[gaoshan]

I would assume that if an old boat were found that it had nothing to do with the Ark of Christian mythos. There would be no way to "verify" it because the entire story rests on a foundation of faith, not fact. Where faith and fact do coincide faith likes to use that overlap as evidence of truth whereas fact cannot do that because faith does not require evidence (and there are so many competing faiths but facts are a bit more consistent).

Kind of like how if all religions and all scientific and mathematical knowledge were somehow irrevocably lost, all of the science and math would eventually come back just as it was but none of the religions would (in spite of the protestations of fervent believers).

The flood story is present in so very many mythologies that there likely was some historical event in that region but people back then could be forgiven from thinking that such a flood covered the entire world as it covered what little they new of it.