A fingerprint found on the wrecked remains of an old Hojortspring boat in Denmark has helped solve a long-standing mystery behind the origins of Scandinavian plank canoes.
The wreck site of the boat carrying 80 passengers was first discovered on the island of Aals in Denmark and first excavated in the early 20th century.
Archaeologists believe that it probably belonged to warriors who invaded the island and were defeated, but where these people came from remains unknown.
So far, over the past 100 years, many theories have been proposed about the boat’s origins, with some suggesting its crew came from northern Germany or another part of modern Denmark.
The Hjortspring boat is currently displayed in the National Museum of Denmark (Boel Bengtsson).
In a new study, researchers analyzed previously unstudied caulking and cord material found with the boat, as well as a partial fingerprint, which points to a possible area of origin for the 2,400-year-old boat.
“Our scientific analysis of the boat’s caulking material gives us the first major new clues in a century,” the researchers wrote in a study published in the journal. PLoS One.
“Such fingerprints are extremely unusual for this time period. It is great to find a direct connection to one of the people who used this ancient boat,” they wrote.
Later analysis revealed that the caulk was composed primarily of animal fat and pine pitch.
Since there was no significant pine forest cover in Denmark at this time, scientists suspect that one of the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea to the east, where there were pine forests, may have been the boat’s place of origin.
But if this had happened, the boat would have traveled a long distance across the open sea to Als Island, suggesting that the attack was organized and premeditated.
“The boat was waterproofed with pine tree pitch, which was rare in both Denmark and northern Germany in the first millennium BC,” the scientists wrote.
“We argue that this means that the boat and its crew probably came from the east along the Baltic Sea where pine forests were more abundant,” they explained.
A caulking fragment showing the fingerprint on the left and a high-resolution X-ray tomography scan on the right (photography by Eric Johansson, 3D model by Sahel Ganji)
The new materials found in the boat date to the 4th or 3rd century BC, consistent with earlier datings of wood from the Jörtspring site.
Scientists also found a partial human fingerprint on a portion of the caulking material, which they suspect may have been left by one of the crew members.
This likely provides a “direct link to the ancient ship’s sailors,” the researchers say.
“New analysis of Scandinavia’s oldest plank boat brings us one step closer to solving the 100-year-old mystery of the ancient boat’s origins,” they wrote.
“Using state-of-the-art scientific methods, researchers have zeroed in on the Baltic Sea region as the most likely source for the nearly 2,400-year-old boat, as well as finding fingerprints left by an ancient sailor in the tar used to waterproof the ship,” the scientists added.
The latest findings strengthen the belief that the boat was used by a small army of raiders who invaded the island of Als in southern Denmark 2,000 years ago.
“The invaders were defeated and the local defenders sank the boat in the marsh as an offering to thank them for their victory,” the researchers wrote.
“Since the boat was excavated in the early 1920s, the question of where the raiders came from has been an open mystery,” they said.
