What is the oldest record of a man-made boat?

[Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker]

I say man-made, because I’ve seen pictures of walruses basking on balmy ice floes, which you could technically consider “boats,” although they don’t seem to know how to steer them particularly well.

But seriously, how old is the “fossil record” on boats?

[Phlosphr]

Well I seem to remeber reading ancient Kushians on the Tigres and Euphredes (sp?) rivers using crude boats to float spices and such around the rivers. They were what, 5k years ago? 6.5k?

[chukhung]

Google came up with the following page: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020617/boat.html

The world’s oldest known boat, built 7,000 years ago out of tarry, bitumen-covered slabs, has been found in an unlikely place: the Kuwaiti desert.

Note, however, that your definition of a boat may be different from the archaeologists’ definition:

Evidence for log canoes, thought to be more like rafts than boats, goes back much further, to 8,000 B.C.

[Squink]

Italian neolithic pirogues (dugouts) are said to date to ~7,500 years ago:

Anguillara Sabazia wants to house the two pirogues of the Neolithic period found at the bottom of Lake Bracciano in 1994 and currently exhibited at the Pigorini Museum in Rome.
…
Twelve and six meters long respectively, the Neolithic pirogues were found in the locality of La Marmotta. They date back to 5,500 BC.

http://www.adnkronos.com/news/prod/bolletti/history/2001/marzo/cuimar5.htm

[astro]

Whatever “boat” the aborigines used to get to Australia probably qualifies and I think that’s probably more than 10,000 years ago.

[Hari_Seldon]

The native Australians arrived there at least 40,000 years and presumably didn’t swim. Presumably had some sort of dugout canoes.

[zev_steinhardt]

Noah’s Ark.

(Sorry. Somebody had to say it… )

Zev Steinhardt

[Motog]

Astro and Hari Seldon

The Australian Aborigines didn’t swim here and they probably didn’t come by boat - they walked here.

They various aboriginal people are believed to have migrated to Australia during ice ages when Australia was connected to other parts of Oceania by landbridges

[TelcontarStorm]

Zev, you kill me Brother.

I think the oldest boat in exsistance today would have to be the one dug up near the Pyramids in Egypt. Apparently placed there for the otherworldly use of the Pharohs.

[chukhung]

*Originally posted by TelcontarStorm *
**Apparently placed there for the otherworldly use of the Pharohs. **

Please read the article in the link I provided previously in this thread.

The remains of what appear to be a boat found at As-Sabiyah in Kuwait are thought to be 2000 years older than the boat found in the Egyptian tomb (which dates back to about 3000 BCE).

[dylan_73]

Well, if you accept this then the Solutreans crossing the Atlantic to America where “The first migration was 20,000 to 30,000 years ago” must have used boats. And they wouldn’t have been hollowed logs but wood, sealskin and whale oil.

Dunno if DNA and flint evidence counts as a “record” for your purposes though.

[djbdjb]

*Originally posted by Motog *
**Astro and Hari Seldon

The Australian Aborigines didn’t swim here and they probably didn’t come by boat - they walked here.

They various aboriginal people are believed to have migrated to Australia during ice ages when Australia was connected to other parts of Oceania by landbridges **

Even though sea level was lower, it was never so low as to not leave some water between Australia and Asia:

There’s one accomplishment that everyone agrees would qualify humans as fully modern, language-using people: getting to Australia. Even in the recent ice age, when sea level was lower, at least 100 kilometers of open water separated Australia from the nearest part of Asia. To reach Australia, humans had to build and provision sturdy boats–a sign not only of technological advancement and navigational skill but also of high levels of planning and cooperation, says Gamble.

[source](http://cas.bellarmine.edu/tietjen/images/anthropology(NoLastWordOnLanguageOrigins.htm)

[Motog]

*Originally posted by djbdjb *
**Even though sea level was lower, it was never so low as to not leave some water between Australia and Asia:

**

While not wishing to sound petulant, my original comment specifically referred to Oceania rather than Asia. Australia certainly was connected to other parts of Oceania for long periods during the Pliestocene period, particularly to mainland Papua New Guinea. Please see the following maps of the Pleistocene geography from Encarta (as reproduced on this site.

and Christopher Scotese’s Paleomap Project

[Weeks]

Working on it…there was a canoe found in a spring in Florida that was dated at 12,000 years old. I’ll see if I can find more.

[Weeks]

Well I’ve got5000 years old so far, could’ve sworn I read about 12,000…still looking.

[Weeks]

6000 was as good as I could do. Don’t know where I got 12,000.:rolleyes:

[Motog]

If we want to go into really ancient stuff, this article in Archeology Magazine suggests that the earliest Mariners were Homo Erectus on the island of Flores (Indonesia) around 900,000 years ago. They base their argument on the existence of Homo Erectus stone tools on the island that has never been connected to the mainland.

[Motog]

*Originally posted by Motog *
**this article in Archeology Magazine . **

That should, of course, be Archaeology Magazine