ROME, ITALY—According to a statement released by the Public Library of Science, archaeologists have uncovered the oldest Neolithic ships known to have traversed the Mediterranean Sea at the site of La Marmotta, a lakeshore village near Rome. A team of archaeologists led by Juan F. Gibaja of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelonaanalyzed five "dugout" canoes dated to between 5700 and 5100 B.C. and crafted from hollowed-out trees, which are burned and made up of four different kinds of wood. According to the researchers, the structurally sound seagoing vessels will help pinpoint the origins of sailing and provide a schema to better understand the specialized labor employed at the time. "These canoes at La Marmotta, and the occupation of many islands in the eastern and central Mediterranean during the Mesolithic and particularly the early Neolithic periods, are irrefutable proof of the ability of those societies to travel across the water," they wrote. "The Marmotta canoes are not only outstanding evidence of how they achieved that but also an example of the complexity of those societies from the viewpoint of their social and technical organisation."Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE. To read more about ancient boatbuilding and shipwrecks in the Mediterranean, go to "A Stitch in Time."