DOCU - The dugout canoe - Boats of the Neolithic Age - Finds and History - Archaeology Switzerland

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The history of the dugout goes back a long way. The oldest specimen found so far is dated to the 8th millennium BC.
Learn more in the short documentary - The dugout - finds and history.
Archaeologist Christian Harb and experimental archaeologist Markus Binggeli tell a lot of interesting facts about the history of the dugout.
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Thousands of years ago, people were already navigating rivers and lakes. Their preferred vehicle: the dugout canoe.
In the canton of Zurich we know several dugout canoes from the Robbenhauser Riet at the Lake Pfäffikon.
They were found in the course of peat cutting. These are therefore old finds. It is difficult to date them.
But we have more recent dugout canoes from Lake Zurich. For example from Männedorf. This dates from the 5th millennium BC.
Then we also know dugouts from Lake Pfäffikon, for example Pfäffikon Riet. This dates back a few centuries later.
Dugout canoes are a very primitive means of transportation. But it is interesting to note that they were produced and used in Switzerland until the 20th century. For example, in the canton of Zug on Lake Aegeri, fishermen were still using dugout canoes in the 1960s.
If we go back in time, we find dugout canoes in the Middle Ages, we find them in Roman times, the Iron Age, Bronze Age, Neolithic, and it goes back even further to the Mesolithic. That is, the time of hunter-gatherers.
And from this time dates the oldest find we know. The oldest find of a dugout dates back to the 8th millennium BC. It comes from the Netherlands, more precisely from Pesse.
It is a 3 meter long dugout made of pine. Many other woods were not actually available at that time.
This age does not have to be so surprising, because we also have indirect evidence of shipping from that time.
For example, we have obsidian finds on the mainland of Greece that date to the 9th millennium BC. This obisidian is a kind of volcanic glass. This comes from Mediterranean islands. So it had to be transported across the sea.
And there are also other indications. For example, the colonization of the Mediterranean islands, such as Cyprus. You can only get there if you travel 100 kilometers across the sea and this is already documented for the 9th millennium before Christ.
In experimental archaeology, modern methods are used today. But what did the production of a dugout look like thousands of years ago?
At that time, dugouts were of course made with other tools. For example, stone axes or bronze axes, depending on the era.
The environment was also different. You didn't have a paved floor, but worked on the soft forest floor.
It is difficult to say how long people worked on a dugout back then, because we have little experience with prehistoric tools. Today we need about 120 to 150 hours. If you do it with a bronze axe, without modern tools, you would have to at least double, I think even triple the time.
Dugout canoes were a very practical means of transportation at that time. You could get on the water, the open roads. Over land it was probably still very impassable.
You could carry loads, you could go fishing. Making it from a single tree, was probably what was most practical at the time. You didn't have to assemble anything and you got a quite usable watercraft.
There were different types of dugout canoes throughout the ages. One also had, you might say, a fashionable development.
Then there were dugouts made of different woods. That also varied a bit with the eras. Depending on the tree, you could build a bigger or smaller boat. What we are building here are actually rather small dugouts.
There were dugouts that were twice as long, 12 to 13 meters, and also quite a bit wider. You could put 10 to 15 people in them.
They used axes to make the dugout canoes. Not much else was used. Maybe fire was used to burn out the wood a little bit. There were axes that were shafted in parallel and those that were shafted crosswise, so it was possible to do all the work that needed to be done.
Depending on the era, of course, the tools have changed. In the Stone Age stone axes were used and later copper or bronze axes were used as soon as they were available.
You can see these dugouts live at our dugout canoe regatta on Lake Greifensee on September 11, 2021. You can also participate if you want.
You can find more information on: www.die-pfahlbauer-in.ch