ᴛʜᴇ ᴏʟᴅ ᴡᴇʟʟ : ᴏʙᴊᴇᴄᴛ ᴍᴀʏ ʙᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ’s ᴏʟᴅᴇsᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡɴ ᴡᴏᴏᴅᴇɴ sᴛʀᴜᴄᴛᴜʀᴇ!

The old well doesn’t look like much – a wooden crate-like object, dilapidated, crumbling a little. But according to new research, it’s really special. A tree-ring dating technique has revealed that the oak wood used to make it was cut around 7,275 years ago.

“According to our findings, based particularly on dendrochronological data, we can say that the tree trunks for the wood used were felled in the years 5255 and 5256 BCE,” explained archaeologist Jaroslav Peška of the Archaeological Centre Olomouc in the Czech Republic in a press statement last year.

“The rings on the trunks enable us to give a precise estimate, give [or] take one year, as to when the trees were felled.”

The well was unearthed and discovered near the town of Ostrov in 2018 during construction on the D35 motorway in the Czech Republic. Ceramic fragments found inside the well dated the site to the early Neolithic, but no evidence of any settlement structures were found nearby, suggesting the well serviced several settlements at a bit of a distance away.

The research has been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.