history of boats
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History of Ships
Prehistoric CraftJean Vaucher (April 2014)
Index
Big Bang to CivilizationPrehistoric Boats
RaftsReed Boats
Dugouts CanoesKayaks & CoraclesOcean Crossings in Primitive Boats
Boats of Antiquity (...to come)The Age of Discovery19th Century
This section covers watercraft used by Man before the Age of Metal , theinvention of writing and the rise of kingdoms; roughly before 3,000BCE.
When were the first "boats" built?
The oldest recovered boat in the world is the 3 meter long Pesse canoeconstructed around 8,000 BCE [ Wikipedia ]; but more elaborate craftexisted even earlier. A rock carving in Azerbaijan dating from ~10,000BCE shows a reed boat manned by about 20 paddlers. However, thevery first sea-worthy boats were most probably built long before that,about 800,000 years ago, not by Man but by his predecessor HomoErectus, a smart naked ape.
Erectus originated about 1.8 million years ago (Mya) in Africa and the species survived for over 1.5 million years before being supplanted by Neanderthals and our own Homo Sapiens. Erectus had learned how to put cutting edges on stones
and perhaps how to control fire; but he lacked the gene for speech and language. For more details on the evolution of Man - and the Universe, click HERE .
Erectus lived through the Ice Age(s), a period of repeated glaciations, each lasting about 200,000 years, separated bywarm spells. At the extreme, glaciers covered up to 30% of the world's land mass and tied up huge volumes of water resulting in the sea level dropping 100 m or more. This created temporary land passages between islands and continents.At some point, England was connected to Europe, Siberia to Alaska and parts of Indonesia linked to mainland Asia.
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The Island Corridor
In time, Erectus spread out of Africa into Asia, but as he did not wear clothes, he stayed close to the equator. Erectusreached the Indonesian archipelago as early as 800,000 years ago. We know this because stone tools dated to that periodand typical of Erectus have been found on the Island of Flores - between Bali and Timor. Although Erectus could havereached Bali by trekking over land bridges; migration beyond Bali to Flores required a minimum of 10 important seacrossings of up to 100 km and could not have occured by accident [Ref1]. The conclusion is that Homo Erectus builtseaworthy craft 600,000 years before the first Homo Sapiens appeared on earth.
Nothing remains of these early boats - which have long since rotted away; but, knowing what plants and tools wereavailable at the time, anthropologists can guess at the kinds of watercraft they used. The current theory is that bamboorafts like the one shown below were used. Recently, this hypothesis was tested by building rafts using stone agetechniques and replicating critical crossings [Ref2].
Torres Strait islanders on a bamboo raft, 1906 Encyclopedia of New Zeland
H. Erectus disappears from the fossil record around 200 Kya (thousand years ago) to be replaced by Neanderthals andthen Homo Sapiens. These new species have the capacity for language and abstract thought, which in turn allowscollaboration and accumulation of knowledge. Drawings, figurines and sophisticated tools that are found with their remains are proof of this evolution. The last migration out of Africa by Homo Sapiens is thought to have occurred around60 kya, reaching Europe and Australia around 40 kya and America around 20 Kya [ Ref. ].
Homo Sapiens undoubtedly improved upon the crude rafts of Homo Erectus. On this page, we consider boats whichexisted before metal tools were developped and cities arose. More specifically, before wood planks allowed theconstruction of large ships for war and commerce around 3,000BCE.
Evidence of the nature of these early boats comes from unearthed remains, petroglyphs and other drawings - startingaround 10,000 BCE (12 Kya). To this we can add boats that are in use today but could have been constructed with stone-age tools. Boats types fall into several categories depending on the materials and tools used in their construction:
Rafts using bamboo, logs or reeds
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Dug-out canoesLeather boats
Prehistoric Rafts
Anything that floats can be lashed together to make a raft and serve as a boat. Only primitive cutting tools are required.Bamboo, wood logs and reeds have all been used as raw materials, tied together with vines or palm fibers. Early raftsserved as fishing platforms, allowed transportation across bodies of water and even formed floating islands for villages.
