New Delhi: In the 4th century BCE, an armada of plank boats attacked the island of Als off the coast of Denmark. The unknown attackers, in four boats were
defeated, with the defenders sinking the weapons of their foes into the bog in one of the boats, to give thanks to their mystery. The boat was discovered in the 1880s, and then excavated in the 1920s from the bog called Hjortspring Mose, and is known as the Hjortspring boat. This is the only surviving prehistoric plank boat found in Scandinavia. The warriors chose to launch a maritime raid across hundreds of kilometres of open sea.
Since the recovery of the boat, scientists have been trying to determine where the attackers originated from. Now the researchers were able to examine portions of the boat using modern scientific methods, that were not previously preserved using chemical methods. The boat was waterproofed using pine pitch, indicating an abundance of pine forests in the region where the boat was built. Previous scholars had suggested that the boat originated in Germany, with the new research suggesting that the originated from the Baltic Sea. The fingerprint was discovered in the caulking tar.
The Hjortspring fingerprint
A partial fingerprint was discovered on a small caulking fragment. The partial fingerprint has a total of seven ridges, and the sizes of the ridges fall within the average distributions of both adult males and females. The fingerprint was discovered on caulking material which also has an impression of cordage, indicating that the fingerprint was a result of repairs conducted on the boat after its manufacture. The most likely interpretation is that the fingerprint impression was made during repairs by one of the crew members on the boat itself, providing a direct link to the seafarers who used the ancient vessel. A paper describing the research has been published in PLOS One.
