Development in shipbuilding happened not only in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, but also around
Figure 3 Late third century AD Roman patrol vessel from Mainz. Photo: G. Indruszewski.
The brackish waters of the Baltic Sea, and perhaps it is not a coincidence that the first European seagoing vessels fastened entirely with iron fasteners in clinker-built fashion (the fourth century AD rowing vessel from Nydam) appeared in this less corrosive environment (Figure 4).
However, the boatbuilders of this region seem to have adapted their joining methods after the main hull fasteners: if the Pre-Roman Iron Age (late fourth century BC) large paddled canoe from Hjortspring, on the Danish isle of Als, was made of long strakes stitched together in a beveled overlap, the appearance of nails in the Roman period (first centuries AD) induced seemingly an overwhelming preference toward the full overlapping of planks in a hull. And while the Scandinavian and seemingly the Old Prussian boat-builders preferred to forge metal rivets to fasten the overlap between the strakes (Figure 5), their Baltic Slavic counterparts used the technologically less-demanding treenails to secure the same hull joints, while the Saami boatbuilders remained faithful to the ancient stitching method of plank joining. In a way, each cultural and ethnic group of the Baltic realm was adopting its own emblemic identity in a boatbuilding tradition, which secured visual identification on a sea crossed in all directions by busy communication lanes (see Ethnicity). The sea acted in fact as a binding factor among multiethnic communities, aspect forcefully stressed by the historical phenomenon known largely as the ‘Viking Movement’ overseas that saw the opening of river routes in Russia from Archangelsk in the north to Byzantium in the south, and of transatlantic routes between Scandinavia, Iceland, Greenland, and even North America.
World History
