Dufuna dugout canoe
Canoa monóxila de Dufuna
- Date
- c. 6500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Dufuna, Fika, Yobe State, Nigeria
- Credited to
- Fishers and hunters of the Nigerian Sahel (Humid Holocene)
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A hollowed log about 8 m long found in 1987 during excavation work, the oldest known boat in Africa. It shows that peoples of the wet Sahel navigated lakes and rivers some 8,500 years ago.
The Pesse canoe (Netherlands, c. 8000 BC) is slightly older; the Dufuna date rests on radiocarbon dating of the wood and has a wide margin.
What it led to
- fishing and transport in the Lake Chad basin during the Humid Holocene
- the African dugout canoe tradition down to the present