Raft propulsion is achieved by pushing with poles, pulling with ropes or paddling. When floating down rivers, the currentdoes all the work. Later, sails will be added to reduce effort going downwind; but rafts have no keel or shape to keepthem moving in a straight line, so steering is always difficult.
Nothing remains of these early boats - which have long since rotted away - but watercraft still in use today in remoteareas provide examples of what early boats must have looked like.
Below, click on images to enlarge! Use the arrows to move to new images.
Primitive Log Raft
First Mariners ProjectFlores to Timor on Hominid Raft
In some areas, the primitive log raft evolved into more elaborate versions with a tapered shape and an oddnumber of curved logs often held together with sharpened hardwood pins. Examples below are from India(around Chennai) and medieval Japan.
Tamil Boat, Kattumaram (India)
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Kon-Tiki Raft
Thor Heyerdahl (1947)
In 1947, a Norwegian expedition sailed 4300 milesaccross the Pacific on a Balsa log raft built with
primitive materials and techniques, showing that ancientcraft were capable of long distance ocean crossings.
More information below...
Kon-Tiki, Balsa Logs and Sail
Bamboo Rafts
Bamboo rafts, little changed from the Homo Erectus model, are still in wide use in Asia. But now, synthetic ropes areused and the ends are often curled up by steam. The rafts are used for fishing, ferrying and, more recently, " Ecotourism".
Typical rafts with curved endsCormorant Fishing (China)
Ferry in Kerala Ecotourism in Jamaica
Image CreditsRestless Wanderlust
All Posters
Nomadic Imagery
Bird Ecology Study Group
Reed Boats
Reed boats are made by assembling bundles of reeds (or other thin branches), into pointy kayak-like shapes. They wereused in areas where wood was scarce, like Egypt and Iraq, before efficient wood-working tools were developped.Petroglyphs from the Mesolithic period (Azerbaijan, 12,000 - 7,000 BCE) show large reed boats and remains of a 7000year old reed boat were found in Kuwait.
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Nowadays, the most primitive examples are the one-man boats made from banana stalks used on Lake Baringo. The mostcomplex are found on Lake Titicaca on the border of Peru and Bolivia. Here large boats made up of millions of Totorareeds can support as many as 60 people. Reed boats are still used in Peru and Ethiopia.
Petroglyph near Caspian SeaAzerbaijan ( ~ 10,000 BCE)
Predynastic PretroglyphsEgypt (6000 - 3000 BCE)
Banana Stalk BoatLake Baringo (Kenya)
Ethiopian Papyrus Reed Boat (Ethiopia)
Single Person Boat (Lake Titicaca)
Caballito de TotoraHuanchaco Beach, Peru
Elaborate Reed BoatLake Titicaca
RA-II, Crossing the Atlantic on a Reed Boat
Sources Gobustan Petroglyphs (Azerbaijan)
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Boats of Egyptian PrehistoryMore Egyptian PetroglyphsKids in Idaho build a reed boat: VideoExperimental Archeology on Lake Titicaca
Dugout Canoes
Dugout canoes require more advanced tools, like axes, adzes and chisels, initially made from flint then metal. Often fireis used to help hollow out the core. Outriggers help with stability and later sails will be added.
Remember... Click on images to ZOOM! ; arrows to change; ESC to quit !
10 foot Pesse Canoe ( ~8,000 BCE )
The oldest boat found
Using Fire to make Canoe
Virginia (1585)
Admiralty Island Outrigger
Dugouts on Amazon
Fiji Outrigger with Sail (19th C.)
Haida Canoe (West Coast, Canada)
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Sources
A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1585)...makinge their boates Art and Ecology of Canoes
Coracles and Kayaks
The next innovation in watercraft was putting a waterproof skin over a rigid frame. This
made for a lighter boat, portable even!
