Bronze Age boats come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Most of the examples we know about resemble the dug-out canoes featured in The Flintstones. They are described by archaeologists as log-boats. In essence, these are hollowed-out tree trunks. I always feel that the name lets them down: log-boats somehow sound rather crude and unexciting, but when you actually get to see one you will be amazed by the craftsmanship. They are astonishingly thin-walled and carefully made.
Other boats would have resembled coracles – hides fixed to a stout wooden frame, which are mostly known from rock carvings in Scandinavia. Log-boats were quite rigid vessels and were best suited to the calmer freshwaters of rivers and lakes, than out at sea. Some hide-covered boats could have been used at sea, but robust and more flexible seagoing vessels were often made from carefully split planks, usually sewn together.9 The Dover Boat was plank-built.
We don’t know the actual length of the Dover Boat, because her stern still lies underground, deep beneath the A20, but we do know her width (her beam), which was about 2.25 metres (7 ft 6 in); she had a minimum length of 14 metres (46 ft). She was constructed around two large planks that formed the floor of the vessel; these were joined together by a series of wedges, which passed through ridges in the planks at the centre of the boat. In addition, there were four substantial transverse timbers, which passed through matching upright cleats in each plank. The two side planks, or iles, were fixed to the base planks using rope-like fastenings of twisted yew. All the planks of the boat had edges that fitted into each other; these were made more waterproof using pads of moss. Stitch holes were made watertight with a mix of wax, fats and resin. We know for a fact that the boat had at least one more pair of side planks that fitted onto the shaped upper edge of the side iles. They had been removed shortly before the boat’s abandonment because the freshly cut yew ropes that once sewed them together were found still dangling in situ when the boat was excavated. With just two side planks, the Dover Boat could have weathered fairly rough seas, but with three (i.e. with two planks above the side iles) she might even have coped with moderate gales (Force 8) for short periods.
There is no evidence for a mast, or for sails, so we must assume that the Dover Boat was propelled by paddling. Single-piece wooden paddles are by no means rare in prehistoric north-western Europe. The boat was wide enough to allow two people to paddle, canoe-fashion, next to each other, and long enough to accommodate about ten people along each side. With a crew of that size, quite reasonable speeds could have been maintained; although a smaller crew would have allowed more space for passengers, or cargo.
Sadly, museum displays rarely excite me. Even modern ones with all their subtle lighting, digital enhancements and clever technology are usually sterile reflections of the mud-soaked reality of an active excavation, but the display devoted to the Dover Boat in Dover Museum is a memorable exception: it focuses entirely on the vessel and the superb craftsmanship that created it. It also makes much use of experimental archaeology, which is why I have visited it several times. In February 2012, I received a phone call from one of the producers of Channel 4’s very popular archaeological series Time Team, of which I was then an active member.10 They were planning to make a documentary about the Dover Boat – and was I interested? For some reason, he sounded a little doubtful. Before I could reply, he asked if I suffered from seasickness, because apparently I’d have to sail in a replica. While he was talking I could feel the excitement rise, and when I did eventually reply, I almost bit his hand off. He was offering me a fee to do something I would have paid a small fortune for! During the next few weeks I could think of nothing else.
9.1 Half-scale replica of the Dover Boat during construction. Note the thick carpet of oak chips covering the floor of the workshop.
© Francis Pryor
9.2 The Dover Boat reconstruction: a worktop showing yew rope bindings in preparation and two hafts for Middle Bronze Age axes (right). The top of an axe blade would fit between the two ‘fingers’ of the haft and then be bound securely in place.
© Francis Pryor
A month later, in March, I found myself in a tent-like structure near the south coast. I was lined up to do various interviews, but first I was given a detailed tour of the workshop where the half-scale replica was being built, using casts of Bronze Age tools and authentic materials (such as moss and wax, rather than modern waterproof fillers). The skilled boatbuilders were all archaeologists and friends of mine from our years of research into ancient woodwork in the Fens. So the atmosphere was very genial and I was looking forward to a good session in the pub when we wrapped things up. Meanwhile, I could feel that slight prickle around the eyes that I’d experienced when we made the Seahenge reconstruction: there was a lot of tannin in the air.e Then I looked down at my feet, where the ground was covered by a thick carpet of oak woodchips. There must have been literally millions of them. If nothing else, that told me about the immense amount of work that was needed to make something like the Dover Boat. But the required levels of skill took my breath away: this wasn’t any old carpentry. I’m quite good at knocking up bookshelves and doing building work around the farm and I have worked with professional carpenters, but even they would have taken a long time to have acquired the additional skills of a Bronze Age shipwright. These men were not only highly skilled, but they plainly took enormous pride in their work: everything fitted together snugly; nothing was botched.
