Wood wells discovered nearly 7,300 years old

The old oak well may be the oldest known wooden structure in the world.

The old well looks like an old wooden crate, but the tree-ring dating technique shows that the oak used to make the well was cut 7,275 years ago, according to research published in the journal Archaeological Science.

The oak well is near the town of Ostrov.(Photo: Science Alert).

"Based on tree-ring data, we can conclude that the trunk used to cut the wood was approximately 5255 - 5256 BC," said researcher Jaroslav Peška of the Olomouc Archaeological Center in the Czech Republic. . "The rings on the trunk allow us to get an accurate estimate of the difference by only one year."

The well was discovered and excavated near the town of Ostrov in 2018 during the construction of the D35 highway in the Czech Republic. Porcelain fragments found in wells date to the early Neolithic period. However, the team found no evidence of any nearby houses, proving that the well belonged to a community that was quite far away.

The inside of the well is covered with dust, so the team must be extremely careful when removing the artifacts. The well consists of 4 oak poles, each at an angle, in the middle are flat wooden planks. The mouth of the well is quite square with the size of 80 x 80 cm. The well is 140 cm high and the well flows into the aquifer.

Even in submerged conditions, the wood used to make the well was in particularly good condition, with traces of stone grinding tools, allowing the team to use tree rings and carbon isotopes for dating. Great.

The well has not been confirmed as the oldest wooden building still in existence today. There are more than 40 ancient wells with similar timeline in Europe. Some wells were even earlier, such as the well in Sajószentpéter, Hungary (5400-5200 BC) and the well in Tiszakürt, Hungary (5600-500 BC). However, according to the team, these wells have not been dated based on tree rings, so the results of age calculation are not as reliable as the wooden wells in Ostrov.

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