NYTimes.com reports on a discovery dating seafaring to 100,000-Plus Years Ago (that's MUCH earlier than thought)

On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: February 15, 2010

Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected.

That is the startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say, are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for rethinking the maritime capabilities of prehuman cultures.

Crete has been an island for more than five million years, meaning that the toolmakers must have arrived by boat. So this seems to push the history of Mediterranean voyaging back more than 100,000 years, specialists in Stone Age archaeology say. Previous artifact discoveries had shown people reaching Cyprus, a few other Greek islands and possibly Sardinia no earlier than 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

via nytimes.com

Click on that nytimes.com link above to read the rest of this fascinating article about VERY ancient mariners.

Of course... those tool-makers might not have taken a boat over--they might have *flown*. ;)

Hey, maybe flight goes back further, too!!

OK, maybe not. I'm just happy any time I see a story like this because it shows off just how versatile and adaptive science is. Good science updates and changes as new evidence becomes apparent.

How do we really know those tool-makers didn't fly there? Because we have no evidence that planes existed back then. If some archeologist were to uncover a Cesna-sized kite with a harness attached to it in some ancient dig, then science would update their conclusions. Until then, scientists assume folks got to Crete via the known technology of the time.

So reasonable! :)

Posted via web from thepete's posterous