It is impossible to know exactly when boats were first invented. But some form of watercraft must have existed when humans reached Australia around 50,000 years ago. No archaeological evidence has been found to confirm how people travelled from Asia to Australia, but bamboo rafts are a strong possibility.
The oldest known archaeological find of a boat was discovered in the Netherlands. In 1955, during motorway construction near Drenthe, a piece of wood was pulled from a peat bog. A passer-by noticed its unusual shape, leading to further examination. It turned out to be a 10,000-year-old logboat. In Sweden, evidence of human activity dating back 11,500 years has been found in areas that were islands at the time. However, no remains of the vessels used to reach these places have been discovered.
Logboats are a type of dugout canoe that have been used in different parts of the world throughout history. They have been discovered at submerged Danish Stone Age settlements, such as Tybrind Vig.
Danish logboats were primarily made from linden wood. Their sides were remarkably thin, measuring just 1 to 2 centimetres, while the bottom was slightly thicker at 3 to 5 centimetres. They were built in various sizes – some were 4-5 metres long, but the longest one found at Tybrind Vig measures an impressive 11 metres.
A newly built logboat made from aspen wood, called an “esping”. The man sitting inside has made it himself. Photographer: Nikkilä, Eino
The logboats from Tybrind Vig, for example, are hollowed-out logs, with their shape and width determined by the size of the original tree. But there are also stretched logboats, which are made by hollowing out the wood through a narrow opening and then bending the sides upward using heat (see the picture below). To hold their shape, these boats require internal frames or beams. This type of logboat is called an “esping”, a design that has been used in various parts of the world for centuries. Esping boats are lightweight compared to traditional logboats – a four-metre-long esping weighs around 50 kilograms, whereas a standard log boat can weigh over 250 kilograms. They are also better suited or navigating larger bodies of water than the Danish logboats.
The term “esping” also appears later, in the 17th century, and was used to describe the service boats of larger ships.
An esping boat that has been hollowed out so it can be bent upward using heat. The picture was taken in Finland in 1935. Photographer: Nikkilä, Eino
Several kilometres off the coast of Helsinki, one such esping has been discovered. Pollen analysis of the clay in which it was found suggests that it predates the spread of spruce in the area by approximately 4,500 years.
The remains of the boat are made of pine and measure about 4.5 metres in length. However, based on loose fragments found at the site, the original esping is estimated to have been around 7 metres long.
A Lithuanian find
Yet another type of logboat has been uncovered at an Early Neolithic settlement in Šventoji, Lithuania. Fragments of the boat suggest that it was designed with outriggers attached along the gunwale, providing additional stability at sea.
Given the extent of water travel during the Stone Age, surprisingly few boats have been discovered. Interestingly, there are more discoveries of paddles than actual canoes. This had led to the suggestion that many boats were made from materials less likely to be preserved than solid wood canoes. One possibility is that people used canoes made of animal hides and birch bark, materials known to have been used in boatbuilding in later periods. Some archaeological finds may represent remains of the wooden frames used in such constructions, for example a possible keel discovered in Ragunda, Ångermanland.