Neanderthals May Have Sailed to Crete

Neanderthals May Have Sailed to Crete

Neanderthals, or even older Homo erectus("Upright Man") might have sailed around the Mediterranean, stopping at islands such as Crete and Cyprus, new evidence suggests. The evidence suggests that these hominid species had considerable seafaring and cognitive skills.

"They had to have had boats of some sort; unlikely they swam," said Alan Simmons, lead author of a study about the find in this week's Science. "Many of the islands had no land-bridges, thus they must have had the cognitive ability to both build boats and know how to navigate them."

Faces of our Ancestors

Simmons, a professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, added that there is no direct evidence for boats dating back to over 100,000 years ago. If they were built then, the wood or other natural materials likely eroded. Instead, other clues hint that modern humans may not have been the first to set foot on Mediterranean islands.

On Crete, for example, tools such as quartz hand-axes, picks and cleavers are associated with deposits that may date to 170,000 years ago. Previously, this island, as well as Cyprus, was thought to have first been colonized about 9,000 years ago by late Neolithic agriculturalists with domesticated resources.

Well here we go...

For me this is a very exciting find. The evidence is still building that our distant cousins were not as primitive as first thought. I've written much about early man and his distant cousins. Linked below in my signature. Now here we have a great article proposing what I believe is to be supportive of some of the ideas I've set forth.

The signs are starting to show them being much more sophisticated than had been previously recognized. This contributed to my theory that possibly many of the earliest massive standing stones, blocks and even the earliest and largest Dolmens could be the result of their doing. I know, just conjecture on my part but with the introduction of newer theories based on more finds it does point to a much richer and more robust history yet to be discovered.

As always
Stay tuned.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Now, I've been waiting for this thread since the end of October.

Thats a long time between drinks mate.

Anyway, great research here, and a theory I totally agree with.

S&F - anything Maritime piques my curiosity - every time

Wow Slayer, just wow. This is a real blockbuster of a find. I have often wondered if our very ancient ancestors had the ability to sail the ocean. I wonder if it started with fishing for food, And perhaps weathering a storm, which may have blown them to an island? Perhaps then, they sailed back home and consciously sailed back to the "New Land".

It would be amazing if erectus was capabile of this. it would certianly explain how they ended up in Java.

This is something that I need to think on at some length. Great find and thank you for the post.

This wouldnt surprise me.

Our past is so complex, that its understanding has always been simplified. It has to be this way, actually.

One day, they are going to move some Giant stone, to find a Giant underneath it.





Atleast I am hoping on it.......

S&F

I especially like this quote from Simmons, "Modern humans today quibble about which culture was the first to discover this or that country, but the truth is that many lands were probably first discovered and/or settled by hominid species that were not Homo sapiens."

I'm going with natural disaster and a raft...

They didn't even build these things, they just held on for their lives. This is, the Noah's Ark lol.

Nonanthropogenic rafts

In biology, particularly in island biogeography, non-anthropogenic rafts are an important concept. Such rafts consist of matted clumps of vegetation that has been swept off the dry land by a storm, tsunami, tide, earthquake or similar event; in modern times they sometimes also incorporate other kinds of flotsam and jetsam, e.g. plastic containers. They stay afloat by its natural buoyancy and can travel for hundreds, even thousands of miles and ultimately are destroyed by wave action and decomposition, or make landfall.

Biological rafts are important means of distribution for non-flying animals. For small mammals, amphibians and reptiles in particular, but for many invertebrates as well, such rafts of vegetation are often the only means by which they could reach and – if they are lucky – colonize oceanic islands before human-built vehicles provided another mode of transport.

Yeah, mystery solved !!!

en.wikipedia.org...

So,as the story unfolds with each new discovery,the Neanderthal were pirates of the Mediterranean ?

No wonder we,as humans today,got rid of those ugly bastards.

I thought some would find this interesting.
For me it was just a matter of time.

With as many holes in the archaeological record as there are, the fact that theories of pre-Sapien travel and colonization aren't like sand on a beach, is rather amazing.

Excellent find, Slayer! Thanks for sharing.

