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Detail of a fallen tree trunk from the world’s oldest fossilized forest discovered in Somerset. Source: BBC / Chris Berry.

390 Million-Year-Old Fossilized Forest in Somerset is World’s Oldest

Remnants of the world’s oldest fossilized forests and trees, dating back 390 million years, have been uncovered along the Devon and Somerset coast among high sandstone cliffs. The trees likely...
Date palm tree. Source: Elena Dobreykina / Adobe Stock.

The Extinct Tree Scientists Brought Back To Life from Ancient Seeds (Video)

Forests of Judean date palm trees once thrived across the ancient land of Israel, spanning from the picturesque shores of Lake Galilee to the mesmerizing expanse of the Dead Sea . These majestic...
Mummy labels under analysis sourced from the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire (BNU) of Strasbourg (France) collection. Source: International Journal of Wood Culture / CC BY 4.0

Mummy Labels Unlock Climate Secrets of Ancient Mediterranean

To reconstruct the climate of ancient Egypt, Swiss scientists have resorted to an unexpected source - mummy labels. These labels, which were affixed to the bodies of mummies during the Roman era, are...
According to folklore and myths, certain Finnish trees hold spirits and deities and hugging them brings people in closer contact with these.  Source: leonovo / Adobe Stock

Greeting Old Friends: Sacred Trees in Finnish Folklore

Finland is known as a country with many forests. In fact, over 75% of Finland is covered in forests. Therefore, it is not surprising that Finnish folklore includes several myths and stories told...
General Sherman, the world’s largest tree (Jim Bahn/CC BY 2.0), has been wrapped in a fireproof blanket. (Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks)

The World’s Largest Tree Might Go Up In Smoke

The largest measured tree in the world is a 275-foot (83.8 meter) sequoia known as General Sherman. Estimated at being 2,000 or 3,000 years old, the tree grows in the Sequoia National Park’s Giant...
The unexpected find of the Dixon pyramid relic was discovered in Aberdeen within a cigar box. The cedarwood fragments were originally discovered in 1872 by British engineer Waynman Dixon, before being misplaced and seemingly lost to history. Source: University of Aberdeen

Lost Great Pyramid Relic Surfaces In A Cigar Box in Scotland!

It is something of a reporter’s dream when a press release comes in saying that a rare wooden artifact from the Great Pyramid of Egypt has been discovered in a cigar box in Scotland. And as if this...
The Gruesome Story of Tyburn Tree, London’s Infamous Gallows

The Gruesome Story of Tyburn Tree, London’s Infamous Gallows

In the modern day and age, crime is no less present than it was several hundred years ago. Sure, the world did become a lot more civilized, but criminals still exist. But the truth is, that while...
The ancient Judean date palm tree has been resurrected

The Judean Date Palm: Extinct Tree Resurrected from Ancient Seeds

For thousands of years, the date palm was a staple crop. In the Kingdom of Judea it was a source of food, shelter, medicine, and shade. But the plant went extinct due to waves of conquest and...
Flying Rowan Tree, Isle of Skye, Scotland

The Power of the Flying Rowan Tree, Woe of the Witches

Why were certain plants raised from mere utility to reverence in the collective consciousness of various populations from different cultures? This elevation from purely physical use to the realm of...
Resurrected Judean date palm in Israel

Extinct Tree Resurrected from Ancient Seeds is now a Dad

Ten years since the Judean Date Palm was miraculously brought back to life following the chance discovery of seeds in the 2,000-year-old ruins of Masada, the male date palm tree named Methuselah, the...
Radiocarbon dating needs fine-tuning if scientists and archaeologists want a more accurate historical timeline. Source: Elnur /Adobe Stock

Fine-Tuning Radiocarbon Dating Will Rewrite History!

Radiocarbon dating, invented in the late 1940s and improved ever since to provide more precise measurements, is the standard method for determining the dates of artifacts in archaeology and other...
Ogham sticks

The Celtic Ogham: An Ancient Tree Alphabet that May Disappear Before Showing its Roots

In secluded fields, on the walls of churches, and beneath construction sites, stones have been found with intricate markings that rise from the lower left up to the center and then down to the lower...
New Science Reveals Secrets to Pueblo Bonito’s Enigmatic Tree

New Science Reveals Secrets to Pueblo Bonito’s Enigmatic Tree

A majestic ponderosa pine, standing tall in what is widely thought to have been the "center of the world" for the Ancestral Puebloan people, may have more mundane origins than previously believed,...
Scientists Crack Secrets of Ginkgo Trees’ Near-Immortality

Scientists Crack Secrets of Ginkgo Trees’ Near-Immortality

A new botanical scientific study on ginkgo trees highlights the species’ hyper-charged defenses and apparent escalation towards “immortality.” Native to China , G inkgo biloba , also known as the...
A woman in a forest holding holly. Credit: LoloStock / Adobe Stock

Decking the Halls of History: The Pagan Origins of Christmas Decorations

The idea of hanging up decorations in the middle of winter is older than Christmas itself. Decorations are mentioned in ancient descriptions of the Roman feast of Saturnalia , which is thought to...
The Amazon’s new record-breaking tree. Source: Tobias Jackson

A 400-Year-Old ‘Carbon Colossus’ Heralds Hope for Amazonia

At a staggering 88 meters tall, a 400-year-old tree found in the Brazilian Amazon has been declared the region’s largest tree. Researchers are now trying to figure out how it grew to such heights...
Reconstruction of the Celtic woman’s burial in a tree. Source: Zurich archaeology department

Ancient Celtic Woman Emerges from Zurich Tree Coffin In Elegant Dress

2,200 years ago an Iron Age woman was buried in what is today Zurich and in her 'Tree Coffin’ she was dressed and draped for a ball…in the afterlife. The ancient Celtic woman’s remains were excavated...
Asherah - Veiled Mother of the World

Asherah: God’s Forgotten Wife

Those raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition may be surprised to learn that the god we were told was singularly sacred once had a wife. How do we know? Asherah figures prominently as the wife of El—...
A painting of Lakshmi on the inner walls of the Tanjore Big temple. Gold is said to symbolize this goddess.

Gold, the Peacock, the Lotus Flower, and Other Sacred Indian Symbols Explained

India is a very beautiful country and it has a culture full of symbolism. In what follows, some of the more popular Indian symbols are presented. These are some of the icons that are very relevant in...
Giant Boabab Tree

9 Oldest Trees in Africa, Some Over 2,000-Years-Old, Now Dead

Nine of 13 of Africa’s oldest and largest baobab trees have died in the past decade, it has been reported. These trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years, appear to be victims of climate change...

The Oldest Tree in Europe has been Discovered in Italy

In Italy, researchers have found what they believe to be the oldest living tree in Europe, having calculated its age to be approximately 1230 years old, according to a report from Discovery. The tree...
The Armada Tree.

The Armada Tree: Sprouted from a Seed in the Pocket of a Fallen Invader

The Armada Tree is the name given to a sweet chestnut tree in the graveyard of a small church in Northern Ireland, UK. According to local legend, the tree grew, rather unintentionally, from a...
Araucaria over a Nothofagus forest, Araucania Region, Chile.

Critically Endangered South American Forests were Planted by Ancient Peoples

Critically endangered South American forests thought to be the result of climate change were actually spread by ancient communities, archaeologists have found. Huge swathes of land in Chile, Brazil...
Fossil found in the Antarctic.

Scientists Find 280-Million-Year-Old Fossilized Forest…in Antarctica

A team of geologists have discovered remnants of a 280-million-year-old fossil forest in Antarctica. They suggest that the trees of the forest survived through periodic extremes of total darkness and...

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