Site Report

WoSASPIN 4642
NR99SW 2 c. 916 925
For logboat (Loch Glashan 2) and possible paddle found in Loch Glashan at NR c. 920 934, see NR99SW 11 and 23 respectively.

NR 9173 9252. Fragments of a dug-out canoe were found in 1961. The site was flooded by a hydro-electric scheme in 1961.
H Fairhurst 1969

The canoe fragments were excavated by J G Scott but were not preserved (information from Miss M Campbell, Kilberry Castle).
Visited by OS (JP) 23 April 1970

The OS locate the discovery at NR 9173 9252, but the annotated photograph that accompanies the published report (of medieval island settlement, Fairhurst 1969, plate 1) indicates a location adjacent to the settlement at NR 9168 9254.
Information from R J C Mowat, Sept. 1992.

In 1960-1 a crannog (at NR 9159 9249) and a medieval island-settlement (at NR 9168 9254) were excavated in advance of engineering works. During the investigation of the latter feature 'fragments of a dug-out canoe' were noticed 'at the northern end of the strait' that separated the monument from the shore. The OS locate the discovery at NR 9173 9252, but the annotated photograph that accompanies the published report indicates a location adjacent to the settlement. The vessel may remain in situ.
H Fairhurst 1969; RCAHMS 1988; R J C Mowat 1996.

NR 91735 92536
West Argyll Forest District (WAFD) Site ID 882: Find of log boat, paddle and oar
Information from West Argyll Forest District (Source: NMRS)
Cognate record, entered WoSAS (MO'H), 23/06/09

The grid reference given above for the island settlement (see WoSASPIN 4647) does not match the mapped location of the former island on pre-1961 1:2,500 scale maps of the area, so casting doubt on the accuracy of the quoted locations of other features noted in relation to this. From inferences in the text descriptions the revised NGR should lie in the vicinity of the findspot, but should be checked against modern large-scale mapping and the published report.

NR 91890 92457
A possible log-boat fragment measuring approximately 2.8m by 0.45m was reported by Forestry Commission staff as lying close to the shore of Loch Glashan, having been exposed by low water levels in the reservoir. Given its location is some 120m S of, and more than 10m higher than the pre-1961 loch shore, it is highly unlikely that this is an in situ log-boat. However, given the proximity of the Loch Glashan 2 findspot, and its location in relation to the reservoir outflow and any current-flow towards it, it is possible that this is an unexcavated remnant of the earlier find which has floated free of its previous location after the flooding of the reservoir in 1961and has been washed ashore here.
Entered WoSAS (HMcB) 09/08/2011

The upper and lower surfaces of the logboat were planned by hand and sections at three points across the logboat drawn. A photographic record was also made.

The surviving fragment is just 2.7 m in length and 0.48 m at its widest point. In cross-section all that survives is a hollowed-out chord, 0.15 m at its thickest. The upper surface is completely eroded, although a strip along one edge might be a remnant of the original surface. There is therefore nothing to indicate whether it has been deliberately hollowed out or whether the hollow is simply due to decay.

The lower surface is much better preserved. The curved surface of the heartwood/sapwood boundary survives over much of the surface, although it is eroded at both ends. Scattered along this surface are clusters of shallow axemarks, some of which only became visible in low late afternoon light. They are mostly crescent-shaped but many are very slight depressions, similar to a finger nail in size and shape. The deepest and clearest of the crescentic cuts is also the largest and is 60 mm wide. It seems most likely that these marks were incurred while stripping off the sapwood, the axe only glancing off the heartwood. There are two branch junctions protruding from the log. One had been cut off long before the tree had been felled, the cambium having grown over the scar. The other branch junction has also grown over but it projects some 70 mm from the heartwood/sapwood surface. It seems unlikely that a finished logboat would have been left with a branch projecting so far out of its hull so it is possible that this is an unfinished example. The toolmarks clearly indicate that the log was being prepared for some function, so perhaps it had been left in the loch to prevent drying out before it was finished.

The logboat has been fashioned from a log of oak (Quercus sp.). Its dendrochronological potential was considered but there would not have been a sufficiently long ring-pattern to make analysis viable, particularly for a single sample; with a growth rate of between 6-7 growth rings per cm there was an estimated 90 – 105 growth rings present.

Dating and context
A splinter from the heartwood-sapwood boundary was removed and submitted for radiocarbon-dating. This has produced a date of 1720 ± 25 BP (SUERC 36708), which calibrates, at 2-sigma, to 250 – 392 cal AD.

This date is indistinguishable from the earliest group of radiocarbon dates obtained from the nearby crannog (Crone & Campbell 2005, 115). Date Group 1 consists of dates from a wooden trough, a wooden peg and a roundwood pile which are statistically indistinguishable from each other and imply building activity and occupation on the crannog sometime in the 2nd to 4th centuries AD. However, some doubt has always remained over the validity of the dates from the two wooden artefacts because they had been conserved in carbowax. This doubt was heightened by the fact that Date Group 1 suggested activity on the crannog significantly earlier than that indicated by the few chronologically diagnostic artefacts from the site, but also because this activity would have taken place during what until then had been a noticeable gap in the chronology of crannog usage, between the 2nd and late 6th centuries AD (ibid 118). Consequently, several alternative chronologies for the construction and use of the crannog were formulated, only one of which acknowledged a 2nd-4th century phase (ibid 117). The radiocarbon date from the unfinished logboat lends credence to this early phase of activity on the crannog, one which probably saw the initial construction of the crannog. The manufacture of the logboat might have been part of the preparations for living and working out on the water.

The logboat is probably that observed by Fairhurst (1969, 47) during his excavations of the medieval settlement on the natural island in the loch. It was found between the island and the shore and was left in situ at the time; its current position just immediately inshore of its known location in 1961 suggests that it has been moved directly inshore by wave and water action.
Crone, A., 'The Loch Glashan Logboat: Final Report', AOC Archaeology Group, (2011)