In 5256 B.C., farmers built a square well out of oak wood. Now, at 7,000 years old, that wooden well remains and is possibly the world’s oldest surviving wooden structure, CNN reports.
Archeologists from the University of Pardubice, who are in charge of preserving the ancient wood from the well so it can be studied, said in a press release that the well was only preserved because it spent much of the past thousands of years underwater.
Scientists are slowly removing pieces of the well, making sure they stay wet so they don’t decompose or deform, and slowly preserving and drying them.
The archaeologists who found the well in 2018 released their findings regarding its age in the March 2020 edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Through a wood dating process called dendrochronology, the scientists dated the wood back to the Neolithic area, which lead to important discoveries about technology in that era, CNN reports.
This dating, in combination with the advanced carpentry used to build the well, provided key evidence to show that Neolithic people were skilled carpenters — more skilled than those researchers had previously thought, according to CNN.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the ancient wooden well is where it was found. The well’s hiding place for 7,000 years was next to a large road in the Czech Republic, Newsweek reports.