Overview
- The PLOS One study dates original lime bast cordage to 381–161 BCE, firmly placing the boat in the pre‑Roman Iron Age.
- GC‑MS shows the waterproofing caulk was a mixture of pine pitch and animal fat recovered from original materials.
- The authors argue pine pitch use makes an eastern Baltic origin plausible, though they acknowledge trade could also explain the resin.
- A partial human fingerprint preserved in the caulking offers a rare, direct trace of a person who worked on the boat.
- The Hjortspring boat, Scandinavia’s only intact prehistoric sewn‑plank craft, has long been interpreted as an invaders’ vessel later sunk as a bog offering on Als.