one million years of sailing

mortongr@flash.net
Tue, 20 Jul 1999 21:00:47 +0000

I just read one of the most fascinating articles I have read in a while.
It is
Robert G. Bednarik, "Maritime Navigation in the Lower and Middle
Palaeolithic," C.R. Academie des sciences, Paris, 328(1999):559-563

Bednarik has compiled an impressing set of evidence for mankind's
navigation of the oceans over the past million years. He begins with a site
that I have noted before on this list, the island of Flores:

"One of the most significant finds in the history of Pleistocene
archaeology is the discovery that hominids 800,000 years ago managed to
cross the sea to colonise a number of Indonesian islands. The islands
easst of Bali (Wallacea) have never been connected to either the Asian
orthe Australian plate, but they were found to have been occupied by Homo
erectus as well as by several endemic species of Stegondontidae at the end
of the Early Pleistocene. The seafaring capability of this hominid, first
proposed in this journal, effectively refutes the widely accepted
hypothesis of a very recent origin of language and 'modern human
behavior'." Robert G. Bednarik, "Maritime Navigation in the Lower and
Middle Palaeolithic," C.R. Academie des sciences, Paris, 328(1999):559-563,
p. 559

"Continuing work at more than ten sites in the Soa Basin of central Flores
suggests that hominids arrived there 850000 to 800 000 years ago." Robert
G. Bednarik, "Maritime Navigation in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic,"
C.R. Academie des sciences, Paris, 328(1999):559-563, p. 559

THis is an incredibly long time ago. And it clearly says good things about
the intelligence of Homo erectus! In fact, Bednarik in one sense traces the
successes of human technology to this event.

"The first Indonesian crossings of several sea barriers involved the use
of water craft. This was the first time in human history that our
ancestors entrusted their destiny to a contraption designed to harness the
eneergies of nature: wind, waves, currents and buoyancy. All human
development followed on from that first technological triumph." Robert G.
Bednarik, "Maritime Navigation in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic," C.R.
Academie des sciences, Paris, 328(1999):559-563, p. 560

To me the most fascinating aspect of this was what I learned. Crete
apparently was first colonized 50,000 years ago. This means that mankind
was sailing the Mediterranean for at least that long. And interesting, he
cites a skelton found on Crete of this age that combines Neandertal and
human traits.

"There are no known depictions of water craft in Pleisotcene art, and no
physical remains suggestive of navigation older than 10 500 year have ever
been found. Nevertheless, indirect evidence of Pleistocene seafaring is
available from two regions, the Mediterranean and eastern Asia. The
occurrence of obsidian from the island Melos in Frachthi Cave, on the Greek
mainland, indicates wide-ranging seafaring in the easter Mediterranean by
about 11 000 BP. Much earlier are the human remains from Crete, combining
Neanderthaloid and modern features, and apparently about 50 000 years old.
Crete was not connected to the mainland during the Pleistocene, nor was
another Greek island, Kefallinia, where Mousterian tools have been found.
But the earliest European evidence of island colonisation comes from
Sardinia, which was at times connected to Corsica, but not to the mainland.
At Sao Coa de sa Multa near Perfuga, Clactonica-like stone tools have been
excavated in Middle Pleistocene sediment, suggesting that even Lower
Palaeolithic hominids managed to reach Mediterranean islands.
"This raises the issue of having to account for the similarities between
Acheulian artefact traditions in northwestern Africa and on the Iberian
Peninsula, which Freeman already attributes to an ability of Acheulian
hunters to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. Although 14 km today, its width
is thought to have been as little as 5-7 km during times of lowest
Pleistocene sea levels. The proposition of a hominid crossing at
Girbraltar may remain tenuous, but the late arrival of handaxe traditions
in southeastern Europ is conspicuous. MOreover, the evolutionary
trajectories of the Maghreb and Iberian handaxe industries seem identical.
This issue needs to be re-examined in the light of the evidence from
Indonesia, where maritime navigation capability evidently developed towards
the end of the Lower Pleistocene.
"There is evidence of Pleistocene seafaring elsewhere in eastern Asia.
For instance, Japan my have been settled via a landbridge from Korea, but
the presence of obsidian from the Japanese island Kozushima on the main
island of Honshu some 20 000 to 30 000 years ago indicates considerable
navigational ability. The sea distance is about 87 km today. At that time,
much greater distances had already been traversed by colonising mariners
further south. Their cultural remains have been detected in Golo and Wetef
Caves on Gebe Island (between Sulawesi and New Guinea), up to 33 000 years
old, and from around the same time on some Pacific islands: in the Bismarck
Archipelago (Matenkupkum and Buang Marabak on New Ireland) and Solomons
(Kilu Rockshelter, Buka Island). The distance from New Ireland to Buka is
close to 180 km. The Monte Bello Islands are 120 km from the northwestern
coast of Australia, and were first settled prior to 27 000 years ago.
Between 20 000 and 15 000 years ago, obsidian from New Britain was
transporte dto New Ireland, and the cuscus, a Sahulian species, was
introduced in the Moluccas at that time. Importantly, all Pleistocene
seafarers in the general region of Australasia possessed an essentially
Middle rather than Upper Palaeolithic technology." Robert G. Bednarik,
"Maritime Navigation in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic," C.R. Academie
des sciences, Paris, 328(1999):559-563, p. 560

