This ancient wood is between 4-6,000 years old! Starting life as an Oak tree, it lived for hundreds of years before climate change swamped its environment. These trees fell to the rising water table and became buried in the peat bogs of northern Great Britain. These peat bogs did something rather remarkable, however, by preserving the trees from decay, pickling them, and leaving them in a suspended state. To put it in perspective, these Oaks were grown while the Egyptians were building the pyramids! The bark's dark, rich, brown-to-black color is the effect of the tannins in acidic water, which stained and preserved the wood.