Pesse canoe facts for kids
The Pesse Canoe is likely the oldest boat ever found. Scientists used carbon dating to find its age. They learned it was made between 8040 BCE and 7510 BCE. This was during the early Mesolithic period. Today, you can see this ancient canoe. It is kept at the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands.
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What is the Pesse Canoe?
This ancient boat is a type of dugout canoe. This means it was made from a single log of wood. The Pesse Canoe is about 298 centimetres (117 in) long. It is also about 44 centimetres (17 in) wide. It was carved from a Scots pine tree. You can see scratches on its inside walls. These marks were likely made by tools. People probably used flint or antler tools to carve it.
How the Pesse Canoe Was Found
The Pesse Canoe was discovered in 1955. Workers were building the Dutch A28 motorway. This road is south of the village of Pesse. The area is in Hoogeveen. To build the road, workers had to remove a lot of peat. A crane operator found something unusual. He thought it was just a tree trunk. It was buried about 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) underground.
What Happened After the Discovery?
A local farmer named Hendrik Wanders saw the log. He realized it was something special. He took the canoe to the University of Groningen. There, experts studied it carefully. They used a special process called freeze-drying. This stopped the wood from rotting. After being preserved, the canoe moved. It was taken to the Drents Museum. This museum is very close to where the canoe was found.
Images for kids
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The Pesse canoe at the Drents Museum, 2019
See also
In Spanish: Canoa de Pesse para niños
