If your family lineage traces back to anywhere in the northern hemisphere, it is likely your descend from a long line of proud acorn-eaters. Going back 600,000 years to the mid-Pleistocene there is evidence of our hominin ancestors dining on acorns. In fact, our ancestors have been eating acorns since well before we were human. The practice of actively eating acorns even has it’s own word: balanophagy. For much of human history, acorns were an important part of our diet, and are still used for food in some parts of the world. Loaded with protein, fats, and carbohydrates they are a virtual superfood for many creatures of the forest. A fully mature white oak can rain-down thousands of acorns each season, and about 3 million over its lifetime. Acorn-ucopiaĪt risk of stating the obvious, oaks make a lot of acorns. Technically a colony of Palmer’s oak clones, this organism has been estimated to be living for the past 13,000 years. All of these venerable oaks are still in their youth compared to the so-called Jurupa Oak in California however. A southern live oak in Louisiana is estimated to be near 1,500 years old, and the oldest known living tree in Lithuania is an English oak approaching 2,000 years. White oaks routinely live over 300 years and individuals in New Jersey and West Virginia both approached either side of 600 years. A keystone species, they support more life-forms than any other North American tree genus including fungi, insects, birds and mammals. Over about 56 million years, oaks have evolved into roughly 435 species that grow on five continents, about 90 of which are found in North America. Stan Lupo/Flickr Stretching Across Time and Space The tannins slowly release over time, imparting a distinct character often described by connoisseurs as vanilla and licorice notes.īlue Jays plant thousands of acorns each year. Those water and rot-resistant qualities also makes white oak ideal for aging whisky and wine. Constitution, “Old Ironsides” herself, was famously crafted from old-growth white oak. fleet during the War of 1812 - the U.S.S. A trait master ship-builder Vikings took full advantage of. ![]() ![]() Archaeologists say this incredible 3,000 year-old vessel is the oldest canoe found in the Great Lakes region, by 1,000 years, and is the earliest yet direct evidence of water transportation there.Įuropean shipbuilders found that English oak limbs often grew at just the right angles for ship frames. A dugout canoe discovered in the spring of 2022 at the bottom of Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota was carved from a single piece of white oak 14.5 feet long around 1,000 B.C.E. For boat and ship builders, it means this wood is a perfect choice for their craft. In nature, this gives them resistance to water-loss and decay, and helps them retain nutrients and stay healthy during drought. They have a closed-grain wood, rich with tannins and cells filled with natural plastic-like structures called tyloses. White oak, and it’s near-equivalent in Europe - the English oak are famous for their use in ship-building. Even today, oak leaves are used as decorative symbols for many military ranks and awards around the world. Ancient kings wore crowns of oak leaves and successfully returning Roman commanders received oak-leaf crowns on victory parades. A sacred symbol of strength and endurance for ancient Druids, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Slavs, and Vikings, it was the mystical link between earth and the heavens and was venerated above all other trees. ![]() For thousands of years, peoples across North America, Asia, North Africa, and Europe relied on acorns as an important food source. From as early as the 4th century, ink in much of the world was made from oak galls, or “oak apples”, formed when a wasp’s eggs are laid in oak leaves. Oaks appear so often in the story of humanity that it could scarcely have been written without them - literally. It’s hard to talk about oak trees without slipping into tales of myth and legend.
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