Know your Nautical Terminology
Happy Canoe Year everyone.
This new year begins a new series of items highlighting with humanity's early exploration of Earth's oceans, lakes, and rivers and leading to the use of watercraft for transportation and commerce. Every advance in knowledge which has improved the human condition has been built on FAILURE. Nowhere is that proven more starkly than in humanity's quest to sail upon the vasty deep and seek out its the treasures. An untold number vessels have wrecked upon rocks and pinnacles leading to the deaths of countless sailors and passengers. Ships have disappeared without a trace in fair weather and foul. Whether caused by ignorance, inattention, or hubris, every one of these losses can be traced to one failure or another.
The greatest failure of humanity, as regards the sea, is the failure to give up. We simply never quit. We have, mostly, learned from our failures. This painful learning process has taken us from hanging on to a log or branch and kicking our way across a river to the Ford-class supercarrier. Eventually it will take us to the stars. I'm happy that I have been allowed to contribute to that advance in my own small, very small, way. Thank you for listening to my ramblings. And now, on with the show.
The oldest recorded (i.e., directly preserved and archaeologically confirmed) use of a watercraft is the Pesse canoe, a dugout canoe discovered in 1955 near the village of Pesse in the Netherlands during motorway construction.
This remarkable artifact, carved from a single Scots pine log, measures about 3 meters (9.8 feet) long and 44 cm (17 inches) wide. Carbon dating places its construction in the early Mesolithic period, between 8040 BCE and 7510 BCE — making it over 10,000 years old and the world's oldest known surviving boat. It's not much to look at but you have to start somewhere.
There is indirect evidence of even earlier water travel.
The settlement of Australia (~50,000–65,000 years ago) required crossing open sea gaps of at least 70–100 km, implying some form of rafts or boats.
The occupation of certain islands in Southeast Asia (e.g., Flores by Homo Erectus ~800,000–900,000 years ago) involved sea crossings of at least 19 km.
Tools (possibly Neanderthal) found on Crete (~130,000 years ago) suggest deliberate seafaring in the Mediterranean.
These examples show intentional water travel long predates preserved boats, but they rely on inference rather than surviving vessels. The Pesse canoe remains the earliest tangible, dated evidence of actual watercraft construction and use. The next-oldest confirmed example is the Dufuna canoe from Nigeria (~6500–6000 BCE), also a dugout. As of late 2025, no older preserved boat has superseded the Pesse find.
SpyNavy
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)