Dugout canoe

Dugouts on the shore of Lake Malawi

A dugout canoe, or dugout is a boat that is made by hollowing out a tree. The name is sometimes shortened to dugout. Other names for this kind of boat are logboat and monoxylon. Monoxylon (μονόξυλον) (pl: monoxyla) is Greek – mono- (single) + ξύλον xylon (tree) – and is mostly used in classic Greek texts. In German, they are called Einbaum ("one tree" in English). Some, but not all, pirogues are also made in this manner.

Dugouts are the oldest boat type archaeologists have found. The items found date back about 8,000 years to the Neolithic Stone Age. This is probably because they are made of massive pieces of wood, which tend to preserve better than others, such as bark canoes.

Images

The Pesse canoe is the world's oldest known dugout

Slavic dugout from the 10th century

Ukrainian dugout (dowbanka) from the end of the 19th century

Building a dugout in Estonia

Other websites

• Fundamental origins of ship types
• Ship replicas in the world
• For more information on Tocher's voyage