By Lewis Smith PUBLISHED: 18:00 EST, 3 June 2013 | UPDATED: 05:45 EST, 4 June 2013 Eight amazingly preserved log boats have been hailed as ‘more important than the Mary Rose’ after being dug up from a silted-up river. The boats, the largest of them 28 feet (8.5m) long, are thought to have been used for ferrying cargo and passengers in the Fens some 3,500 years ago. They are now being preserved for future study and as a tourist attraction using the same conservation techniques that saved the Mary Rose from falling apart when raised from the Solent. Ian Panter, of the York Archaological Trust and the log project's conservationist, inspects one of the eight Bronze Age log boats dug out of the ground at a quarry near Peterborough. The vessels, thought to be up to 3,500-years-old would most likely have been used to transport people and cargo
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The boats, the largest of them 28 feet long, are thought to have been used for ferrying cargo and passengers in the Fens some 3,500 years ago
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Now being preserved for future study and as a tourist attraction
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Log boats from the Bronze Age have been found before, but never have so many been found in the same place
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Each of the boats was hewn from a single tree trunk, six of them oaks, one alder and one lime
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The log boats resemble the elegant vessels used in the annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge Universities
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