The ‘Kilnsea-boat’, and some implications from the discovery of England's oldest plank boat remains

Abstract

A single plank with integral cleats, recently discovered on the East Riding of Yorkshire coast at Kilnsea, has been identified as a fragment of a Bronze Age plank boat, and dated to 1870–1670 BC. This makes the ‘Kilnsea-boat’ England's oldest dated plank built boat.

Rolling Out Revolution: Using Radiocarbon Dating in Archaeology

“…Wiggle-matching of floating tree-ring series has allowed a number of sites to be precisely dated (Bayliss et al , 2003bBayliss and Pryor 2001;Masefield et al 2004), yet this really has led only to wider discussion of the impact of the introduction of sewnplank boat technology into northwestern Europe (van der Noort et al 1999;Wright et al 2001). …”

Argonauts of the North Sea - a Social Maritime Archaeology for the 2nd MillenniumBC

“…Certain aspects of this research, notably a consideration of the socio-political significance of the sewn-plank boats from the Humber estuary of Early Bronze Age date, have been published previously (Van de Noort et al 1999, Van de Noort 20032004b, forthcoming). This paper offers a broader scope in that it is concerned with all finds of sewnplank boats from Britain and in that it considers the whole of the second millennium BC.…”

“…), and awaits full publication. The most recent boat fragment concerns a single boatplank from Kilnsea, discovered on the East Yorkshire beach in 1996 ( Van de Noort et al 1999). A possible eleventh plank boat is represented by a 'wooden lid' found in 1969 in the submerged forest of Hartlepool Bay (Cleveland County SMR 1592).…”

“…The animal hides of such a hypothetical prehistoric boat could only survive in acidic soils, which are rare for estuarine and coastal environments and, furthermore, it is unlikely that the relative light internal frame of a hide-boat would survive intact without the shell. Whether or not the sewing of hides and the construction of internal frames may have inspired the first builders of the sewn-plank boat around 2000 cal BC (eg Van de Noort et al 1999;McGrail 2001;Marsden 2004), the simple fact that sewn-plank boats were built suggest that they offered certain advantages in terms of use or navigation over the hide-boats. Recognising the effort involved in their construction, it would be unreasonable to suggest that the Bronze Age shipwrights would have developed a new type of craft and used this for over 1000 years, if it did not afford any advantages over its precursors or alternatives, such as logboats of hide-boats.…”

“…The sewn-plank boats of the Bronze Age remain unique to Britain, and much has been published about their construction and performance (eg McGrail 1988;Wright 1990;Gifford & Gifford 2004). Since the discovery of the Dover boat, it has also become widely accepted that this type of craft was probably used for seafaring (eg Van de Noort et al 1999;McGrail 2001; Clark 2004b). However, to date no genuine attempt has been made to explain why this important innovation in boat construction was made and why it appears to be limited to Britain, who the people were that used these boats, what tasks were served by seafaring and what the socio-political implications were of the construction and operation of the sewn-plank boats.…”