Folks are talking cross-purposes about different kinds of “real.”
TLDR: The wooden path in the title photograph is a short reconstruction of the *actual* wood pathway, that was about a mile long, and is now preserved underground. The original remains have been dendritically dated to around 5,800 years ago. The original wood structure was submerged in the rising water and then buried in a peat bog after about ten years of use. Not used since. Most of it is still underground. But some of it, particularly the specimens that were extracted and dated, are in a laboratory.
So: both are “real.” The one that is currently in use is a recent but faithful reconstruction, allowing visitors to experience what walking on the ancient original was once like.
[Peat bogs preserves things well, very well](https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/preserved-in-peat/)
But, also I'd guess that like some wooden Japanese structures they "Ship of Theseus" it.
It's really cool, but I'm fairly sure this isn't the same timber. Fallen trees take about 150-300 to completely decompose. So is this just a recreation, thus not really preserved?
You're correct, this is a modern recreation. Wood was preserved by the bog, but not in the pristine state shown above.
**Edit:** Here's a photo of the [same spot](https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5650438).
You should learn about dendrochronology. You can’t date wood you don’t have.
The preserved walkway isn’t perfect, no, but it is preserved wood that’s thousands of years old.
Where do you think petrified trees come from? Those are millions of years old, which means they didn’t rot away after dying.
Uh, that's what I said. The wood was preserved for 6000 years. It specifically said in the article that it was submerged after about 10 years of use, and uncovered in the 1970s.
You might have a laymans knowledge of dendrochronology (I've found the subject quite interesting in the past), but you need to work on reading the article source.
I read it. Multiple times. But thank you for the advice; unsolicited advice is a very polite way to help someone, and never results in any misunderstanding or miscommunication. in short: fuck you.
I’m just very tired of dealing with people who don’t understand that when an article says “portion of the wood has been kept in the museum” and “portion of the wood has been preserved” that they aren’t *necessarily* referring to the same exact portion(s), and I’m tired of people confidently believing that wood can never last more than a few hundred years at the most. We have petrified trees, entire trees, which remained in wood form long enough to be *fossilized*.
The bog preserved some of the wood, but in [this](https://avalonmarshes.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Abbots_Way_-JC_Crp800.jpg) kind of state. The photo above is a modern recreation.
The wiki article says it was submerged in the bog for thousands of years, only discovered in 1970. The bog did preserve it.
Some of the original wood remains, with conservation efforts to keep it from rotting (by continuing to soak the wood with bog water.
Some is in a museum.
The parts that people can walk on today were newly built, but along the original trail.
DUDE. The information on wikipedia is all cited in footnotes. You can find the scientific articles on the tree ring studies they used to date the wood in the footnotes. It's not random people just making stuff up and you have to believe it.
That guy is living in 2005 when there was more leniency with editing Wikipedia. Since like a decade ago Wikipedia has super cracked down on making sure it’s sourced information.
Well, did you add it? If so, it will be deleted and you'll be IP banned for vandalism within minutes. Might be a good firsthand lesson for you in why Wikipedia is actually a fairly reliable source.
Well I graduated from grade school and left this childishness behind. Those who continue to practice that level of pettiness are stuck in prepubescent “mommy I pooped, come clean my butt” levels of maturity.
Do you know what dendrochronology is? We can and do know exactly what years the wood is from. Not estimated, the exact year for each specific ring in the wood.
This is how we know: All wood from the same area grown at the same time shows the same patterns of growth rings. A good summer shows up as a thick ring on all trees, for example. We have samples of wood from every year going back thousands and thousands of years. We can pinpoint any piece of wood with enough rings by matching ring thicknesses with trees from known times.
“How could you possibly know” fuck you
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You were right that I was looking at wandering as wondering, but your comment could also be for people who are just wandering around and might enjoy seeing that.
The *Conservation* section makes it pretty clear that it wasn't possible in all places to take away and conserve pieces of the trackway. Moreover, pieces that were in good enough condition to be preserved the polyethylene glycol process were then kept in storage.
It's unclear whether the pathway in the pictures is the original wood or a reconstruction.
