Thousands of stone age tools found much much older than the 11,000 year old remains thought to be the earliest. It is evidence they had to have come by boat! They may not even have been modern humans!
Originally posted by sonhouse http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/science/16archeo.html?em
Thousands of stone age tools found much much older than the 11,000 year old remains thought to be the earliest. It is evidence they had to have come by boat! They may not even have been modern humans!
Boats must have been one of the earliest technologies out there. Humans got around!
The people of the Pacific Islands, like Hawaii, really amaze me.
Originally posted by sonhouse but they were fully modern humans, 10,000 years back maximum. 130,000 years ago, they were people with brains a lot smaller than ours.
Are you 100% sure of that?
I'm currently reading Stephen Oppenheimers - Out of Eden - The Peopling of the World, in which there is a section on human skull sizes. And i quote -
Significantly, both Neanderthals and those modern humans living before the last ice age 20,000-30,000 years ago had rather bigger brains than do people living today.
Originally posted by Proper Knob Are you 100% sure of that?
I'm currently reading Stephen Oppenheimers - Out of Eden - The Peopling of the World, in which there is a section on human skull sizes. And i quote -
Significantly, both Neanderthals and those modern humans living before the last ice age 20,000-30,000 years ago had rather bigger brains than do people living today.
That is modern history compared to 130,000 years ago, they were probably a different species. The early ancestors for sure had less brain mass. Apparently enough to make boats though.
Also, they think the stone tools found may be as much as 700,000 years old! Further work is needed of course, to come up with a date that old but the style of stone cut is that old.
Q: Some attribute Pacific migration to luck, others to purposeful exploration using noninstrument navigation. What is your opinion concerning how Pacific travelers were able to colonize the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean?
Q: Some attribute Pacific migration to luck, others to purposeful exploration using noninstrument navigation. What is your opinion concerning how Pacific travelers were able to colonize the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean?
Originally posted by sonhouse Further work is needed of course, to come up with a date that old but the style of stone cut is that old.
Meaning that something was making stone tools that long ago. Why not boats? Besides, one can make a basic crossing in the Mediterranean on little more than a log, why do they assume they were boat builders?
Originally posted by twhitehead Meaning that something was making stone tools that long ago. Why not boats? Besides, one can make a basic crossing in the Mediterranean on little more than a log, why do they assume they were boat builders?
I'd like to see you cross the Mediterranean on a log.
According to the article,
'“We can’t say the toolmakers came 200 miles from Libya,” Dr. Strasser said. “If you’re on a raft, that’s a long voyage, but they might have come from the European mainland by way of shorter crossings through Greek islands.”
But archaeologists and experts on early nautical history said the discovery appeared to show that these surprisingly ancient mariners had craft sturdier and more reliable than rafts. They also must have had the cognitive ability to conceive and carry out repeated water crossing over great distances in order to establish sustainable populations producing an abundance of stone artifacts.'
Originally posted by sonhouse but they were fully modern humans, 10,000 years back maximum. 130,000 years ago, they were people with brains a lot smaller than ours.
"The 130,000-year date would put the discovery in a time when Homo sapiens had already evolved in Africa, sometime after 200,000 years ago. Their presence in Europe did not become apparent until about 50,000 years ago."
Originally posted by twhitehead Meaning that something was making stone tools that long ago. Why not boats? Besides, one can make a basic crossing in the Mediterranean on little more than a log, why do they assume they were boat builders?
I wouldnt recommend crossing the Adriatic on a log let alone the Med!! Where did you get this nonsense from???
It doesn't seem that hard to go from Greece to Crete by raft, to be honest. Let's not forget that we're talking ranges of millennia here. I think you'd only need to travel between islands that can be seen from shore on a clear day. Far, yes, but not outlandish.
Originally posted by Palynka It doesn't seem that hard to go from Greece to Crete by raft, to be honest. Let's not forget that we're talking ranges of millennia here. I think you'd only need to travel between islands that can be seen from shore on a clear day. Far, yes, but not outlandish.
I don't think you can see one island from another all the way to Crete. 130,000 years is a long time in human history but they would have been almost the same position as now. I wonder if the med was not as deep then? If so, the land masses would have been higher up and more visible from a distance.
21 Feb '10 06:061 edit
Evidence of mariners 130,000 years ago on Crete!
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