5 September 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

A rare 3,300-year-old wooden yoke found in northern Italy

After eight years of complex excavation, recovery, and restoration, a rare 3,300-year-old wooden yoke discovered in a Late Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlement in Este, Veneto, northern Italy, has been presented to the public.

The archaeological discovery of a recent Bronze yoke (14th – 13th century BC) from the stilt house in Via Comuna in Este (province of Padua), in 2015, had not received the deserved response. In fact, it took eight years to complete the delicate restoration operations, while the study of the artifact and other materials is still ongoing, involving various scientific professionals. Finally, in 2023, the Padua Superintendency presented – at Palazzo Folco – the wooden finds from the Atestino site.

The discovery occurred during archaeological investigations preliminary to the laying of a section of the SNAM methane pipeline.

The pipeline expansion route has been investigated due to the abundance of archaeological remains in the area; however, the existence of a Bronze Age prehistoric settlement was previously undiscovered. The wooden remains underwent radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating, which showed that the settlement was occupied between the middle of the 13th and middle of the 14th century B.C. Although there have been a few finds from this era made in the Este region before, this is the first instance of a clearly organized Bronze Age settlement.

This Italian-language video has excellent shots of the conserved finds and of the pile dwelling remains in situ.

The yoke is a head yoke, used by attaching it to the neck of a pair of draft animals (probably oxen) and securing it to their horns with leather straps or ropes. Curved cut-outs were made to fit the yoke snugly around the animals’ horns. It was originally estimated to be one meter (3.2 feet long), but about foot of it — the section that was mounted to the second animal of the pair — did not survive the millennia.

This yoke is significantly smaller than early modern yokes, indicating that domesticated bovines in Northern Italy during the Bronze Age were much smaller than they would later become. An ancient repair to one of the teeth in the yoke beam to which the horns were strapped is of particular archaeological interest. The farmer or craftsman must have broken it off while using it, and in order to place a new tooth, they dug out a square hole.

During the Bronze Age, the region was a wetland where people built pile homes over the water. The muddy conditions kept wood and other organic remains intact for thousands of years. Sections of soil were removed en bloc and sent to the Central Institute for Restoration in Rome, where experts in the conservation of wet wood carried out a laborious micro-excavation, PEG treatment, and controlled drying to stabilize the wet wood in a lab setting.

The excavation and conservation is not over yet. There are more wood artifacts to be discovered in the soil blocks and more analysis of the objects that have been stabilized to be done.

Related Articles

In French Necropolis 21 Roman “curse tablets” discovered including one written in the extinct Celtic language of Gaulish

18 January 2025

18 January 2025

During the excavation of an eighteenth-century hospital in north-western France by researchers from the Orléans Archaeological Service, a 2,000-year-old necropolis...

Archaeologists have discovered a 4,000-year-old burial ground and shell tool processing site in Taiwan

1 August 2022

1 August 2022

A 4,000-year-old cemetery and shell tool processing site has been discovered in Kenting National Park, Taiwan’s oldest and southernmost national...

A 2000-year-old wooden figure was unearthed in a Buckinghamshire ditch

13 January 2022

13 January 2022

An extremely rare, carved wooden figure from the early Roman era has been discovered in a waterlogged ditch during work...

“Last Rhodes shipwreck” of Roman period found in Turkey’s Fethiye

5 March 2022

5 March 2022

Turkish researchers, a Rhodes shipwreck from the third century A.D. was discovered in the depths of the Gulf of Fethiye...

Israeli researchers uncover earliest evidence silver used as currency in Levant

9 January 2023

9 January 2023

On Sunday, Israeli archaeologists revealed that they had found the earliest proof of silver being used as money in the...

Evidence of a Roman shrine dating back was discovered during dig at Leicester Cathedral

7 March 2023

7 March 2023

Excavations by the University of Leicester archaeologists for have uncovered evidence that the site of Leicester Cathedral has been used...

The Temple of Persian Water Goddess Anahita Discovered in Iraqi Kurdistan

8 March 2024

8 March 2024

Archaeologists excavating the Rabana-Merquly mountain fortress in what is present-day Iraqi Kurdistan suggest that it may also have served as...

A First! This Study on Pregnancy in the Viking Age Illuminates Warrior Women and the Fate of Babies

14 May 2025

14 May 2025

A groundbreaking interdisciplinary study by Viking experts from the Universities of Nottingham and Leicester has shed new light on the...

A Unique Structure Discovered in the City of David Ancient Jerusalem – The Only One of Its Kind

14 January 2025

14 January 2025

A unique structure was discovered on the eastern slope of the City of David, within the Walls of the Jerusalem...

Antikythera underwater excavation digs up new discoveries “huge marble head”

20 June 2022

20 June 2022

The second phase of underwater archaeological research (May 23 to June 15, 2022) on the Antikythera shipwreck resulted in the...

Comb and gold hair-ring dating back more than 3,000 years unearthed in south Wales

14 July 2023

14 July 2023

Archeologists in south Wales, have unearthed a golden hair ring and the oldest wooden comb ever found in the U.K....

Archaeologists discovered large Roman baths under city museum in Croatia

8 December 2023

8 December 2023

Archaeologists who helped with the restoration work of the Split City Museum, one of the most important and visited museums...

A Temple Guardian From The 13th Century Found At Cambodia’s Angkor Wat

17 September 2024

17 September 2024

While clearing rubble from a collapsed gate at the Banteay Prei Temple within Cambodia’s Angkor Wat Archaeological Park, workers stumbled...

In the new images, Scotland’s biggest Pictish fort is “reconstructed.’

2 November 2021

2 November 2021

Stunning new reconstructions have revealed how Scotland’s largest known Pictish fort may have looked over one thousand years ago. Three-dimensional...

Folded Gold Diadem discovered in Ancient Burial Urn in Southern India

12 August 2022

12 August 2022

A gold diadem, bronze, iron objects, and pottery were reportedly found in a burial urn at the archaeological site of...