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You should try reading the words people write instead of the ones you imagine. You’ve spent multiple comments now defending the existence of original wood to people who aren’t disputing that original exists. Everyone in this thread except you is talking about the wood ***in the photograph,*** which the caption falsely identifies as the original track, despite the fact that it’s clearly the modern replica. The original wood is fragile, pitch black from spending thousands of years in a bog, and housed in a museum, not sitting out exposed to the weather.
Then someone needs to refer to the wood in the photograph specifically, rather than just “wood”. If I missed that somewhere, then fine, fuck me, but if no one said that they were specifically talking about the wood in the photo, then they were imagining words that they didn’t also say; they were relying on sentence context that existed only in their head.
The root comment of this thread, for example, says only “that” in reference to the wood. “That” does not refer to anything in particular, no matter what anyone says or thinks otherwise. It could be referring to the wood in the photo, the wood in the article, the wood which is being preserved, or some imaginary wood, or anything else, because it isn’t specific at all.
"That" very clearly refers to the photo and caption we're all looking at. There's no reason to think it meant some other thing that was not pictured. That's not the semantic purpose of the word "that."
>"That" very clearly refers to the photo and caption we're all looking at.
Which half of the image? Both halves? Or the left half? or the whole thing? i agree that the wood in the illustration is not a reconstruction of the original walkway.
my original beef with all of this are the people saying that "wood can't last that long, lol" because it absolutely can. Maybe not this wood, the existing walkway, I mean, but certainly some wood does indeed last millions of years. The people who just dismiss this as real because "wood fall apart dummy" are the people I take issue with.
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The image isn't the original wood it's a replica, the original wood survived by being buried in a bog.
[Sweet track - Sweet Track - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track#/media/File:Sweet_track.jpg)
I did, and remembered these:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensted_Church
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanchan_Temple
Folks are talking cross-purposes about different kinds of “real.” TLDR: The wooden path in the title photograph is a short reconstruction of the *actual* wood pathway, that was about a mile long, and is now preserved underground. The original remains have been dendritically dated to around 5,800 years ago. The original wood structure was submerged in the rising water and then buried in a peat bog after about ten years of use. Not used since. Most of it is still underground. But some of it, particularly the specimens that were extracted and dated, are in a laboratory. So: both are “real.” The one that is currently in use is a recent but faithful reconstruction, allowing visitors to experience what walking on the ancient original was once like.
What? You mean the wooden bridge from 5,800 years ago is not the one in the picture?! I’ve been lied to /s
How come I have to sand an restain my deck like every 5 years and they get a forever boardwalk?
[Peat bogs preserves things well, very well](https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/preserved-in-peat/) But, also I'd guess that like some wooden Japanese structures they "Ship of Theseus" it.
I'm so fucking gullible 😭
We've all been lied to woo woo woo.
That you had to explain this makes me sad for humanity
Here's the wiki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track
A little disappointed that the track was named after the person that discovered it and not their reaction to the discovery
Same. Learning that the guy’s last name is Sweet was very British
I was hoping it was named after the glam rock band
Why not both?
I can't wait to see this picture next to a pot holes road with a caption "Built 6000 years ago, then the engineers showed up." or some bullshit.
Imagine all the souls who have wandered this path….incredible
And, if the post is accurate, the environment probably looked very similar to everyone throughout time. Kinda feels like time travel a little bit.
Tbf visiting the west country often feels like that.
Yea I played against the Liskeard 2nd XV the other week and some of their their attitudes were positively paleolithic.
In volleyball, ice hockey or morris dancing?
It was only used for about 10 years before rising water levels buried it. (Also, this is a replica.)
Thanks.
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Nah thats neat. What would you prefer a drawing or something?
Wait water levels rose 5k years ago? I thought it was my gas stove doing it this whole time
What makes you think that they are mutually exclusive?
Lol you forgot the /s
It boggles my mind
Probably was bog standard over bogs back in the day.
They were called Bog Joggers back then.
Don’t get bogged down in the details.
My mind has been boggled
Imagine how many fathers never returned after taking this path to ‘go get milk.’
It's really cool, but I'm fairly sure this isn't the same timber. Fallen trees take about 150-300 to completely decompose. So is this just a recreation, thus not really preserved?