Apparently, the sailing surprises are not over. In the following, Stegodon
is an extinct elephant that lived around 800 thousand years ago.

"The latest and most important developments in this work are discoveries
made in late 1998 near Atambua, West Timor. At the sites Motaoan and
To'os, hominid occupation evidence was recovered in the Weaiwe Formation, a
fossiliferous conglomerate stratum containing also remains of stegodon.
This includes a retouched stone tool found together with a stegondon molar,
and a burnt stegodon bone.
"The evidence so far assembled warrants a number of important
propositions. The presence of Homo erectus populations at several
Indonesian deep-water islands indicates the navigational ability ofthat
species, which probably commenced about a million years ago in the region
of Java and Bali. It presents sound evidence of 'reflective'
communication, most probably in the form of speech. Replicative
experimentation has shown unequivocally that island colonisation by
maritime navigation is impossible without numerous interdependent
technological capabillities, long-term forward planning, the support of a
social system, and effective communication. Such replication studies have
resulted in the complete rejection of the concept that the settlement of
Wallacea could have occurred unintentionally or accidentally. We can only
know about sea crossings that resulted in successful colonisations capable
of being visible on the very coarse and taphonomically distorted
'archaeological record'. To achieve such crossings, a sufficient number of
males and females to found a new population had to survive the journey, in
each and every case. This required adequate vessels to convey these
people, their supplies and equipment. To suggest that such sea-going
vessles were built without a deliberate plan, and that an adequate number
of people was in each case swept out to sea on them against their will is
not just illogical, it is symptomatic of a discipline that perceives
hominids as culturally, technologically and cognitively inferior, much in
the same way Europeans once treated indigenous peoples in other continents.
These kinds of minimalist arguments, which permeate many aspects of
Pleistocene archaeology, indicate a lack of knowledge about the practical
aspects of the human past. To appreciate the circumstances in which the
'archaeological record' formed requires understanding derived from
practical experimentation with the materials in question, unde rhte
conditions in question, and involves appreciation of taphonomic processes
and metamorphological biases." Rober G. Bednarik, "Maritime Navigation in
the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic," C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris,
328(1999):559-563, p. 5653

Finding evidence of hominid habitation of Timor around this time, the
island closest to Australia, places Homo erectus next door to Australia 800
kyr ago or so. The dates are still uncertain because radiometric dates are
not in yet.

In this article, Bednarik reports on the manufacture of rafts using Lower
and middle Paleolithic tools. They then launched these rafts and they were
able to float to Australia. The implications are that there is a
possiblitity that H. erectus might have made it to Australia. Currently no
erectus skeletal material or cultural material has been found. But it is
becoming clearer and clearer that erectus was on the verge for the past 800
thousand years.

THis also says a lot about the cognitive abilities of erectus as Bednarik
notes. Christian apologists who denigrate the abilities of fossil men don't
really know what they are talking about. They are blind leaders of the blind.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm

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