is the world's oldest known dugout In ancient Europe many dugouts were made from
linden wood, for several reasons. First, linden trees were abundant in the Paleolithic after the melting of the
Weichselian glaciation and readily available. Secondly, linden grew to be one of the tallest trees in the forests of the time, making it easier to build longer boats. Linden wood also lends itself well to carving and doesn't split or crack easily. It is also lighter than most other tree types in European
old-growth forests, and for this reason, boats made from linden wood have a better cargo capacity and are easier to carry. The
Pesse canoe, found in the
Netherlands, is a dugout which is believed to be the world's oldest boat, carbon dated to between 8040 BCE and 7510 BCE. Other dugouts discovered in the Netherlands include two in the province of
North Holland: in 2003, near
Uitgeest, dated at 617-600 BC; and in 2007, near
Den Oever, dated at 3300-3000 BC. Dugouts have also been found in
Germany. In
German, the craft is known as
Einbaum (one-tree). In the old Hanseatic town of
Stralsund, three log-boats were excavated in 2002. Two of the boats were around 7,000 years old and are the oldest boats found in the Baltic area. The third boat (6,000 years old) was long and holds the record as the longest dugout in the region. The finds have partly deteriorated due to poor storage conditions. In 1991, remains of a linden wood log-boat of nearly were found at
Männedorf-Strandbad in
Switzerland at
Lake Zürich. The boat has since been dated to be 6,500 years old. In 1902 an oak logboat over long and wide, was found at
Addergoole Bog,
Lurgan,
County Galway, Ireland, and delivered to the
National Museum of Ireland. The Lurgan boat radiocarbon date was 3940 ± 25 BP. The boat has holes suggesting that it had an outrigger or was joined to another boat. In 2012, at
Parc Glyndwr,
Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, an excavation by the
Monmouth Archaeological Society, revealed three ditches suggesting a Neolithic dugout trimaran of similar length to the Lurgan log boat, carbon dated to 3700±35 BP.
De Administrando Imperio details how the
Slavs built monoxyla that they sold to
Rus' in
Kiev. These boats were then used against the
Byzantine Empire during the
Rus'–Byzantine Wars of the 9th and 10th centuries. They used dugouts to attack
Constantinople and to withdraw into their lands with bewildering speed and mobility. Hence, the name of Δρομίται ("people on the run") applied to the
Rus in some Byzantine sources. The monoxyla were often accompanied by larger galleys, that served as command and control centres. Each Slavic dugout could hold from 40 to 70 warriors. The
Cossacks of the
Zaporozhian Host were also renowned for their artful use of dugouts, which issued from the
Dnieper to raid the shores of the
Black Sea in the 16th and 17th centuries. Using small, shallow-draft, and highly maneuverable galleys known as
chaiky, they moved swiftly across the Black Sea. According to the Cossacks' own records, these vessels, carrying a 50 to 70 man crew, could reach the coast of
Anatolia from the
mouth of the Dnieper River in forty hours. More than 40 pre-historic log-boats have been found in the
Czech Republic. The latest discovery was in 1999 of a long log-boat in
Mohelnice. It was cut out of a single oak log and has a width of . The log-boat has been dated to around 1000 BC and is kept at the Mohelnice Museum (Museum of National History). Geographically, Czech log-boat sites and remains are clustered along the
Elbe and
Morava rivers. Poland is known for so-called
Lewin-type log-boats, found at
Lewin Brzeski,
Koźle and
Roszowicki Las accordingly, and associated with the
Przeworsk culture in the early centuries CE. Lewin logboats are characterized by a square or trapezoidal cross-section, rectangular hull-ends and low height of the sides in relation to vessel length. In addition, nearly all the Lewin-type boats have a single hole in the bow and two at the stern. The low height is a result of the parent log being split lengthwise in half, in order to obtain two identical timbers from a single trunk. The advantage lies in the resulting identical twin hulls, which are then joined to form a double-hulled raft. The paired hulls were joined by transverse poles, which did not go through the holes in the platform ends but were fastened to the top walls or in special grooves at the hull ends. These vessels were typically – in length, and the largest of them could carry up to 1.5 tons of cargo because of the special design. Many pre-historic dugout boats have been found in
Scandinavia. These boats were used for transport on calmer bodies of water, fishing and maybe occasionally for whaling and sealing. Dugouts require no metal parts, and were common amongst the
Stone Age people in Northern Europe until large trees suitable for making this type of watercraft became scarce. Length was limited to the size of trees in the old-growth forests—up to in length. In
Denmark in 2001, and some years prior to that, a few dugout canoes of
linden wood, were unearthed in a large-scale archaeological excavation project in Egådalen, north of
Aarhus. They have been carbon dated to the years 5210-4910 BCE and they are the oldest known boats in
Northern Europe. In Scandinavia, later models increased freeboard (and seaworthiness) by lashing additional boards to the side of the dugout. Eventually, the dugout portion was reduced to a solid
keel, and the lashed boards on the sides became a
lapstrake hull. In the
United Kingdom, two log boats were discovered in
Newport, Shropshire, and are now on display at
Harper Adams University Newport. The
Iron Age residents of
Great Britain, were known to have used longboats for fishing and basic trade. In 1964, a logboat was uncovered in
Poole Harbour,
Dorset. The
Poole Logboat dated to 300 BC, was large enough to accommodate 18 people and was constructed from a giant
oak tree. It is currently located in the
Poole Museum. An even older logboat (the
Hanson log boat) was unearthed in 1998 in Shardlow south of
Derby. It has been dated to the
Bronze Ages around 1500 BCE and is now exhibited at
Derby Museum and Art Gallery. There was another pre-historic boat at the same location, but it was buried
in situ. In
Northern Europe, the tradition of making dugout canoes survived into the 20th and 21st centuries in
Estonia, where seasonal floods in
Soomaa, a
wilderness area, make conventional means of transportation impossible. In recent decades, a new surge of interest in crafting dugouts (
Estonian haabjas) has revitalized the ancient tradition. In December 2021 dugout boat culture of Estonia's Soomaa region was added to UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list. ==The Americas==