Humans have a fascination with things that are really, really old, so why not cover a few of those record setters?

With a list of this nature, of course, a little explanation into methodology is required.

We have the team at 24/7 Wall St. to thank for this one, because they did the hard yards:

24/7 Wall St. reviewed scientific journals, record collecting organizations, newspapers, and other sources to identify the oldest known item in each of a number of categories. Often, there is less than a historical or scientific consensus as to which is the actual oldest item. These are not necessarily the first thing made in a particular category, rather, they are the oldest surviving version.

Right, that’s the boring stuff out of the way.

That picture up top, by the way, is the world’s oldest globe, the Behaim Globe, which dates back to 1491 A.D. It’s also known as the “Erdapfel”, but we’re going to move on.

Let’s focus on seven of the more interesting ‘oldest things’:

Scientists recently discovered that the oldest single tree in the world is 5,067 years old as of the 2017 growing season. The tree is a Bristlecone Pine, found in White Mountains, California. It beats the previous record holder named Methuselah, which is located nearby. While the general location is known, the precise spot is a secret to keep the tree safe.

This isn’t the tree itself, but it is the same species:

Gnarly.

Six more to go:

Photograph: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s “View from the Window at Le Gras” was taken in 1826 or 1827, and 24/7 Wall St. calls it “an astonishing development in technology.” Niépce missed out on tacking a few years on to his record: He destroyed an image he took in 1822 when he later tried to copy it.

Restaurant: Speaking of astonishing, Stiftskeller has been operating in Salzburg, Austria, since 803. It continues to serve patrons in the same building it has for more than a millennium: St. Peter’s Abbey.

Shipwreck: The find is a relatively recent one, made in 2014 by archaeologists from Ankara University working in Turkey’s Urla Port. There, they found a ship believed to be roughly 4,000 years old, far predating the port, which was operating around the seventh century BC.

Food: It’s not this quarter-pounder. What was originally thought to be charcoal upon its discovery in Oxfordshire, England, was confirmed as bread burnt some 5,500 years ago, during the Neolithic era.

Mummy: If your guess involved Egypt, you’ve got the wrong continent. Chile’s Chinchorro Mummies date to 5,050 BC. The Chinchorro people living in the Atacama Desert mummified all their dead, but while the remains managed to survive for some seven millennia, they’re now turning to “black ooze.”

Musical instrument: Radiocarbon dating showed that bone flutes found in Hohle Fels Cave, Germany, were crafted as long ago as 41,000 BC. The bones once belonged to mammoths.

Look at you, learning new things on a Monday.

If you feel like 18 more of the oldest things that the world has to offer then go ahead and dig in HERE.

[source:247wallst]