a branch of the older tree that contacts the ground. So the tree shown wouldn't have been there even a thousand years ago.
Stars and Stripes 4Ever Yes. you are a different person after all your cells regrow, and the originals die. this happens every 7 years, but not all at once, like this tree.
There is a big difference between anyone of us and his CLONE. I hope everyone understands that? . The article above is referring to a tree that repeatedly CLONES itselve (so the tree living now is genetically identical to one living more than 1000 years ago). Tree systems like those have been called MISLEADING & WRONG the oldest trees in the world, because the individual trees live only a few hundred years before asexually spawning a REPLANCEMENT CLONE . As for TREE CLONES, e.g. the Pando is a clonal tree colony in Utah USA and is estimated to be 80,000 years . The OLDEST known LIVING TREE in EUROPE was discovered in the highlands of Greece in 2016 and named ADONIS after the Greek God of beauty. This Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) is living in the Alpine forests of the Pindos mountains in Greece and is more than 1,075 years old . Anyone can see from the Foto of Adonis that he is over 1000 years 09_geo_ael...uropas.jpg
Adonis1-58...25c26c.jpg 
Very good points made. Anyone can see that the actual part of the tree shown in the photos above is no more than a few hundreds years old. In the article they did "misleading" not say "the oldest? living individual clonal tree". As for tree clones, there are much older such organisms. For example, the Pando ("trembling giant") is a clonal tree colony made up of more than 40,000 individual quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) trees, located in Fishlake National Forest in south-central Utah USA, the colony is estimated to be an astounding 80,000 years old. According to National Geographic a "1,075-Year-Old Pine Named ‘Adonis’ Is Europe’s Oldest-Known Living Tree". This "Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing in the highlands of northern Greece has been dendrocronologically dated to be more than 1,075 years old, living since the time of the Vikings..."
The oldest single growth trees are Bristlecone Pine trees which two have been found to be almost 5,000 years old or just over.
I thought some of the giant sequoias in California were upwards of 2,000 years old.
Hate to be a buzzkill but this isn't actually true. Old Tjikko is what you call a clonal organism. Imagine that when you got old, a copy of you budded off your thumb, and when you died and shriveled up that copy could go on living. When that copy aged it would repeat the process over and over. After 9000 years, the currently living clone would not be the original "you", but you could argue that each clone was attached to the last and the overall organism is 9000 years old. That's what has happened with this tree, growing and dying off, and a new copy branching off of the root system. This process has been going on for 9550 years, but the existing tree (trunk, branches, leaves, etc) is no more than a few hundred years old. The oldest individual tree is an unnamed bristlecone pine, aged about 5,065 years. Old Tjikko isn't even the oldest clonal organism - that distinction belongs to a colony of aspen in Utah called Pando, which has been growing for at least 80,000 years.
good informative stuff Alan, wiki says that the Pando colony seems to be the largest living organism known having a huge underground interconnected root network
Hmm The Great Yew of Fortingall in Scotland MAY be nearing its 10000th birthday. Its heartwood has long gone so it is impossible to measure its age accurately but it is at least 5000 years old. The lifespan of these trees is really beyond our understanding.
lets not forget how they communicate. fungi. a whole cover story. they have their own kingfom!!!! thanks for the good info Alan.
it does have a name; Methuselah. The oldest living Bristlecone pine that is. There was one older, but it was killed by the team taking its core sample.
Nah! Mr. Marble, do not kill a good story. We need here at Scandinavia good PR especially in forestry domain; we are living trough forestry industry... So I am gonna share this article forward anyway... Swedish are always played dirty with their national and international PR-stunts... They are selling this tree as "the eldest spruce in the world": http://sciencenordic.com/oldest-spruce-northern-europe-532-years-old That spruce being 532 years old. However we have this fine pine here at Finland... confirmed to be of 780 years [!!] old: http://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2015/11/11/suomen-vanhin-puu-yha-pystyssa Ok, they both are old ones.
Look at the big brain on brian marble, thanks for the enlightenment dude
Would that mean that at least part of the root system is thousands of years old?
