Described as the most important, authoritive, well researched and archaeologically authenticated book on British Bronze Age maritime history, 'The Lost Lake', tells the remarkable story of a huge Ice Age lake which survived in the bowl of Monmouth almost into Roman times and was overlooked by human settlements for thousands of years.

Written by Monmouth archaeologist Stephen Clarke, it announces the discovery of evidence for prehistoric boat-building and is believed to be the first time that such remains have been recognised along the European Atlantic Seaboard.

The book is causing excitement across the archaeological world because of the interpretation of Bronze Age remains on the Parc Glyndwr building site between Rockfield Road and the Watery Lane.

From a blockage of the Wye Valley above Redbrook, the shore of the lake ran around the higher ground of Monmouth to Croft-y-Bwla, creating a lake some four kilometres across and at least six metres deep in lower Monnow Street and at Overmonnow.

People lived on the shores of the lake, leaving radiocarbon dates from at least the middle Stone Age, 6,000BC, through the New Stone Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, c100BC.

When the lake finally broke through the blockage and drained in the 1st century BC, it left a lagoon which was silting up and filling with peat during Roman times.

When three channels cut across a Bronze Age burnt mound (dated c1,680BC) were unearthed on the edge of the lake at Parc Glyndwr they were at first thought to be the remains of a structure such as a longhouse, until further excavation showed that the channels were a hundred feet long, perfectly parallel and level and contained evidence of woodworking.

Two of the channels were shaped like log canoes while the third was smaller and chisel-shaped (trapezoidal). These features were for the construction and launching of a double log canoe with an outrigger – a form depicted in Bronze Age rock carvings and still used in places like Fiji in the 19th century.

A large boat of a similar date and form to the Monmouth remains was recovered from a peat bog at Lurgan in Ireland but this is the first time that a boat-building site has been found.

The Lost Lake is published by Monmouth Archaeological Society at £15 or at a pre-publication launch price of £12 (P&P £1.70 if required).

The launch will be held at Monmouth Museum from 7pm on Thursday 3rd October, or you can order from Clarke Printing, St James' Square, Monmouth NP25 3DN, 01600 714136.