Dugout canoe

The dugout canoe is one of the four basic types of prehistoric watercrafts besides the float, the skin boat, and the bark boat. Many textbooks describe it as the ancestor of the first open sea sailing ship. It is a boat made out of a single tree which is caved with the help of stone tools. Sometimes even smoldering fire was applied to scoop out the log and sharp tools were used for the postprocessing. The oldest archaeological founds have been made in Europe and Africa and date back until the 6^th millennium BC. This boat type is still used in many regions of the world because it can be easily manufactured with simple devices. In North America, Indonesia and Madagascar the dugout canoe is still employed on the open sea.

By attaching lateral boards which were to avoid the intrusion of waves, the pirogue developed. There is evidence that it has already existed since the 4^th millennium BC. The oldest archaeological found dates back to the 5^th millennium and comes from Kamo, Japan: It is a dugout canoe with boards and six paddles. The pirogue measures 6 meters in length and 1 meter in width.

The project group “experimental archaeology” built two 6 meter long dugout canoes from 1995 till 1996. They were tested on their handling characteristics on inland waters on the Wangenheimer storage lake in Thuringia, Germany. These trials showed that this boat type is easily steerable and capable of sailing against the streaming. Further experiments on the open sea suitability were realized on the Baltic Sea. The result of these tests led to the conclusion that dugout canoes are not fully seaworthy and can become waterlogged and sink with wind forces of 5 and higher.