Cavemen in Boats

I get excited when scientists discover planets around distant stars, life around thermal vents at extreme depths or a new section of the brain.  Anything that adds to the great compost heap of human knowledge, anything that pushes the outer limits of human consciousness a bit further outer.  It’s all good.

So, I was quite pleased to read that archaeologists in Crete had discovered tools which are at least 130,ooo years old.  That’s nice, I thought.  But stone tools over a million years old have been discovered in east Africa.  I did not at first realize the obvious importance of the find.  Fortunately, it was spelled out in the article.  Crete is an island.  In the Mediterranean Sea.   More than 60 kilometers away from

128,608 Years Before Columbus

the mainland.  Nobody is theorizing that the human race originated there.  Therefore, they had to come from the mainland.   Therefore, they had to have ships.

Now, it’s likely that people traveled by boat fairly early in their development.  They could see logs floating downriver.  They could hold on to them.  With even the most primitive stone tools, they could shape the logs a bit.  With the advent of fire, dugout canoes probably became fairly common.  Crossing open water, though, is a bold move.

And once there were ships that could cross that distance, travel around the Mediterranean probably became fairly frequent.  130,000 years ago.  Over 120,000 years before writing, before recorded history.

It means that even at the time of the Pharoahs, even at the time of the Sumerian Kings, sea going travel was commonplace and had been from time immemorial.  Perhaps, by hugging the coast all the way from Cape Town to Oslo, world travel had even become standard.

I’m not sure how it really affects our lives today, but I think it’s pretty amazing.