Coracles use wicker baskets for the frame. European coracles have leather as a skin. In theMiddle East and Asia, the waterproofing is achieved with cloth and pitch; for example in theBible, Moses is sent off in a small basket of bulrushes coated in pitch.
Indian Coracle Irish Curragh
In North America, Indians developped the birchbark canoe: a frame of wooden ribs covered with sewn patches of bark.Birchbark was the perfect choice, not only was it lightweight and smooth, but it was also waterproof and resilient. The
joints of the canoes were bound together by the root of the white pine and then made waterproof by applying hot pine or spruce resin. [ Ref. ]
The Kayak is a traditional boat made by stretching seal skins over a framework of light driftwood or whalebone and thencoating it with whale fat. They were developped by the indigenous Aleut and Inuit in subarctic regions of the world.Typically, the kayak is covered and includes a spray skirt to insulate the the rider from the cold and prevent the boat from
being swamped by waves. The northern peoples also built Umiaks: larger open seal-skin boats used to move people and possessions to seasonal hunting grounds. [ Wikipedia ]
Algonquin Birchbark Canoe (R. Griffing) Seal Skin Kayak
SourcesCanada's First People
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Recreating Historic Sea Crossings
In 1947, the Norwegian ethnographer, Thor Heyerdahl, started a trend by sailing the Kon-Tiki, a balsa-log raft, fromSouth America to the Tuamotu Islands. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have madelong sea voyages, creating contacts between separate cultures. Since that time, many other expeditions have attemptedocean crossings using primitive techniques. [Wikipedia]
The Kon-Tiki Expedition (1947)
Established theory holds that Polynesia was colonised via Asia some 5,500 years ago. Based on similarities betweenstatues on Easter Island and others in Bolivia, Heyerdahl believed that there had been contact from South America. Tosupport that claim, he sailed from Peru with five other adventurers on a raft built in native style from balsa wood,
bamboo, and hemp. After 101 days and 4,300 nautical miles on the open sea they arrived in the Tuamota Islands.[Wikipedia]
Kon-Tiki Expedition (1947) Kon-Tiki, Balsa Logs and Sail
RA-II : Crossing the Atlantic on a Reed Boat (1970)
In 1970, Heyerdahl was at it again. Proving that a reed boat of Egyptian design could reach South America. Could Aztec pyramids have been influenced by Egyptians ?
RA-II (1970)
Ra II - Reed Boat
The Brendan Voyage (Severin, 1976)
This expedition sought to replicate a much later exploit: Saint Brendan's (c. 489-583) seven-year voyage across the
Atlantic in a leather boat to a new land and his return.
The Brendan, a 36-foot, two masted boat was built in traditional fashion of Irish ash and oak, hand-lashed together withnearly two miles (3 km) of leather thong, wrapped with 49 tanned ox hides, and sealed with wool grease. Between May1976 and June 1977, Tim Severin and his crew sailed the Brendan 4,500 miles (7,200 km) from Ireland to PeckfordIsland, Newfoundland, stopping at the Hebrides and Iceland en route. [Wikipedia]
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Route of the Brendan
The Brendan Leather Boat
The First Mariners Projects (1998-2008)
The First Mariners Projects showed how Homo Erectus could have reached Flores in the Indonesian Archipelago
800,000 years ago. They also demonstrated how the aborigenes could have sailed to Australia 50,000 years ago.
Human migation out of Africa
Flores to Timor on Hominid Raft
The Next Step: Planks
The next quantum leap in boat design would occur with the Metal Age around 3000 BCE. Metal tools allow thetransformation of trees into planks making possible the construction of larger ships for war and commerce by theEgyptians, Phoenicians and Greeks.
Note:
The content of this page is not original. It is an edited digest of the best that I could find on the Internetas I researched various topics over the years and looked at hundreds of sites. As a result, I have lost track of where I found what .
If I have used some images that you own without sufficient credit, contact me and I will either removethem or add a reference that you are happy with.