Duvensee paddle

[2][3] The former bog Duvenseer Moor was located west of the village Duvensee in a young drift landscape.

By the early 19th century only a small body of open water remained, which was eventually completely drained.

In 1923 the geologist Karl Gripp discovered by chance a Mesolithic settlement site while mapping the Duvenseer Moor.

Archaeologists Gustav Schwantes (1924–1927), 1946 Hermann Schwabedissen (1946) and finally Klaus Bokelmann (1966–1967) excavated the bog and documented many dwelling places.

Besides numerous stone artifacts, the excavations provided only very few wooden tools, including the paddle found by Schwantes in 1926, located in a former bank zone near a residential area.

Under normal oxygen conditions, fungi, bacteria, and insects would have caused a biological degradation of the wood in short time.

The leaf has a long rectangular shape with widely rounded corners, having a length of about 260 millimetres (10 in) and an asymmetric connection to the shaft.

In the 1990s, the community of Duvensee thought about using the paddle in its new coat of arms, but after consultation with heralds, the idea was rejected.