An interesting article titled Cretan tools point to 130,000-year-old sea travel, dated January 3, 2011 states that a group of archaeologists found evidence of the first sea voyage by humans, and note this: not modern Homo sapiens like us, but ancient, archaic hominids.
This finding adds proof to the notion that Homo erectus was a sailor and could have used boats to reach America and Australia.
They actually found stone tools (coarse axes and similar stuff) and they dated them to a period ranging from 130 to 700,000 years ago.
The key element is that they were found in the island of Crete, which has been isolated in the Mediterranean for at least five million years. Therefore the stone tools and their makers had to get across at least 65 km (40 miles) of open sea to reach the island.
The tools were found in caves close to the village of Plakias.
The report says that "Such rough stone implements are associated with Heidelberg Man and Homo Erectus".
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia
I have an alternative to this idea:
ReplyDeletehttp://glencram.com/pumice-rafting-to-crete-and-wallacea/
Glen, thanks for your comment. It is an interesting explanation.
ReplyDeleteAustin
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Since Crete and Sunda are in volcanic areas prone to floating pumice expanses, rafts are a big possibility.
While Crete has had here and there large expelling of pumice such as Santarini circa 1200 BC, Sunda had two very large scale ones in the 19th Century alone (Krakatoa and Tambora). Although this is not the norm, the narrow aspects of the straits of Flores Islands (h. Florensis) and Luzon (h. Luzonensis) are commonly believed by experts to be at least a partial explanation.
Natural rafts dispersals are an ordinary event over longer periods of time for floral and faunal range expansion. People are possibly no different. A side issue is that hominids can communicate, so a returnee by any method (vegetative, megafaunal 'bloat and float' with later , pumice, and ice floes in colder regions) would in oral traditions of the possibility and of virgin lands over the straits. Further the floating voyage away, the less likely the returnee (normally initially a defensive survivor in a natural disaster or storm) would be able to return. However, in times of trouble, such as Toba mass destruction or invading H. Sapiens, intentional migration might well have been used.
The initial populations would be dangerously insufficient to survive independently due to 'genetic meltdown', so improved methods of contact would become an obvious necessity (new blood arrival's offspring being observably superior in health and usefulness to the group).
One book to get an idea of the complexity of water craft e
A New Zealand Maori story is of a man who traveled the ocean by a large piece of pumice, an as recently as 2017 house or at least car sized pumice were seen, along with an island over a kilometer square.