the paddle was found broken into several pieces, but except for a few flaws was extremely well preserved. the excellent preservation status of the paddle's wood was caused by a very low level of oxygen in the lake's humid sediments that quickly covered the paddle, which subsequently kept the growth of micro organisms to a minimum. under normal oxygen conditions, fungi, bacteria, and insects would have caused a biological degradation of the wood in short time. only the end of the handle is missing and a corner of the paddle's leaf (blade) is broken off. the paddle has a length of , a width of and a thickness of . the leaf has a long rectangular shape with widely rounded corners, having a length of about and an asymmetric connection to the shaft. the weight of the paddle is . the paddle was carved from the stem of a pine tree, with knots smoothed to the shaft. after recovery, the paddle was treated with an unknown waxy substance for conservation. in the 1920s the paddle was typologically dated by palynological evidence to the mesolithic period. radiocarbon dating in the 1980s on several hazelnut shells and remaining wood from the find spot gave a more precise date of around 7390 ± 80 bc. an accelerator mass spectrometry ( c-ams) carried out in 2008 on two samples from the paddle yielded calibrated dates to 6527 ± 49 years bc and 6311 ± 38 years bc. of note are the distinctly different c-ages of samples from urban findings.