REWRITING HISTORY THE WORLD'S OLDEST LIVING THING - Robert A Ginskey - December 1977

Robert A Ginskey

At nearly 5,000 years of age, bristlecone pines are revolutionizing man's understanding of climate, history and archaeology. High in the mountains of the southwestern United States, the twisted, misshapen and battered forms of bristlecone pines cling precariously to the sparse soil that somehow sustains them. But the stunted, gnomish appearance of the bristlecones belies their incredible age- an awesome antiquity that antedates recorded history. Indeed, in the White Mountains of California, nearly 20 bristlecones have lived more than 4,000 years. One tree, known as Methuselah, is over 4,600 years old. The Methuselah tree was already hundreds of years old when the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid. It had lived over a millennium when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. And it had survived over 3,000 mountaintop winters when Charlemagne was proclaimed emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in A.D. 800. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library