X-SciTech

An Unexpected Discovery

July 20, 2001 / 2:39 PM EDT / AP

Three teen-agers playing in Lake Waccamaw found an American Indian canoe that archaeologists say is at least 300 years old, but only carbon dating will determine the craft's true age.

While playing ball waist deep off the shore of Lake Waccamaw last month, Mark Strickland, 16, stepped on what appeared to be an old log.

Feeling the object loosen within the lake's sediment, Mark and his friends Adam Gore and Andrew Young, both 16, spent close to an hour dragging the wooden object 75 feet to shore.

The boys' hard work paid off as they discovered the canoe.

"We thought it was a big old log to start with, but when we got it to shore it was a canoe," Mark said. "This is all kind of exciting. ..."

Archaeologists Nathan Henry and Barbara Brooks from the N.C. Division of Archives and History's underwater archaeology branch verified the boys' discovery and believe the canoe dates between 300 to 3,000 years old.

"Without doing any carbon tests, all we can say right now is that it predates iron tools," Henry said. "It's a fairly significant piece since we seldom find such artifacts completely intact from stem to stern."

The distinguishing mark of antiquity is the charred, hollowed out bottom of the 22-foot-4-inch relic. Prior to the Iron Age, American Indians burned the middle of logs to craft their canoes, leaving a black residue.

Henry hopes to get money from state agencies or private organizations to preserve the canoe, which was returned to the bottom of Lake Waccamaw to protect it from deterioration.