Prometheus (tree)

The tree, which was at least 4,862 years old and possibly more than 5,000, was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and United States Forest Service personnel for research purposes.

The tree's name refers to the mythological figure Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.

The bristlecone pine population on this mountain is divided into at least two distinct sub-populations, one of which is accessible by a popular interpretive trail.

Until 2012, Prometheus was thus the oldest non-clonal organism yet discovered, with its innermost, extant rings exceeding 4862 years of age.

They intended to analyze the rings for various research purposes, such as evaluation of former climates, dating of archaeological ruins, and addressing the basic scientific question of maximum potential lifespan.

It is not clear whether Currey requested, or Forest Service personnel suggested, that he cut down and section the tree in lieu of coring it.

In the article, Currey indicates that he sectioned the tree as much to determine whether the oldest bristlecones were necessarily confined to California's White Mountains (as some dendrochronologists had been claiming) as from its usefulness in regard to studies of the Little Ice Age.

Sections or pieces of the tree have ended up in various places, some of them publicly accessible, including the Great Basin National Park visitor center (Baker, Nevada), the Ely Convention Center (Ely, Nevada), the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (Tucson, Arizona), and the U.S. Forest Service's Institute of Forest Genetics (Placerville, California).

It has been argued that the cutting down of Prometheus was an important factor in the movement to protect bristlecones in general, and the Wheeler Peak groves in particular.

In August 2014, marking the fiftieth anniversary of the tree's cutting, a two-day memorial for Prometheus was held in Great Basin National Park by artist Jeff Weiss.