The Carpow Log Boat
The importance of rivers and estuaries as arteries of travel, transport and trade throughout prehistory was highlighted in 2006 through the recovery of a large, around 10m-long Late Bronze Age logboat at Carpow (MPK12214), at the head of the Tay estuary near Abernethy. Multi-disciplinary research on this remarkable discovery has demonstrated the potential for collaborative interdisciplinary projects which focus on one iconic find to advance our understanding of the people who made and used that logboat. It has resulted in a comprehensive review of the Late Bronze Age around the Tay estuary (Strachan 2010a).
The logboat, of oak, was radiocarbon dated to 1260–910 cal BC (AA-45634). Detailed study of the vessel provided considerable insight into various aspects of Late Bronze Age life in the area. For example, the remarkably tall and straight nature of the parent log, the tree-trunk from which the boat was formed, with its first branch over 7m above ground (Strachan 2010a,110), sheds light upon the densely packed, oak-dominated woodland which survived around much of the estuary at that time (Strachan 2010a, 139). This fact reinforces the importance of water transport in prehistory. Analysis of the surviving tool marks revealed how tools such as socketed axeheads, gouges and chisels were actually used, and also showed the techniques used in creating, and repairing, the vessel (Strachan 2010a, 97–113). The rare survival of foot-rests suggests predominantly punting (rather than paddling) as a way of moving along the river and in the shallower littoral waters of the estuary (Strachan 2010a, 121–2). The use of the foot-rests in this fashion was subsequently tested through experiment on a logboat created with replica tools on Loch Tay in 2009 (Strachan 2010b). Finally, the study of the hydrological and geographical context of the find suggested how tides could be used to transport goods across back and forth between the food-rich estuary and riverine environments. It also highlighted the potential for medium-sized, estuarine boats such as Carpow to connect to wider Bronze Age trading networks over which larger, sewn-plank vessels may have plied. Developed in the Middle Bronze Age, sewn-plank boats are currently only known from the east coast of England, such as those from Ferriby on the Humber estuary (Wright 1991) and from Dover (Clark 2004), with the latter dating to around 1500 BC. They were suited to coastal travel, and arguably to channel crossings.
The Carpow logboat is by no means the only one to have been found in Perth and Kinross (Mowat 1996), although it is the only one reliably dated to the Late Bronze Age. An earlier, Middle Bronze Age example is known from Croft-na-Caber on Loch Tay (MPK7026), and radiocarbon dated to 1530–1430 cal BC. While the majority of logboats in Perth and Kinross are known from the Tay estuary, they are also known from the River Tay above Dunkeld, and from Loch Tay, a waterbody to which logboats are well-suited and which has a significant concentration of crannogs (Strachan 2010a, 129–30). The survival of robust oak logboats, such as at Carpow, are therefore informative windows into a wide spectrum of activities across much of prehistory until the early medieval period at least. They were probably not the only type of water craft in use during the Late Bronze Age: there may also have been skin-covered canoes and curraghs (Strachan 2010a, 170), and larger craft which were such a key feature of estuaries and rivers until modern times.
The Blairdrummond Disc Wheels
The discovery, during peat digging in Blairdrummond Moss around 1830, of three solid wooden disc-wheels, was to prove to be of national and international significance over 150 years later when the one surviving wheel, of ash, was dated for the NMS dating programme in 1991 to 1206–809 cal BC (OxA-3538: Sheridan and Saville 1993). It was thereby found to be the earliest direct evidence for wheeled transport in Britain and Ireland. The surviving wheel (NMS X.IP 1) is made from three pieces of ash bound together with cross-pieces. It is likely that it and its counterparts was from a heavy vehicle such as a cart. Piggott discussed it in his review of the early wheeled vehicles of Europe (1957; 1983) but had expressed frustration at the difficulty of knowing its age, commenting that it could be of any date from the 18th century BC to the 18th century AD. The question of its date has now been resolved.
What remains to be determined now is whether any of the wooden track- and roadways that have been found in the peatlands of the old county of Perthshire (and listed in the Scottish Wetland Archaeology Database, SWAD) are also of Late Bronze Age date. Several are known, including in Blairdrummond Moss where a corduroy road some 12 feet (about 3.6m) wide was found. The others include another roadway of the same width found in 1903 in Flanders Moss, and a trackway running SW to NE near Pallabay Pow, again in Flanders Moss. Others had been found in the vicinity, along with a logboat, buried oak trees and artefacts, during 18th century AD drainage operations.
None of these track- and roadways has been dated, and so it is currently impossible to tell whether the Late Bronze Age Blairdrummond vehicle had been driven along the Blairdrummond Moss corduroy road. Obtaining dates from surviving stretches of trackway, and checking for and inspecting modern exposures in peat, should be a research objective.