Talk:2847: Dendrochronology

Hello wonderful person. IYKYK

Is the set of bones supposed to signify something? Human perhaps? I see vertebrae. 172.70.46.30 13:27, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

The bones depicted appear to represent a subset of "generalized vertebrate animal", including arm, leg, and jaw bones in addition to the vertebrae. Humans are cited as prey species, but the bones in this specimen are far too small to be human. If a typical tree ring is 2 mm wide, the 1635 CE ring would have to be 40 mm wide to accommodate a 20 mm diameter human femur with free space, as shown. The ring is ca. 12 mm wide. This tree ate smaller vertebrates. Of course, different tree species likely had different prey ranges, as with carnivorous animals. 172.70.206.220 16:15, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's what he means by "carnivorous", he's claiming that one year this tree was eating humans, those bones are the remains of those humans. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:01, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

"Carnivorous" doesn't necessarily mean "man-eater". It's eating creatures (and generally you'd go for "insectivorous" for certain eater-of-invertibrate diets, but it'll probably cover consuming anything in the Animal Kingdom, fish, fowl, etc). He actually only claims one human was eaten (the eponymous researcher of the phenomenon), even if it was possible that others also got fatally surprised by it. But it could be any arboreal creature (and maybe some unwise unarboreal but tree-adjacent ones). 162.158.34.8 18:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

"Carnivore" can indeed apply to creatures that aren't herbivores (animal vs plant consumption), although a common connotation is "a consumer of vertebrate animals, especially mammals, captured live." Subsets exist, for instance piscivores (fish eaters) and insectivores. The caption's "horrible summer of 1635" implies widespread predation of trees on humans, even if only one such human is (facetiously) named, and the specimen shown is too small (or the wrong tree species) to attack H. sapiens. The proximity of the date of publication of this comic to 31 October is perhaps not to be neglected. 172.70.211.187 04:34, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

True, carnivorous doesn't MEAN humans, just means "meat-eater", but that seems to be the implication here. :) The fact that he calls it "horrible" means he was talking about humans (people wouldn't be THAT concerned over animals being eaten, animals eat each other all the time). Obviously if this were to happen, wildlife would certainly be included among the victims, they roam the woods more, LOL! But the tone of "There was that ONE horrible summer..." (just picturing a faraway haunted look in their eyes), yeah, he's referring to humans. :) NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:37, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the sample of bones there cannot be IDed as human. The skull (extrapolating from the jawbone) is not, and perhaps some positive scale inference can be made, but even that enlarged ring doesn't seem right for the long-bones (if that's what they are) or vertebrae being human. The question being if "seeing vertebrae" meant human, and the answer was implied by the use of that word is thus a non-sequitur and not related. Yes, there were man-eating-trees (or at least a tree eating one man/woman/child who was both insightful and yet blind to xanger), but probably not directly illustrated.

So this tree was cut down in late 1642? 172.70.42.182 13:37, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Its year of death was indeed 1642 CE per dendrochronology. As for being cut down ... given the dense layer of calcium phosphate in the sapwood, and the saws available in the mid-1600s, the question "how?" is nontrivial. 172.70.206.220 16:15, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Wouldn't the bark make it 1643? Isn't a ring a complete year, the bark is the current year's ring forming? NiceGuy1 (talk) 06:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

The bark is on the other side of the vascular cambium from the xylem tissue, so it isn't part of a tree ring and doesn't count as a year, as I understand the matter. However, the drawing does permit the interpretation that a ring is forming under the bark. Since the bulk of a tree ring normally forms at the beginning of a growing season, this would indicate that the tree died in the first couple of months of the local growing season in 1643 CE. 172.70.210.112 08:09, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

So is the year 1635 a reference to some real event, or just totally random? 162.158.230.26 17:57, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

If it was totally random it would have been 4AD! 141.101.99.5 18:23, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

at first I thought maybe the Carrington Event (similar but smaller EM storm as Miyake events), but that was 1859. The only vaguely related thing I saw for 1635 was the first recorded US hurricane... you might say I'm Stumped (and if that's the meta joke here, insert Capt Kirk "Khan!" clip here, with the subtitle "Monroe!") - 172.68.34.39 19:41, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Actually, the carnivorous trees aren't true trees. They are part of the same species as broccoli and kale. 172.69.247.48 22:37, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

Sorry, that hypothesis has been falsified. Despite Randall's best efforts. (Sly of you.) 172.70.206.214 04:45, 30 October 2023 (UTC)