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Neolithic boats
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PeterH
PeterH
1180 posts

Re: Neolithic boats
Nov 19, 2005, 15:00
I cannot answer your specific question about Neolithic boat shaped cairns. As well as river craft and rafts (the Stonehenge bluestones), sea going boats must have existed in the Neolithic in order to bring domestic farm animals across from Europe (none but the pig are indigenous). Bronze Age boats seem to be the earliest we have excavated as far as I am aware.

Funny you should ask, Nigel, as I have just started some research into early boats( and overland trade routes also). There are 172 log-boats described in McGrail's "Logboats of England and Wales" published in 1978 and more have been found since then. Apparently the term "dug-out canoe" is no longer used. There are three large pieces of plank-built prehistoric boats from Britain – the amazing Dover boat ( EH's "Dover Bronze Age Boat") and two from the Humber (see E.V. Wright's "Ferriby Boats" Nat Maritime Museum 1972). The standard guide to plank-built boats seems to be McGrail & Kentley's "Sewn Plank Boats" Brit Arch No. 276, 1985). I do not know of any finds of early skin boats although we do have many fine rock engravings of these. Probably the best illustrations of prehistoric skin boats are those painted on rocks in Scandinavia (Greywether has put loads of excellent photos of these on the Portal). Denmark has recovered several early boats and they may be in the Roskilde Ship Museum.

There are a number of dug out boat or canoe shaped coffins from the Bronze Age, but it is not certain if they were intended to represent boats. Possibly, we just think they look like boats. Boat burials are mainly associated with the Saxons and Vikings of course. Sometimes these are actual buried boats (Sutton Hoo) but more often they are cairns of stones laid out in the shape of boats. There are numerous examples in Scandinavia, Isle of Man, Orkney and Shetland
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Neolithic boats (nigelswift)
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