In Dalarna, a province in central Sweden, Swedish researchers have come across a stand of spruce trees with an 8,000-year-old root system. This easily beats the 4,733-year-old bristlecone pine that currently holds the record for world's oldest tree.

According to Leif Kullman, a researcher at Umea University's Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, while any one tree growing in the area wouldn't be more than a few hundred years old, they will still come from the same genetic root system.

Three samples from the root system were sent to a lab in the U.S. for testing. Carbon-14 dating revealed them to be 5,000, 6,000, and 8,000 years old. Before the discovery, researchers believed that spruce trees had only been in Sweden for roughly 3,000 years.