What do you know about a tree?
- A tree is one that provides shelter to a person from the sun.
- A tree is one that provides good fruits for a person to eat and live – something like mangoes, guava, lemon, and such other things.
- A tree provides shelter for many birds and other creatures.
- A tree inhales carbon di-oxide and gives out oxygen that is responsible for keeping the man alive in the world.
- Trees are responsible for protecting the land from the heat of the sun on to the earth.
- Cutting trees indiscriminately will imbalance the harmony and might affect rainfall and lead to drought and scarcity of water
- Wood from the trees can be used for making furniture, ships, boats and such other things
Trees do have more than most of the things that you know about them. The age of the tree is much more. Some trees are said to have more than 500 years, if not more.
They teach a number of things about the climatic conditions in which they grow. Modern discovery about the trees by the archeologists reveal many startling facts that throw light not only on the way of life of our ancestors lived but also the challenging atmosphere and climatic conditions they have faced in their life.
Tree is an ideal mirror of the weather and climatic conditions in the past. As the tree grows old, the trunk portion of the tree gets thickened. Not only will they thicken, but also develop some sort of rings at the end of every year. By merely counting the rings of the trees, one can judge the life of the tree.
The rings around the tree also reveal some other interesting facts. If the rings are wide in a particular year, then it is an indication that the said year had enough rains. If the rinds were relatively narrow, then it is an indication that the said was a dry year with little or no rainfall.
A specialized field of studying trees – called as dendrochronology – can help archeologists put up a date on the period when wooden structures that are excavated, since trees are mostly used for making these wooden structures in the ancient period.