Aluminum Fishing Boats

Boats have served as short-distance transportation since early times.[1] Circumstantial evidence, such as the early settlement of Australia over 40,000 years ago, and findings in Crete dated 130,000 years ago,[2] suggests that boats have been used since ancient times. The earliest boats have been predicted[3] to be logboats. The oldest boats to be found by archaeological excavation are logboats from around 7,000–10,000 years ago. The oldest recovered boat in the world is the Pesse canoe; it is a dugout or hollowed tree trunk from a Pinus sylvestris. It was constructed somewhere between 8200 and 7600 B.C. This canoe is exhibited in the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands;[4][5] other very old dugout boats have been recovered.[6][7][8][9] A 7,000 year-old seagoing boat made from reeds and tar has been found in Kuwait.[10]

Boats were used between 4000 BCE and 3000 BCE in Sumer,[1] ancient Egypt[11] and in the Indian Ocean.[1]

Boats played a very important part in the commerce between the Indus Valley Civilization and Mesopotamia.[12] Evidence of varying models of boats has also been discovered in various Indus Valley sites.