Good points. However, they did say "the oldest living tree" and not "the oldest living individual tree". I think one should include Pando as a "tree" because I don't think there is decent justification not to do so, considering it is all one organism. If it is connected beneath the earth, it is several trees, but if it is connected above the Earth, it is one tree? Disagree. Pando doesn't get the recognition it deserves. It is anywhere from 80k to 800k years old and the heaviest single organism on Earth. Stop the arbitrary discrimination against Pando! =P
One of my many lamps I make out of Ancient Cedar IMG_7795.jpg
Interesting. Thank you. Funny I have a tomato plant that is nearly two years old then. The original plant just frozde out but I still have a green stem rooting from it. Love how that works.
It is not uncommon for a writer use a misleading topic phrase to entice one to read further. Thank for for explaining the system that has allow this organism to become 9,500 by rejuvenation.
My instincts told me it couldn't be true. Authors will usually by stretching the truth in the top phrase to entice a reader to continue to read. Thank for the information.
it is part of an older root system which dates back thousands of years. The trunk of the tree may die and regrow multiple times, but the tree's root system remains intact and in turn sprouts another trunk
I have visited and created the highest quality didgeridoos on the planet from the Pando Aspen. I create jewelry as well and only from dead branches. See here: https://www.facebook.com/MachuDidgeridoo/?ref=hl
I have visited and created the highest quality didgeridoos from dead Pando branches: https://www.facebook.com/MachuDidgeridoo/?ref=hl
Dear God, it's a Doctor Who tree - it regenerates!
Never heard of any species of spruce capable of sprouting out of its roots once it's lost its green top.
Wouldn't the roots be 9,500 years old?
Thanks for the info! Hope Bored Panda paid attention.
Would that mean that you
Are a different person after all of your cells regrow and the originals die?
Ahh, the good old Ship of Theseus paradox! That one's for the philosophers to answer.
These trolls also say that it's not the same tree because the cells are not the same as the original. Duh, These trolls, such as Alan are not respectably skeptical and will go beyond stupidity.
A bit misleading. The actual part of the tree you show in the photos is no more than 600 years old. It's a clonal tree, where individual stems grow and die but then a new trunk will sprout from the root system, or from a branch of the older tree that contacts the ground. So the tree shown wouldn't have been there even a thousand years ago.
Stars and Stripes 4Ever Yes. you are a different person after all your cells regrow, and the originals die. this happens every 7 years, but not all at once, like this tree.
There is a big difference between anyone of us and his CLONE. I hope everyone understands that? . The article above is referring to a tree that repeatedly CLONES itselve (so the tree living now is genetically identical to one living more than 1000 years ago). Tree systems like those have been called MISLEADING & WRONG the oldest trees in the world, because the individual trees live only a few hundred years before asexually spawning a REPLANCEMENT CLONE . As for TREE CLONES, e.g. the Pando is a clonal tree colony in Utah USA and is estimated to be 80,000 years . The OLDEST known LIVING TREE in EUROPE was discovered in the highlands of Greece in 2016 and named ADONIS after the Greek God of beauty. This Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) is living in the Alpine forests of the Pindos mountains in Greece and is more than 1,075 years old . Anyone can see from the Foto of Adonis that he is over 1000 years 09_geo_ael...uropas.jpg
Adonis1-58...25c26c.jpg 
Very good points made. Anyone can see that the actual part of the tree shown in the photos above is no more than a few hundreds years old. In the article they did "misleading" not say "the oldest? living individual clonal tree". As for tree clones, there are much older such organisms. For example, the Pando ("trembling giant") is a clonal tree colony made up of more than 40,000 individual quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) trees, located in Fishlake National Forest in south-central Utah USA, the colony is estimated to be an astounding 80,000 years old. According to National Geographic a "1,075-Year-Old Pine Named ‘Adonis’ Is Europe’s Oldest-Known Living Tree". This "Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing in the highlands of northern Greece has been dendrocronologically dated to be more than 1,075 years old, living since the time of the Vikings..."
The oldest single growth trees are Bristlecone Pine trees which two have been found to be almost 5,000 years old or just over.
I thought some of the giant sequoias in California were upwards of 2,000 years old.