Dugout Canoe

A dugout canoe, also called a logboat, is a boat made from a single hollowed-out tree trunk, traditionally shaped by controlled burning followed by scraping with an adze, with the sides sometimes steamed and bent outward to flatten the bottom; an outrigger float is often added for stability on open water. Dugouts are among the oldest known watercraft, with archaeological examples dating back roughly 8,000 years, and the Pesse canoe found in the Netherlands is considered the oldest known dugout boat in the world. The type has been built and used on nearly every inhabited continent, including across sub-Saharan Africa, in ancient Scandinavia, the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe, across China, Myanmar, Thailand, India and the Philippines, by Indigenous peoples from the Pacific Northwest to the northeastern Americas and the Caribbean, and throughout the Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Australia. Because it requires only a single log and basic tools, the dugout remains one of the simplest and most widespread boatbuilding traditions in the world.