Stone Tools Found On Crete Push Back Humans' Maritime History 176
The New York Times reports that stone tools discovered on the Greek island of Crete, and reported last month at an academic conference, are strong evidence for rethinking the maritime capabilities of early humans. The researchers who found the tools (hand-axes, cleavers, and scrapers) estimate them to be at least 130,000 years old; if they're right, humans have been traveling long distances at sea (Crete is 200 miles from the northern African coastline) for at least several tens of thousands of years longer than earlier believed.
Humans are pretty damn clever... (Score:3, Insightful)
...and pretty much have always been.
Humans didn't evolve genetically to this modern technological state, the cleverness has always been inherent.
Re:They're just rocks. (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew someone was going to say that.
Many primitive stone tools look like plain rocks at first glance, but there are distinctive chip and wear patterns on tools that just don't occur by chance. An expert will be able to tell you very quickly if you're dealing with an actual tool or just a rock that's assumed a suggestive shape.
Re:Not Necasrily? (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
Stone tools found on an island indicates that humans were capable of rudimentary sea travel in order to get to Crete from the mainland. Also FTA:
That is an awful lot of stone tools to have just "washed up on to the beach" wouldn't you think so?
TFA states that the team was originally looking for much younger tools on the order of ~11,000 years old when they found these instead. Also FTA:
In other words, the dating of the soil associated with the tools indicates that they are at least 130,000 years old and are of a tool style used by humans/ancestors that is very ancient. The tools were not neccessarily made by early humans as at the time these tools were likely created, humans were not the only hominids. The upper limit for the date of these tools is ~700,000 years which would pre-date modern humans although it seems unlikely that they are that old.
The article assumes too much. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe they walked to Crete (Score:5, Insightful)
What part of the quote are you and the GP failing to understand? Why do you both seem to be under the delusion that archeoligists have never heard of ice age migration when archeology was the discipline that discovered it?
Re:They're just rocks. (Score:4, Insightful)
But just because you don't know anything about a subject doesn't mean you have to have opinions about it.
I know there's a joke in here somewhere that includes the words "Uh dude," and "Slashdot," but I can't quite make it out.
Re:They're just rocks. (Score:3, Insightful)
You can thank sound bites and modern politics for that.
Re:it's my beach party (Score:5, Insightful)
The article states Crete has been an island for five millions years. It also states that previously the earliest known sea crossings were 60Kya.
How did the tools get there without some species of hominoid crossing the water? 200 miles is a long way to swim, so how did the hominoids cross the water? What makes you think they brought the tools with them? How do you know that quartz is not the only suitable tool making rock found on Crete?
Nobody is suggesting they deliberately navigated to Crete but it's not a streach to think they were "going to sea" in some sort of raft/boat that was used for near shore spear fishing. Nor is it a streach to think a some of them were swept away to sea by currents/storms and ended up accidently colonising Crete.
Science is about the best available explaination that fits the evidence, do you have a better explaination of how hominoids got to Crete other than the one that says they arrived by some sort of prehistoric boat/raft?
Re:Interesting Article But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maybe they walked to Crete (Score:4, Insightful)
Where do you get that number from? Other people are mentioning 200 miles which is also wrong. According to Wikipedia, Crete is only 100 miles (160km) from mainland Greece and looking at the map there are several small islands in between so each single journey by sea might only involve 30 miles or so. If the sea level was lower it is quite likely that there would be more islands sticking out, and if the surface was frozen in the winter, then there is your problem solved without any seafaring technology.
Re:Humans are pretty damn clever... (Score:4, Insightful)
True. Ancient people were just as intelligent as we are. The only reason this is not more evident is because time has erased the remains of their material culture. It would be more surprising if no one thought of make a raft or boat for tens of thousands of years.
Re:Maybe they walked to Crete (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll leave it someone less lazy than I to check if there was an ice age around the time they think the tools were made.
If we assume for the moment that there wasn't, and further assume that there are no islands in between Crete and Greece, I still could be convinced that ancient humans might have made such a voyage. After all, Pacific islanders have been known to make long sea journeys in outrigger canoes without navigational tools. Plus, as TFA states, the human migration to Australia started about 60K years ago, and you can bet nobody walked there.
Re:Not so far from Greece (Score:5, Insightful)
Still not comfortable with our African ancestry I see.
Re:The article assumes too much. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not so sure the find is suggestive of "maritime capabilities". To prove such a statement, you would have to prove evidence of navigation. Even if it were only celestial navigation, stronger evidence would be to find more than one such remote site with similar styles of survival technology. From the article: More than 2,000 stone artifacts, including the hand axes, were collected on the southwestern shore of Crete, near the town of Plakias. The question, at least for now, should be whether or not they went back.
Try looking up Kon Tiki, and Maori chants as navigation.
Re:Interesting Article But... (Score:5, Insightful)
McDonald's signs are how Man in four thousand years will discover that the whole world was once globally connected.
There will be debates as the signs are uncovered about whether they could have been formed naturally, but - in the end - it will demonstrate the global society we have today.
Re:Humans are pretty damn clever... (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be more surprising if no one thought of make a raft or boat for tens of thousands of years.
It's more than that. If they had boats, they had to have some way to navigate and something resembling charts or maps. You don't just launch a raft and hope to get somewhere. Aiming for an island, even a big island, if you're off by a couple degrees you could miss by a hundred miles.
If this discovery holds up, it's going to overturn a lot of what we think we know about human history. Getting around by sea is more than a hairy frat party on a raft. The ocean is rather effective at eliminating the unprepared and unwary. It means packing tools to make repairs at sea, carrying food and water and something to bail out the boat. Doesn't sound like much until you try it with the technology they had. Then come the questions about what compelled them to make a dangerous journey like that in the first place?
Re:Humans are pretty damn clever... (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to miss by a hundred miles with a couple of degree course error, your trip has to be about 3000 miles long, rather than 200. To miss Crete from North Africa would require a sustained course error of about 30 degrees.
In addition, let's not forget the basic navigational techniques of the Polynesians (another Stone Age people who sailed great distances routinely).
The flights of birds can give you clues to the location of land from dozens to hundreds of miles away - some birds fly over water but sleep only on land - if they're flying in a particular direction late in the day, that's a pretty solid hint of land in that direction.
Wave patterns can also show you hints as to the directions of land too far away to see, but plenty close enough to reach.
Plus there's those mountains. Crete's highest peak is visible from about 100 nm. Makes it a lot easier to find when you can see it after you've completed half your voyage.
And finally, consider that there is a chain of islands from Turkey to Crete (as well as an alternate chain from Greece - and Crete's mountain peaks are barely visible from Greece) - if that chain were followed (as by successive waves of migration), the path would be from one island to the next visible island repeated till you hit Crete.
Re:Humans are pretty damn clever... (Score:2, Insightful)
You don't just launch a raft and hope to get somewhere. Aiming for an island, even a big island, if you're off by a couple degrees you could miss by a hundred miles.
Except the Polynesians have a whole culture based on practically nothing but that and a set of taboos. The Hawaiian chain is thousands of kilometers from anything else. How did the firth Hawaiians get there? By aiming in a direction and going until they hit something.
It's also worth noting that right from the beginning, ancient cultures spend a lot of time staring at the stars and memorizing them. It's a very short step to using them for some navigation.