Pesse canoe
The dugout of Pesse ( Dutch: Kano van Pesse also boat van Pesse ) is a mid- Stone Age dugout and is considered the world's oldest surviving boat. Using 14C - dating of the vehicle has been dated to the period 8200-7600 BC. It is exhibited in the permanent collection of the Drents Museum in Assen.
Discovery
The dugout canoe was found in August 1955, construction work on Highway 28 in the small Rijksweg Blikkenveen Moor on the southern boundary of the village Pesse. The site is located about 4 km north of Hoogeveen, in the Dutch province of Drenthe. When working a four-meter deep, stuffed with peat valley was cut, which should be filled with sand to stabilize the subsoil. At a depth of two to two and a half meters, a crane operator came across a tree trunk, which was manually loaded onto a cart and taken to the dump. A few days later the resident near Hendrik Wanders fell the strain on the heap, the case assumed a particular Fund. He invited the trunk on a wheelbarrow, took him into his garden, and notified the Drents Museum, which instructed him to cover the Fund and keep moist. Wanders left his find to the Archaeological Institute of the University of Groningen, where the dugout was scientifically studied. As a method of preservation, freeze-drying was chosen, however, since no plant stood in the required size is available, a system had to be specially built, in the meantime, the Fund was stored in a cold room of the municipal slaughterhouse of Groningen. The dugout for a few days in a freezer compartment of a Groninger fishmonger was stored at -20 ° C and then freeze- dried under vacuum immediately before the removal in the specially constructed facility.
Description
The length of the resulting Einbaumes is 298 cm, width 44 cm The hull has been worked out with tools made of flint or antlers from the trunk of a pine.
Criticism
Due to the small size of the Einbaumes various experts expressed their criticism of the interpretation as watercraft. Danish experts doubted its seaworthiness and an amateur archaeologist pointing the Fund in an article in the newspaper Dagblad van het Noorden even as a feed or even as a plant trough from the Bronze or Iron Age. In 2001, a replica was made in the original size and shape and five days extensively tested by a team led by Jaap Beuker on the Witteveen of the Fund with modern tools. It turned out that the dugout was outstanding as maneuverable boat and could even be sailed. Due to its relatively small dimensions of the dugout for a, in today's comparison, smaller people was designed. The replica of the dugout was baptized by two granddaughters of the page Wanders.