A few years ago, a Greek-American archaeological team made a startling discovery – they found the world's oldest signs of navigation in a region called Plakia on the Greek island of Crete. This is an extremely important discovery, and although it made it into the top 10 discoveries of 2010, it received little attention. Their research has forced scholars to rethink the oceanic capabilities of early and pre-human cultures. While excavating in a canyon in Crete, the archaeological team discovered a Paleolithic site in the Prevelli Gorge, where more than 30 hand axes and hundreds of other stone tools, such as choppers and scrapers made of quartz, were found in more than 20 different sites. Prior to this discovery, it had been thought that hominins would have arrived no earlier than 1 in Crete, Cyprus, several other Greek islands, as well as Sardinia20,000 years ago. Surprisingly, however, the stone tools found in Pachia are at least 130,000 years old.
Stone tools found in Crete are evidence of early sea voyages. *Nicholas Thompson and Chad Digregorio New York Times.
The dating of these tools is determined by stratigraphic analysis, which is the branch of geology that studies rock formations. The cliffs and caves above the coast were uplifted by tectonic action in ancient times. The exposed uplifted rock formations represent a sequence of geological periods that have been well studied and dated. The team analyzed the rock formations with tools and determined that the soils were on the surface between 130,000 and 190,000 years ago.
The rocky cliffs around the village of Plakia are actually a coastal zone from prehistoric times. It was here that the archaeological team began their excavations. **
Considering that Crete has been an island for 5 million years, these tools were only possible when hominin or pre-human species arrived there by boat. This means that sea travel existed in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years ago, as archaeologists initially believed, and that early Homo sapiens or their ancestors used ships capable of navigating the high seas. Prior to this discovery, the oldest sea journeys were anatomically modern Homo sapiens cross-sea migrations to Australia, where they had to travel between islands with a maximum open water distance of 71 kilometers, starting about 60,000 years ago, although this timeline is debatable.
What is particularly interesting is that the style of these tools is similar to what is called"acheulean "The artifacts in the stone tool technology are very similar, and this technology originated in pre-humans in Africa. For decades, the standard hypothesis has been that the acheulean toolmakers reached Europe and Asia through the Middle East, mainly through what is now Turkey and into the Balkans. The discovery in Crete raises the possibility that human migration was not limited to overland routes, and could also include crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Africa to Spain, or from Libya to Crete – a journey of about 200 miles (320 km).
Initially, it was thought that the earliest ships were rafts with sails sewn from animal skins and tied to branches to the wind. However, experts who study early maritime history say that ancient navigators needed better tools to complete their voyages between North Africa and Crete.
One theory is that the ships of Stone Age immigrants were log rafts with sails sewn from animal skins and tied to branches to flutter in the wind.
Archaeologists have not been able to determine whether the tools found in Crete were made by Homo sapiens or other pre-human ancestors. 130,000 years ago, modern humans lived in this world alongside other great apes such as Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in Heidelberg. It has long been thought that early humans, and certainly pre-human species, were incapable of building ships or navigating open water. But this finding challenges this assertion and shows that they are capable of performing more complex behaviors than relatively simple stone tools.
In a statement about the discovery, the Greek Ministry of Culture said:"The results of the survey not only provide evidence of maritime navigation in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years earlier than we know so far, but they also change our understanding of early human cognitive abilities.
This research, if confirmed by further research, will upend the timeline of technological development and provide new insights into how ancient humans migrated and expanded around the world.
Recommended**: Stone Age rafts. **look and learn / barbara loe collection
Author: John Black.