New radiocarbon analysis of five dugout canoes found on the bed of Lake Bracciano 20 miles northwest of Rome have revealed the vessels are between 7,500 and 7,000 years old, the period when the first farmers migrated from the Near East throughout the Mediterranean, establishing communities in central Italy. The results, published in the journal PLOS ONE, identify the vessels as the oldest Neolithic canoes in Europe.

They were discovered at the submerged site of La Marmotta, a Neolithic lakeshore village rich in archaeological remains including 3,400 piles supporting the dwellings, walls, roofs, floors and hearths. Found at a depth of about 26 feet under 10 feet of sediment, the anaerobic conditions protected the copious organic remains from decay and boring critters. The remains of domestic livestock (mostly sheep and goats, a few cattle and pigs), two canine species and a large number of wild animals attest to the community’s herding, hunting and fishing practices. Botanical remains were plentiful too, a variety of cereals, legumes and fruits, both cultivated and foraged. A wide variety of wood, basketry and textile utensils were unearthed, including spindles, bows, sickles and adzes.

The five canoes were unearthed in a series of excavations between 1992 and 2006. Each canoe was associated with one of the dwellings. The boats are exceptional for their large size — the largest is 36 feet long — and for the advanced techniques used in their construction. Canoe 1, for example, has four transversal reinforcements carved in a trapezoidal shape that would have strengthened the hull and improved the handling of the boat. It also has three T-shaped mounts on its starboard side pierced with 2, 3 and 4 holes. They were placed at regular distances and were likely used to fasten ropes, perhaps to a sail or a stabilizer or maybe even a second boat to create a catamaran.

These canoes at La Marmotta, and the occupation of many islands in the eastern and central Mediterranean during the Mesolithic and particularly the early Neolithic periods, are irrefutable proof of the ability of those societies to travel across the water. This is enormously significant, because all the canoes found at European Mesolithic and Neolithic sites are associated with lakes and therefore with sailing in those waters.

In the case of La Marmotta, the size of the lake (it is now 9.3km across, but must have been smaller in the Neolithic as the shore was 300m from its current position) barely justifies the large size of a canoe nearly 11m long. It is therefore possible that they were used to cover the 38km from Lake Bracciano to the Mediterranean Sea along the River Arrone. In this way, the canoes were used both in the lake and on the sea.

The significant nautical skills needed to build and operate the boats sheds new light not just on Neolithic seafaring, but also on how these communities were structured.

There must have been people who knew how to choose the best trees, how to cut the trunk and hollow it by burning out its middle, and how to stabilise the dugout with transversal reinforcements on its base, or perhaps by the use of side poles or even parallel canoes in the form of a catamaran. To achieve this they made a series of amazingly modern artefacts, such as the T-shaped objects with two, three or four holes. These canoes and nautical technology are undoubtedly reminiscent of much more recent navigation systems. This shows that many of the major advances in sailing must have been made in the early Neolithic.

This technical complexity must be linked to social organisation in which some specialists were dedicated to particular tasks. The canoes can only be understood in a context of collective labour overseen by a craftsman who was in charge of the whole process: from cutting down the tree to launching the canoe in the lake or in the sea. These communities would therefore be well-structured in the organisation of labour, since collaboration would have been necessary to build the houses, make the canoes, procure raw materials from their sources several hundred kilometres away and put in practice certain agricultural tasks.

A copper axe dating to the 4th-3rd millennium B.C. is the oldest ever discovered in Poland. It may be the oldest copper artifact ever found in Poland.

It was found last August at a metal detectorist rally in the town of Matcze in southeastern Poland near the border with Ukraine. The rally was done with the permission of the Lublin Provincial Monument Protection Office, and the site was scanned in advance to salvage any archaeological materials while leaving behind more modern objects for the club members to find. The precaution proved ineffective when Krzysztof Gajos discovered a small copper axe. The find location was pinpointed with GPS and the artifact handed over to the Zamość delegation of the Monument Protection Office.

The axe has a fan-shaped blade 7.4 cm (3 inches) long, 4.1 cm (1.6 inches) wide and 1 cm (.4 inches) thick at the thickest point. Made with a simple casting method that predates the Bronze Age when copper axes became widespread, the axe has no comparable example on the archaeological record of Poland. An axe found in the Kiev region of Ukraine is virtually identical, however, and it was found with pottery fragments that identified it as the work of the Neolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia culture which occupied parts of modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and western Ukraine.

“It is true that we have recorded finds of Trypillian culture pottery from Gródek, Hrubieszów commune, and the presence of this ax in nearby Matcz can be considered as confirmation of the settlement of people of this culture also in eastern Poland, at least in the section of the upper Bug. This thesis may also be confirmed by a loose find a similar copper ax in Wożuczyn, Rachanie commune, Tomaszów poviat, about which Dr. Jan Gurba wrote , and which should now be at the Institute of Archeology of the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin,” commented [the Lublin Provincial Conservator of Monuments].

The axe will be transferred to the Stanisław Staszic Regional Museum in Hrubieszów where it will be studied and analyzed further.

A laureate head of Apollo from the 2nd or early 3rd century has been unearthed in the Greek city of Philippi. It was found in the 2023 excavation season at the intersection of the Decumanus (the main southern axis of the city) and the Egnatia (the northern axis) where the larger-than-life statue of the young Hercules was found in 2022. Archaeologists believe both statues were part of the same monumental, richly-decorated structure.

The 2022 excavation first revealed the presence of a large structure where the city’s two main thoroughfares met and widened into a square. Only fragments of the structure itself were found, so archaeologists could not conclusively determine what kind of structure it was, but the evidence suggests it was a fountain built in the Byzantine era, around the 8th or 9th century A.D. The Hercules statue and the head of Apollo (presumably still connected to a body at that time) date to the same period 500 or so years earlier. The pieces of ancient statuary were recycled into decorations for the Byzantine fountain.

We know from the sources as well as from the archaeological data that in Constantinople statues from the classical and Roman period adorned buildings and public spaces until the late Byzantine period.

This finding strengthens the hypothesis we formulated in 2022 about the way public spaces were decorated in the important cities of the Byzantine Empire, including Philippi.

The team of students and archaeologists from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will continue the excavation of the site next season.