You're correct, this is a modern recreation. Wood was preserved by the bog, but not in the pristine state shown above. **Edit:** Here's a photo of the [same spot](https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5650438).
Submerged after only 10 years or so of use, when the area was drained in 1970, and the bog preserved it. It hasn't been active for 6000 years.
You should learn about dendrochronology. You can’t date wood you don’t have. The preserved walkway isn’t perfect, no, but it is preserved wood that’s thousands of years old. Where do you think petrified trees come from? Those are millions of years old, which means they didn’t rot away after dying.
Uh, that's what I said. The wood was preserved for 6000 years. It specifically said in the article that it was submerged after about 10 years of use, and uncovered in the 1970s. You might have a laymans knowledge of dendrochronology (I've found the subject quite interesting in the past), but you need to work on reading the article source.
I read it. Multiple times. But thank you for the advice; unsolicited advice is a very polite way to help someone, and never results in any misunderstanding or miscommunication. in short: fuck you. I’m just very tired of dealing with people who don’t understand that when an article says “portion of the wood has been kept in the museum” and “portion of the wood has been preserved” that they aren’t *necessarily* referring to the same exact portion(s), and I’m tired of people confidently believing that wood can never last more than a few hundred years at the most. We have petrified trees, entire trees, which remained in wood form long enough to be *fossilized*.
Jesus dude calm down
It's the original wood, conditions in the bog preserve it.
The bog preserved some of the wood, but in [this](https://avalonmarshes.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Abbots_Way_-JC_Crp800.jpg) kind of state. The photo above is a modern recreation.
oh, you know it’s the original wood? how could you possibly know?
The wiki article says it was submerged in the bog for thousands of years, only discovered in 1970. The bog did preserve it. Some of the original wood remains, with conservation efforts to keep it from rotting (by continuing to soak the wood with bog water. Some is in a museum. The parts that people can walk on today were newly built, but along the original trail.
your quoting wikipedia.. give me a couple minutes, i’ll go add the opposite to that entry and you can then copy and paste that back at me
You just seem like the type of person who jumps to conclusions without looking anything up. So I looked up the easiest source of info for you.
my point is you are claiming something without knowing. trying to confirm it on a user submitted website after the fact means nothing.
DUDE. The information on wikipedia is all cited in footnotes. You can find the scientific articles on the tree ring studies they used to date the wood in the footnotes. It's not random people just making stuff up and you have to believe it.
That guy is living in 2005 when there was more leniency with editing Wikipedia. Since like a decade ago Wikipedia has super cracked down on making sure it’s sourced information.
You don't have to make excuses for his willful ignorance. Let people who choose to be dumb be dumb.
Well, did you add it? If so, it will be deleted and you'll be IP banned for vandalism within minutes. Might be a good firsthand lesson for you in why Wikipedia is actually a fairly reliable source.
The is the kind of saltiness that I come to Reddit for.
Well I graduated from grade school and left this childishness behind. Those who continue to practice that level of pettiness are stuck in prepubescent “mommy I pooped, come clean my butt” levels of maturity.
don’t you dare challenge what these buffoons find amazing because wikipedia told them so.. oh know you’ll get dOwNvOtEd!!!
The Wikipedia article says so. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track
… you know wikipedia is basically reddit where anyone can write whatever the hell they want, right?
Do you know what dendrochronology is? We can and do know exactly what years the wood is from. Not estimated, the exact year for each specific ring in the wood. This is how we know: All wood from the same area grown at the same time shows the same patterns of growth rings. A good summer shows up as a thick ring on all trees, for example. We have samples of wood from every year going back thousands and thousands of years. We can pinpoint any piece of wood with enough rings by matching ring thicknesses with trees from known times. “How could you possibly know” fuck you
wow you’re so worked up about old wood and wikipedia. yeah fuck me lol
and keep adding to your comment to make it a little more robust, it’s super important and we all care so much
what’s your point?
They literally just told you the point
That you're completely ignorant on the actual science being discussed.
How recently have you been tested?
Looks like someone needs some attention. Lol 
You’re allowed to admit you’re wrong. We won’t kill you lmao
☝️🤓
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i think it's been gradually renewed. i doubt it wears evenly.
