This was the Poole Logboat, a discovery that would fundamentally alter the understanding of maritime history in southern Britain, though in those initial chaotic moments, it was simply a puzzle in wet wood. This was the work of the Durotriges or their ancestors, the Iron Age tribes who dominated this landscape around 300 BC. It was a vital artery of the Iron Age economy, a floating truck that kept the lifeblood of the tribe moving. For more than two thousand years, the harbour mud had protected the oak from oxygen and the microbes that feast on cellulose. The adze marks are still visible, the fingerprints of the Iron Age carpenters frozen in the grain.