Were Humans Boating 130,000 Years Ago?

Recent findings of ancient tools on the island of Crete have researchers rethinking how long ago early humans made and used boats. Previously, the oldest known human maritime activity started around 60,000 years ago with migrations to Australia. But, if the new assumptions are correct, these latest discoveries would shatter that record by more than double, putting the dates at around 130,000 years ago. Since Crete has been an island for millions of years, it follows that whoever lived there had to get there by sea.

The tools, quartz hand axes, cleavers and scrapers, were found in such great numbers it leads researchers to believe whoever it was that crossed the 40 mile stretch of the Mediterranean, it was more than just a hapless guy clinging to a log. Even further, the dates are so early and the tools so sophisticated that, in the words of one scientist, "this means that every hypothesis we've had about early humans, their migrations, their cognitive and technical abilities needs to be questioned."

A Bit of Controversy

Not everyone is so confident, though, that these tools prove humans necessarily built boats to cross the 40 miles to Crete. Some suggest that the distance was reduced dramatically, all the way down to only 3 miles, during glacial periods. They also don't rule out the possibility that natural land bridges occurred, pointing out that certain species of wildlife have been found in both regions and arguing that these animals couldn't have possibly crossed by sea. "You can't argue the monkeys were using boats," said one scientist. Still others suggest humans might have become victims of large storms that literally plucked them from one island and then washed them up on the next.

Ancient Mariners

If the hypothesis turns out to be true, how intriguing to think about what it must have been like for those brave seagoers so many thousands of years ago and what might their boats have looked like. Researchers say that the quality of the tools point to more than just simple rafts, but they doubt there was any actual sailing. It also fascinating to think about how frightening is must have been to be that first person to travel by boat out of sight of land. Without maps, no GPS and no charts of any kind, it must have been like going to the moon, except even scarier since they had no radios to communcate with home.

The jury is still out on whether or not humans were boating 130,000 years ago, but that doesn't matter to us boat lovers. It's just something one feels instinctively: mankind's boating heritage goes back a long, long time.

sources: archaeology.org, archaeologydaily.com

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