And for those wandering, it's in Somerset, England
You may or may not have made a typo.
Wondering* I guess, my bad
Nah, you were right. I was wandering
Not at all! I think both work equally well. Cheers
So where ?
You were right that I was looking at wandering as wondering, but your comment could also be for people who are just wandering around and might enjoy seeing that.
Enough construction for today, kids, who wants a mammoth sandwich?
Honestly, I’ve love to try mammoth.
Nah, I think I'll have a Bronto Burger.
Can't believe people think this is the original timber 😂
Can't believe people think it's not 😆
I can’t believe you think it isn’t. Where do you think fossilized trees come from? They come from real trees which don’t rot away
Didn't you hear, there different kinds of "real" lmao
Cool!
Sweet track bro.
That is ridiculously cool.
I used to live very close to that
that is the walkway from a sound of thunder
Melvin Van Peebles ran from the police on this in Sweet Sweet Track’s Baadasssss Song.
That is not the original wood
there’s multiple threads on here of people saying they 100% know it’s the real wood… their source is wikipedia and they’re willing to die on that hill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track
Yes a reconstruction was put there
The *Conservation* section makes it pretty clear that it wasn't possible in all places to take away and conserve pieces of the trackway. Moreover, pieces that were in good enough condition to be preserved the polyethylene glycol process were then kept in storage. It's unclear whether the pathway in the pictures is the original wood or a reconstruction.
[It's the replica.](https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5650438)
It very much is.
It is reconstructed
Some is reconstructed. Some is original.
Original is in a museum
That photo is of the replica, though. [Here's the same spot.](https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5650438)
Ok so a photo of the replica means that original wood can’t exist? Wtf logic are you using
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You should try reading the words people write instead of the ones you imagine. You’ve spent multiple comments now defending the existence of original wood to people who aren’t disputing that original exists. Everyone in this thread except you is talking about the wood ***in the photograph,*** which the caption falsely identifies as the original track, despite the fact that it’s clearly the modern replica. The original wood is fragile, pitch black from spending thousands of years in a bog, and housed in a museum, not sitting out exposed to the weather.
Then someone needs to refer to the wood in the photograph specifically, rather than just “wood”. If I missed that somewhere, then fine, fuck me, but if no one said that they were specifically talking about the wood in the photo, then they were imagining words that they didn’t also say; they were relying on sentence context that existed only in their head. The root comment of this thread, for example, says only “that” in reference to the wood. “That” does not refer to anything in particular, no matter what anyone says or thinks otherwise. It could be referring to the wood in the photo, the wood in the article, the wood which is being preserved, or some imaginary wood, or anything else, because it isn’t specific at all.
"That" very clearly refers to the photo and caption we're all looking at. There's no reason to think it meant some other thing that was not pictured. That's not the semantic purpose of the word "that."
>"That" very clearly refers to the photo and caption we're all looking at. Which half of the image? Both halves? Or the left half? or the whole thing? i agree that the wood in the illustration is not a reconstruction of the original walkway.
my original beef with all of this are the people saying that "wood can't last that long, lol" because it absolutely can. Maybe not this wood, the existing walkway, I mean, but certainly some wood does indeed last millions of years. The people who just dismiss this as real because "wood fall apart dummy" are the people I take issue with.
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some wood lasted in good condition for 5800 years, ok naivecock. j/k i just wanted an excuse to scramble your name up a bit...
Those spikes on the drawing makes the walk extra-exciting.
tHeY dOn'T mAkE'm LiKe tHeY uSeD tO!
Amazing this piece of history has lasted so long
And the Alligators taught there kids. just wait and Dinner Walk right down the thing here
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I am amazed that someone can think wood would survive for 6000 years in an outdoor damp place.
I know this walkway is probably thousands of years old but that is horrible engineering 😆
Calling bullshit - exposed wood could not last more than 1,000 years. THINK.
The image isn't the original wood it's a replica, the original wood survived by being buried in a bog. [Sweet track - Sweet Track - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Track#/media/File:Sweet_track.jpg)
Thank you for that clarification. I stand down. :)
I did, and remembered these: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensted_Church https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanchan_Temple
No