MELANESIAN DUG-OUT PIC. 9: From an astounding 800,000 ago, from Africa, watercraft are reported in the journal Science: Ann Gibbons, Ancient Island Tools Suggest Homo erectus Was a Seafarer, 279:5357, pp. 1635-1637, Issue of Science, 13 Mar 1998. The archeological record preserves a history of the dug-out canoe - at the beginning, just a log without tapered ends - i.e. sort-of a square-ended canoe. Archeologists give us dates starting around 6000 BC for specimen of this water craft found buried at sites in Drenthe in the Netherlands, Korea, England, Japan - and, of course, Africa, reported by scientists to be its home of the boat and boating. This web page shows some of the most ancient such vessels known to man.