BOXFORD, ENGLAND—According to a BBC News report, a piece of wood decorated with a series of parallel incisions that was discovered in southeast England during a construction project has been radiocarbon dated to about 6,640 years ago by a team of scientists from the University of Groningen. The waterlogged piece of oak, preserved in peat some five feet below ground level near the River Lambourn, measures about three feet long, 16 inches wide, and eight inches thick. Researchers suggest the piece of decorated timber may have been part of a wooden obelisk. The timber is being conserved by researchers from Historic England. To read about evidence of a lost Mesolithic world under the North Sea, go to "Letter from Doggerland: Mapping a Vanished Landscape."