I think it was a year later, in 2013, that I got to sail in the replica boat and I have to admit it was something of an anticlimax. I was expecting something a bit scary: waves over the sides and unsteadiness in choppy waters, but it was nothing like that. In fact, it felt like we were sailing in a modern vessel. Sure, this was only a half-sized replica and I’d certainly have hesitated to cross the Channel in her; but I knew I wouldn’t have been even slightly doubtful about sailing to France in the full-sized Dover Boat. You can read about these things and make decisions on a sober assessment of the observed facts, but nothing beats sitting in a real boat with damp trousers and salt water in your socks. It’s only then that you know what a boat would actually be capable of achieving.
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The Dover Boat was beautifully constructed, but she certainly wasn’t a high status or special craft; no great care had been taken over her finish. Chisel cuts, axe and adze marks hadn’t been smoothed off. She was plainly a working vessel. So now I want to consider how she might have been used and what it would have been like to travel in her. But first I must break off to describe a remarkable revelation that was directly relevant to our story – although I didn’t realize it at the time.
During the mid-1990s, the team that had excavated Flag Fen since its discovery in 1982 were busy finishing the first campaign of fieldwork. While fieldwork was winding down, we were also starting to analyse artefacts and hundreds of samples for the production of the final report. I had read about the finding of the Dover Boat when it was announced, in 1992, and there was a good deal of television and press coverage as well. Meanwhile, Flag Fen was still regularly in the news as one of the best-preserved Bronze Age sites found to date in northern Europe. And yet I had no idea that there could well have been a direct link between the two. It was a link that would provide some fascinating insights into how the Dover Boat might have been used and the likely reaction of its passengers to their journey.
As most working archaeologists will tell you, the writing of excavation reports can at times be a rather tedious process. There can be exciting moments when things come together and new explanations emerge – often quite rapidly. But there is so much data to sift through and analyse. Specialists’ reports are constantly coming in and these must be carefully read and filed in the right place (i.e. where you can find them when needed – and not in a box at the back of the shed).
Flag Fen is best known for its tens of thousands of superbly preserved timbers, along with hundreds of Bronze Age weapons and tools that were placed in and around them in the ground, as offe
rings. But other items were also carefully placed in the waters near the wooden posts. These included pottery vessels, the bones of dogs, shale bracelets and other ornaments, plus four large querns or corn-grinding stones, which appeared to be unused or very slightly used.11 They were probably deposited at Flag Fen during ceremonies to do with establishing a new house in one of the many settlements nearby, sometime between about 1300 and 1100 BC.
Quernstones, which are quite frequently found in special ceremonial deposits, probably symbolized hearth and home. We know that querns were kept in the house and were used by the central hearth in the preparation of flour – to make dough for bread. So it does not take a huge leap of imagination to see how and why they could have come to symbolize home life and the family. The fact that we found four complete querns in our tiny excavated sample at Flag Fen suggests that rites involving the ceremonial deposition of querns probably took place regularly. There must be dozens more – maybe even hundreds – waiting to be discovered. When we excavated it, Stone 27 looked much like any of the others: it was certainly very heavy. One man could carry it, but not for any distance. Three of the querns were made of sandstone and one was of gabbro – an igneous (volcanic) rock, probably from Wales. The sources of all these rocks were far away from Flag Fen, where there are no rocky outcrops of any sort. On closer microscopic examination, however, Stone 27 (one of the sandstone querns) was very distinctive. It could only have been quarried from the Lower Cretaceous Folkestone Beds, on the coast of Kent, just a short distance west of Dover. And it’s certainly not coincidental that these quarries were an important source of quernstones in Roman times.
Folkestone is a seaside town and this coastal location surely helps explain why its querns were so widely traded in Roman times. But the Flag Fen quernstone is almost 1,500 years earlier. We can only speculate, but its journey from the south coast of Kent up to Flag Fen would probably have been made by boat, across the Thames estuary, around the coast of East Anglia, into the Wash and thence up one of the courses of the River Nene to Flag Fen. A seagoing vessel like the Dover Boat would have been perfectly capable of making such a voyage.
There is evidence that voyages in Bronze Age Atlantic Europe tended to be over relatively short distances. The heroic voyages of the post-Roman Vikings would not have been possible two thousand years previously. Even the largest Bronze Age vessels would not have been able to sail through a severe gale or storm, so mariners preferred to undertake shorter journeys, where land was in sight for most of the time. There is growing evidence that these coastal vessels made use of small, informal landing places, often in protected bays where they could take refuge from passing storms. When I think of such places, I always imagine the tiny sandy beach beneath the towering heights of Tintagel Castle in Cornwall.12
Every mariner would have had a detailed mental map that would have included all the small bays and inlets along the route of their voyage. The journey itself would have been carried out as a series of shorter loops from one stopover point to another. In fair weather the loops were larger than in wintertime. So far, none of the Bronze Age seagoing vessels found in Britain have deep keels or protruding rudders. This means they were probably run up onto beaches, so docks and landing stages would usually have been minimal. Some substantial pieces of rock were found near the hull of the Dover Boat and these may well have formed a drier walkway or step-path to the craft after her final journey.
