Project overview

                                                      PROJECT AIMS

This project aims to

* situate the results within the wider corpus of existing Mesolithic archaeological wood artefacts;

* help determine conversion processes and production techniques, especially in relation to the worked timbers and xylic debitage found at Bouldnor Cliff;

* develop knowledge of the effects of woodworking on the tools themselves: tensile breaks vs. and butcher’s marks that would alter the interpretation of a bone’s original function;

* analyse processes used in woodworking to help facilitate ‘reverse engineering’ of parent trees;

* raise public awareness of past phases of global warming, and of Britain’s prehistoric heritage found underwater and the risks to its integrity.

To address this last project goal, expositions will be held at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire and at Fort Victoria’s Sunken Secrets Museum on the Isle of Wight.

     

This project is a collaboration between Butser Ancient Farm and Maritime Archaeology Trust, both of whom are charitable foundations with a history of volunteer support and community involvement. It is supported by the Mick Aston Archaeology Fund of the Council for British Archaeology.

CONTEXT

In the Mesolithic, ca. 8000 yBP, Britain was in the process of becoming an island as melting polar icecaps raised sea levels worldwide. In the areas of Hampshire and Wight in southern Britain, pine-dominated boreal forests were replaced with deciduous oak-dominated marshlands better suited to the warming trend and inundation of low-lying areas. Eventually, this region would become fully coastal. During this period of climatic and geological transition, the wetter environment would have made waterborne transit an essential part of human existence. Logboats would not only have been widely constructed, but given the amount of work required for their construction, they would have been continually adapted to suit the needs of navigating the rapidly changing environment.

EARILIER WORK

In 2013 and 2014, Butser Ancient Farm hosted experimental logboat construction projects, the Prometheus and the Eurybia, the former of which was also generously supported by the Mick Aston Fund. The Prometheus determined that fire could be used to hollow a seasoned oak log without leaving archaeological evidence. The Eurybia found that fire was ineffective in hollowing a green pine log, but that wooden wedges were effective in removing large amounts of wood with minimal effort. This finding demonstrates the need for further investigation into the use of wooden tools in woodworking, an area of hominin industry that has received little attention due to the common deficit of wood in the archaeological record.

Volunteer at Butser Ancient Farm hollowing a pine log with an adze to recreate the process of building a logboat.

    

Additionally, after a close examination of tool marks found on the timbers from the submerged Mesolithic site of Bouldnor Cliff, which is under ongoing excavation and monitoring by Maritime Archaeology Trust, many do not correspond with known contemporaneous tools, such as tranchet axes or adzes. However several marks are suggestive of either curved- or straight-edged wood or bone tools. As in modern carpentry, each type of tool would have been advantageous for making specific kinds of cuts on certain kinds of wood, depending on physiology and condition (both of the wood being worked and of the worker him- or herself). A determination of the species- and condition-specific methods for wood conversion and the waste materials produced could modify the existing hypothesis that Bouldnor Cliff witnessed the construction of an oak logboat 8000 yBP; if this hypothesis could be given further credence, it would imply that the site has preserved the remains of Britain’s oldest logboat yet, and the oldest oak logboat yet known. Bouldnor Cliff has recently gained international attention through the evidence for einkorn wheat some 2000 years prior to the accepted date for the advent of agriculture in Britain. The einkorn also demonstrates trade links with southern Europe, either by land or sea. Thus a better contextualization of the worked timbers found on-site would continue to highlight the range of prehistoric technologies at our ancestors' disposal, in carpentry and possibly, in boatbuilding and seafaring.

Project co-director and MAT director Garry Momber shines a light on the eroding Mesolithic forest at Bouldnor Cliff in the West Solent off the Isle of Wight.

CURRENT & FUTURE WORK

This study is an essential stepping stone in the planning of a more comprehensive project using underwater and further experimental archaeological methods to enhance understanding of Mesolithic logboat construction techniques; their presence in the (submerged) archaeological record; relationships between logboat construction sites and the wider contemporaneous ecosphere; and the types of marine, lacustrine, estuarine, and riverine environments in which logboats would feasibly have been employed.