"Under the green and rolling hills of Scotland, several people lay buried for four thousand years.
Around them lay what we guess to be their keepsakes; beads, a bronze
knife, tools and a battle-axe. Most interesting, though, was that at
least one of them – a teenager when he died, curled up like a baby – lay
in what was guessed to be a wicker coracle, like those used on these
islands into the 20th century. He was buried in his boat.
Stop and consider a few things about this. First, its antiquity:
Before the Ancient Greeks or the Hebrew prophets, before all but the
earliest pyramids, there were Scots. Also, you don’t see boat-burials
every day; perhaps it was the youth’s most prized possession, the Stone-Age equivalent of being buried in your Rolls-Royce. Finally, consider
this was a giant basket, woven together by hand, and that it carried
people safely across the cold waters."
My latest article, "A Short History of Woven Boats," is live at Mother Earth News: check it out.