So what can we deduce about the journey that carried the newly quarried quernstone from an inlet near Folkestone around the coast to the Wash? We can only guess about the stopping-off points en route, but there would have been no shortage of these: the long Essex coastline has numerous backwaters and marshy river outfalls and Kent, too, has many possible Bronze Age landing places.13 Sometimes, however, skippers could be too ambitious and get caught by nasty storms.
Bronze Age wreck sites – usually consisting of dumps or spreads of bronzes on the seabed – have been found all along the south coast. Some 400 bronzes have been found on the seabed near the Eastern Arm of Dover Harbour, by Dover Sub Aqua Club.14 This material dates to 1100–1000 BC; it was probably scrap that originated in France and was on its way to Britain, presumably to be melted down and recast. Another presumed wreck site, dating to about 1200–900 BC, was found just outside Salcombe Bay on the southern tip of Devon.15 Its position suggests the vessel was heading for the shelter of the bay, but sadly failed to make it. The cargo included 295 bronze objects, again mostly scrap but originating even further afield in Europe – as far away as Switzerland and the Alps. Taken together, the Salcombe bronzes weigh a hefty 84 kilos (185 lb).
Finds of scrap metal can be explained as business transactions – although in this era of prehistory there was almost certainly a degree of religion or ritual involved as well. But what about Stone 27 at Flag Fen: how does one explain that? Earlier, I stated that quernstones like Stone 27 were sometimes placed in the ground to represent domestic life – hearth and home – and there is good evidence that this practice goes back as far as 3700 BC, in the earlier Neolithic period. When we were excavating the Neolithic causewayed enclosure at Etton,f we found several places where offerings had been made that involved querns. In one instance, broken pieces of quern had been carefully incorporated into a series of deposits in a special segment of ditch. I now suspect that the quern had been broken on the death of an important person and that the position of the fragments in the ditch symbolized his (or more probably her) status within the family – although now as a revered ancestor, rather than a living person.
If broken querns were used to symbolize the demise of an individual and perhaps the abandonment or demolition of their family home, complete, even new querns might also have been important when a new home was being established, or when a new family was begun. Bronze Age houses could have been maintained in use for several generations, but signs of frequent post replacement and new porches or doorways are not very common, which might suggest that major repairs were not often needed, because individual homes were generally used to house just one nuclear family.g There is some evidence – for instance, on Bodmin Moor and Dartmoor – that houses abandoned in this way were ceremonially sealed off – ruled out of bounds – by placing a symbolic burial mound (without a body) within them.16
Viewed in this way, the complete quernstones found at Flag Fen take on a new significance. Had they been broken or well-worn I would suggest they might have symbolized the end of a life, but the fact that they were either new or very fresh suggests something less gloomy: maybe the start of a new relationship – engagement, marriage or the birth of children. But given the quern’s central role as an object within the home, I like to think that our stone, Stone 27, was taken to Flag Fen as an offering to thank the ancestors for the successful construction of a new home, for a young family.
There has been much stress in academic circles on the competitive nature of later prehistoric society in Britain. The rise of powerful leaders, the importance of impressive hillforts and the growing luxury of fine objects, including massive gold neck-rings (known as torcs) and even the importation of wine from the Mediterranean.h Powerful people usually meant powerful men, but women also played a very important role. I don’t say this just to be politically correct, but because there is a great deal of archaeological evidence for it – and not just in some rich burials, but in the very fabric of society.17 Bronze and Iron Age communities were organized around the clan and family, of which the principal building blocks were the individual nuclear families, where women played, then, as now, a central role.18
So if we assume (and this is quite a big assumption) that in the Bronze Age, as today, women went to live with their partners, rather than vice versa, then we can imagine that our quernstone, Stone 27, might have been a gift from a young wife’s family for her, in her new home. If that were the case, then it is quite likely that it was a member of her family that went to the quarries at Folkestone. Where this person and their family originated is
anyone’s guess, but I would be prepared to bet it was somewhere in the region we know today as Kent. Certainly, communications would have been good enough for families to have maintained long-established connections with communities some distance away. So let us suppose that the young wife’s brother accompanied Stone 27 on the loops of its long coastal voyage towards the Wash. He would have helped lift it out of the boat whenever they beached for an overnight stay. Maybe friends and relatives of the two families came down to the shore to see the stone and give it their blessing. These would have been the sort of short ceremonies that might have been accompanied by a few mugs of ale or mead.
Scenes from Prehistoric Life Page 19