During excavations in the Duvensee Moor in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, researchers discovered a fragment of a paddle that is approximately 10,500 years old. For science, the find is evidence of early mobility on the water.
“After the famous discovery of the Duvensee paddle in 1925, this is the second find of this kind,” excavation director Harald Lübke told the German Press Agency (dpa). It is not as well preserved as the find from 99 years ago. “But it clearly shows the typical shape of that time, because you can actually place it one-on-one on the old paddle blade,” says Lübke.
Although the handle has broken off, the shoulder section is clearly preserved. “These paddles are important evidence of early mobility on the water. There are only comparable finds at the Star Carr site in the north of England, where the paddles are somewhat older,” says Lübke.
20 pitches in the Duvenseer Moor
The site has long been a hotspot for archaeologists. They have been digging there repeatedly for about 100 years. There are more than 20 sites, including Stone Age dwellings. When these were still inhabited, the last Ice Age was several thousand years ago. The Baltic Sea in its current form did not yet exist; instead, there were many lakes.
It probably got broken by accident at some point
Lübke does not assume that the hunters and gatherers lost the fragment while paddling on the lake, as was probably the case with the 1925 find. “It is much more normal for such pieces to be used until they break by accident. That is apparently what happened here and this fragment accidentally ended up in the shore zone.”
Hope to find a stone age boat
The researcher hopes to one day find the remains of a hunter-gatherer boat. “The question of whether people used simple dugout canoes or even boats with frames covered with birch bark or animal skins has long been an open question in archaeology. The Duvenseer Moor could give us important answers here.” Finding such a boat would be the real prize for him, says Lübke.
Source: Krone
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