Just think.. soon, they'll tell us that Lucy's australopithicene mates were water-walking with coconuts strapped to their feet and THATS how they seeded some of the more elusive islands in Indonesia. Just imagine, the proto-Jesus was a tiny little ham of a hominid using its newly developed brainpower to go on vacation!

I'm excited to see the boat/raft remains when they finally see the light of day. It would be interesting to see how advanced our ancestors were when it came to maritime travel! The replication studies of Pacific/Polynesian travel and African/South American travel already indicate its feasibility.

www.plu.edu...

I have a buddy who is 6'7" 320lbs, long hair, huge beard, protruding brow and heavy cheek bones. He looks like a neanderthal, but is very smart and strong as an ox. I wonder if the neanderthals were just assimilated instead of wiped out, and some people wind up with some of their traits. Very cool to think they weren't dumb creatures incapable of complexity.

YO HO HO and a bottle of Uggg...

Or they were really good swimmers:
www.newscientist.com...

* & Flag

This is wild.Seafaring cavemen.They'd have to mastered boat construction AND celestial navigation.I having trouble seeing pre-erectis having that intelligence level myself.

Originally posted by AgentX09
This is wild.Seafaring cavemen.They'd have to mastered boat construction AND celestial navigation.I having trouble seeing pre-erectis having that intelligence level myself.

The Mediterranean wouldn't need celestial navigation in the distances we are speaking of here and a simple boat could get them to some of the closer islands. Similar to Polynesian cultures island hopping in the South Pacific.

Of course, the wild portion could be that our preconceived and present understand is shifting due to the continual uncovering (because of Slayer!) of evidence contrary to what we "know".

A cheesy line, but one of the best in my opinion is from Agent Kay: "Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

Oh man!!! This is Effing Brilliant! I absolutely adore what you contribute to the ATS community. Keep up the good work S&F

reply to post by ownbestenemy


Hey Slayers, very interesting and S & F but hey this first came out in June in discussions about the age of the Malta teeth - I see you have been slacking off a bit!.... I'm just yanking your chain

___________________________________________________________________________

Comment, the earth has been known to be round for 2,300 years the Greeks figured that out - the date of 500 comes from a myth about Columbus which is incorrect

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now was it log, canoe, raft, swiming, bladder or an actual boat?

reply to post by SLAYER69


Slayer

this is the only thing that makes sense if you study the spread of man. Once the islands 'prove' the Ancient Neanderthal Mariner, the other mainland sites should also be questioned. Trade between them and spread via the seas. Neanderthals are treated like other ethnic races used to be treated. Clearly they had a little more than a grunt and a big stone going for them. The interbreeding with homosaps would already suggest otherwise.

Will

reply to post by Hanslune


Yeah yea yeah

You could've posted too ya know.

I saw it a while back in passing then came across it again earlier today.

Originally posted by Hanslune
Comment, the earth has been known to be round for 2,300 years the Greeks figured that out - the date of 500 comes from a myth about Columbus which is incorrect

Correct, Copernicus's models wouldn't have worked otherwise. The quote isn't to be taken literal, rather in a sense of, what will know tomorrow.....besides, I prefaced that it was cheesy.

ETA: Actually thinking of it, the quote still fits. "Everyone" didn't believe that the world was round, save the knowledgeable. I digress though, such philosophizing is for another time.

Couldn't it be that a long time ago when the sea levels where much lower (lets say 150.000 years ago), they could just basicly walk there, or if not, just crossing small sections with just some primitive floating wood constructions?

Reading this:
www.johnenglander.net...

The graph shows 4 major ice ages, on a cycle of roughly 100,000 years. The last ice age peak was just over 20,000 years ago. At that time sea level was almost 400 feet (120 m) below the present due to the huge quantity of water locked up in the ice sheets, more than a mile deep over North America and Europe.

The Ice age before the most recent one, looks by looking at that graph even a bit worse, so sea levels would have been even lower at about 150.000 years ago, making it possible to almost walk to Crete?

reply to post by Plugin


Good question.

Another angle to consider is while the ocean levels were lower the distance between the mainland and islands were diminished due to more of the land being exposed.

So, Theoretically shorter sailing distances.