Ancient trees offer view into Missouri history.

Byline: Bill Graham

NEWTOWN, Mo. _ Forestry professor Richard Guyette reached into Medicine Creek's tepid waters and grasped a tree as ancient as mankind's civilized history.

The 5-inch-thick log looked like any other underwater snag. But the ease with which Guyette snapped it off from a mud-buried trunk revealed its aged fragility. Silt buried the wood shortly after the last ice age and preserved it, until the meandering stream's erosion made water flow over it once more.

Guyette lifted the log into the sunlight, perhaps its first direct light in nine millenniums.

"A lot of the stuff I've dated at this level is at least 9,000 years old," Guyette said, studying the three-foot log's texture. "It's probably an ash or an elm."

Interesting, but not as important to the University of Missouri at Columbia researcher as the oaks. Tougher and more common, their growth rings may allow environmental researchers to build climate records for the Midwest back through the centuries as a reference for issues like global warming.

Guyette tossed the first log onto a sandbar for the river to carry away or bury again.