Evidence of Large Vessels and Sail in Bronze Age Scandinavia
“This study suggests that the Bronze Age boat imagery in southern Scandinavia depicts plank-built vessels of a type that belonged to the same boatbuilding tradition as the c. 350 BC Hjortspring boat. More importantly, aspects of this boat imagery can be directly related to the contemporary ship-settings, suggesting use of sail and the existence of boats that from stem to stem (excluding horn projections) might have been in the region of up 20–30 metres or perhaps even larger.”
Bengtsson, B., Artursson, M. and Wehlin, J. (2024) ‘Evidence of Large Vessels and Sail in Bronze Age Scandinavia’, Norwegian Archaeological Review, pp. 1–26. doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00293652.2024.2357135.
"In this way, La Marmotta is causing a literal sea change in our view of those first Neolithic farming groups. It was always difficult to understand how they could have travelled around all Mediterranean Europe. The Marmotta canoes are not only outstanding evidence of how they achieved that but also an example of the complexity of those societies from the viewpoint of their social and technical organisation."