The discovery of the well preserved remains of a Bronze Age boat in Dover in 1992 was one of the most important post-war finds in Britain. The boat was of a stitched oak plank structure, and has been dated to 1550 BC. To mark the tenth anniversary of the boat's discovery, a conference was held in Dover in 2002. This publication brings to a wider audience sixteen of the papers presented there, allowing all those interested in this fascinating relic to share in the findings of experts from all over Europe. Subjects include: evidence of the boat's marine environment; the reconstruction of the boat; boats as Bronze Age artefacts; British prehistoric shipbuilding; the use of model ships in archaeological research; north-west European boats before AD 400; the sewn-plank boats of the Humber; the prehistoric harbours of Kent; the environmental context of the Dover boat; sea-faring voyages and rock art ships; social and religious perceptions of the ship in Bronze Age northern Europe; the heritage management of boats; the social role of the ship and the sea in Bronze Age Norway. Contributors: Peter Clark, Christopher Green, Peter Marsden, John Coates, Francis Pryor, Owain Roberts, Seán McGrail, Edwin Gifford and Joyce Gifford, Béat Arnold, Robert Van de Noort, Keith Parfitt, Mike Bailie, Kristian Kristiansen, Flemming Kaul, Thijs Maarlveld, Frode Kvalo .

From sewn planked boats in Early Dynastic Egypt to Late Roman wrecks in Italy, and the design of Venetian Merchant Galleys, this huge volume gathers together fifty-three papers presenting new research on the archaeology and history of ancient ships and shipbuilding traditions. The papers have been grouped into several thematic sections, including: ships of the Mediterranean; the reconstruction of ancient ships, from life-size reconstructions to computer models; the study of shipyards, shipsheds and slipways of the Mediterranean and Europe; Venetian Galleys of the 15th and 16th centuries; and North European medieval and post -medieval ships. These papers which were presented at the Ninth International Symposium on Boat and Ship Archaeology (ISBSA), held in Venice 2000. Carlo Beltrame is a free-lance archaeologist and contract professor of Maritime archaeology at Università Ca' Foscari of Venice and of Naval archaeology at Universita della Tuscia of Viterbo. He specialises in the archaeology of ship-construction from antiquity until the Renaissance period and methodology in maritime archaeology.

Ships and shipbuilding were important elements of Viking culture and a precondition for trade, warfare and conquest. The important excavations at the Viking towns of Hedeby and Schleswig-Holstein revealed a rich body of finds of wrecks and parts of ships. This is a report on this material and also examines the role of the towns as ports and the role of trading in their development.

The craftsmanship of longboat-building is not something we can draw on today, so when the Viking Ship Museum, Roskilde wanted to look into this ancient skill, they needed to track down people who still had the tradition of boat-building in their culture. This book looks at the boat-building and culture of the Punan Bah people of Borneo and then puts the longboat in its wider cultural-historical perspective.