Dover Bronze Age boat is one of the few Bronze Age boats to be found in Britain. It dates to 1575-1520BC. The boat was made using oak planks sewn together with yew lashings. This technique has a long tradition of use in British prehistory; the oldest known examples are from Ferriby in east Yorkshire. It is currently on display at Dover Museum.
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On 28 September 1992, archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust, working alongside construction workers for a new road link between Folkestone and Dover, uncovered what remained of a large prehistoric boat thought to be 3,500 years old.
The boat was buried under a road and the burial site stretched out towards buildings. It was decided that it would be too dangerous to dig too near the buildings, so an unknown length of the boat has had to be left under the ground.
Previous attempts to remove such boats whole have been unsuccesful, so it was decided to cut the boat into sections and remove it and reassemble it afterwards.
After nearly a month of excavation 9.5 metres of the boat was eventually recovered. Depending on different views of the true size of the complete boat this 9.5 metres could be up to two thirds of the full size of the boat.
Whilst in the ground the boat was significantly protected from being destroyed by waterlogging and a cover of silt which protected it from bacteria. After being removed from the ground the boat was kept in a waterlogged state at the Mary Rose Trust at Portsmouth. After a long process of preservation the boat returned to Dover Museum to be re-assembled in 1998.
The boat is displayed in a glass case as the centrepiece of a whole floor in the museum devoted to archeology. With the boat itself is a modern reconstruction of a section of the boat, to assist in the visitors interpretation of the boat itself. The display won an award in 2000 for archeological display.