A 2,200-Year Logboat Sequence (700 BCE–1500 CE) from the Northern Red River Delta, Vietnam

We record eight virtually complete logboat hulls and a further 15 bow, stern, and plank segments from the bed of the Kinh Thầy River in northern Vietnam, most directly C14-dated to between 700 BCE and 1500 CE. Lashing holes along gunwales for washboard attachment are present on many hulls, continuing around the bow and stern end-pieces on some Đông Sơn/Han Dynasty specimens. Three specimens of Đông Sơn/Western Han date have mortise-and-tenon joints locked with transverse dowels. Lashed lugs are absent, as are blind dowels set in plank edges for carvel construction. Many of the logboats have internal bosses and/or indentations to hold thwarts or bulkheads for seating, and to maintain expanded hull contours. The oldest examples of the carpentry skills required to manufacture such logboat underbodies and their attachments can be traced from the early Neolithic (ca. 6000 BCE) onwards in waterlogged contexts in the lower Yangtze region.