And you thought you had old fishing equipment!
The Severn Estuary in Great Britain has just given up one of her long-buried secrets. A fishing basket that may date back all the way to the 1300s! And you thought your granddad had the oldest fishing gear you'd ever seen!
The Daily Mail reports the centuries-old basket was discovered preserved in the mud by the Black Rock Lave Native Fishermen group. The group's Facebook page reveals they regularly make interesting finds while fishing the waters with traditional Welsh methods.
Namely a net on a wooden frame.
This isn't the first time the group has stumbled upon one of these 14th century baskets. But this one may be the most significant one they've located.
"This is by far the largest fishing basket we have found out there at low tide and it was well preserved in the clay and mud," the group wrote on their page. They also said the basket was likely exposed during autumn storms.
The group mentioned that other medieval baskets they've found in the area have been carbon dated to a time period that puts their age between the 12th and 14th centuries. That means this basket could have been around during the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire or when the Black Death was claiming millions of lives in Europe!
To think, folks were spending part of their lives fishing that long ago!
For those wondering what they did with the discovery, it seems the best way to preserve them is to leave them in place. Because after hundreds of years underwater, the baskets become quite brittle and fragile and often simply fall apart.
We're glad they documented the find for others to see. We're sure the person who wove and used that basket could have never imagined the whole world would see it one day hundreds of years in the future!
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and General Outdoor Youtube Channels.
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