Some of the perfectly preserved boats discovered at the prehistoric site of La Marmotta, located at the bottom of Lake Bracciano near Rome, the oldest Neolithic settlement in Western Europe, could face the open sea. According to academics from the University of Pisa, the construction materials are a rare testament to Neolithic high nautical technology (8000 BC-3500 BC). They were recognized and properly dated. "The five wooden boats preserved at a 7,000-year-old site are direct evidence of the navigation of the Mediterranean Sea in the Neolithic," says Niccolò Mazzucco, main researcher of the study published in PlosOne alongside colleagues from Spain and Argentina. The Mediterranean is regarded as the cradle of early European civilizations since many of the most important of them, such as the Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans, emerged on its beaches and traveled between its islands. The Neolithic settlement of Lake Bracciano is the earliest yet discovered in Western Europe, dated from roughly 5750-5620 BC. The five canoes are among the most significant wooden artifacts discovered from an archeological perspective. The analysis of these boats reveals that they were manufactured using four different types of wood and advanced techniques.
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