The potential age of the bristlecone pine is very young when compared to the world’s oldest recorded tree—a spruce tree in the Dalarna province of Sweden that is thought to be 9,550 years old. This discovery, made around 2008, included several more old spruce trees, including another that was 9,000 years old (the ages were determined using carbon-14 dating methods), and others that were over 8,000 years old.