Bronze Age boat at University of Aberdeen's Marischal Museum
A logboat held at the University of Aberdeen's Marishcal Museum and found near Turriff over 100 years ago has just been radiocarbon dated to the Bronze Age - shedding a new light on how people lived in Buchan nearly 4000 years ago. The boat is particularly significant as it is one of the few boats in Britain which can be dated to this period. A dating sample, sent to a specialist laboratory in America, yielded a calibrated date of between 1770 and 1670 BC.
New techniques in radiocarbon dating mean that very small samples can be used. As a result many museums such as the University's Marischal Museum have an ongoing programme of dating artefacts which have been in the collections for many years - often leading to a new understanding of them. The dating of this logboat was sponsored by a local experimental archaeology group, Celtic Knotworks, who have been working on a reconstruction of the boat.
Celtic Knotworks successfully launched a reconstruction of the prehistoric logboat, which the group built as a copy of a boat in Marischal Museum. Dr Hilary Murray, Curatorial Assistant Marischal Museum and member of experimental archaeology group Celtic Knotworks said: " We had a hunch that the boat was far earlier than had been suspected so we sponsored the C14 dating and are thrilled to find that it is one of the earliest boats yet found in Scotland. We felt that this particular logboat was used with a pole rather like a punt for wildfowling and it was just amazing when we had it on water- it felt wonderful as you could push it along really fast but quite silently. The launch was at dusk in a small lake with rushes and willows around it and it was very easy to imagine you were in the Aberdeenshire of 4000 years ago."
The Turriff logboat, cut out from the trunk of an oak tree, would have been a small punt- like craft and probably used for wildfowling or gathering rushes in the shallow pools and burns which would have been a part of the landscape of Aberdeenshire 4000 years ago. A very similar boat, also perhaps of Bronze Age date, was found near Knaven, by New Deer, in 1850, but was resubmerged at that time to preserve it and has been lost. The North East Scotland was an important area of settlement during the Bronze Age as can be seen from the many bronze objects, moulds, beakers and cremation urns found there- many of which are on display in Marischal Museum.
Dr Murray added: "We don't know if the Turriff boat sank - or was possibly deliberately sunk as a gift to the gods - but it lay hidden for thousands of years until in c 1893 it was discovered by labourers cutting a drain. They cut through the centre part of the boat but the two ends were preserved and kept in Craigston Castle until 1951 when it was presented to Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen, by Mr Bruce Urquhart of Craigston Castle".
The logboat can be seen at Marischal Museum in the museum's special exhibition of wooden objects, ' See the Tree for the Wood', which runs until July 31. The reconstruction will be displayed by Celtic Knotworks at Portsoy Boat Festival 29/30 June.