PreModern Navigation to Crete

[hardaker]

HAPPY NEW YEAR ARCHAEOLOGICA!!

Looks like "crazy" just became the new normal.
130k dates are minimums. Still, it means that the site is at least 119k older than the previous oldest site on Crete (11k).
Chris


http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic ... _seafarers


Ancient hominids may have been seafarers
Hand axes excavated on Crete suggest hominids made sea crossings to go 'out of Africa'
By Bruce Bower

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Human ancestors that left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago to see the rest of the world were no landlubbers. Stone hand axes unearthed on the Mediterranean island of Crete indicate that an ancient Homo species — perhaps Homo erectus — had used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via at least some of the larger islands in between, says archaeologist Thomas Strasser of Providence College in Rhode Island.

Several hundred double-edged cutting implements discovered at nine sites in southwestern Crete date to at least 130,000 years ago and probably much earlier, Strasser reported January 7 at the annual meeting of the American Institute of Archaeology. Many of these finds closely resemble hand axes fashioned in Africa about 800,000 years ago by H. erectus, he says. It was around that time that H. erectus spread from Africa to parts of Asia and Europe. ...

[Minimalist]

Ah, Chris! We love it when someone brings word of boats!

Will the Club claim that they were blasted to Crete by a volcano or something? One never knows.

[hardaker]

I love old boats, too. They reported nothing about igneousatic aerial transport, but they did reject the Gilligan Theory because they found too many artifacts in too many strata to suggest accidental landings. Can't wait to see the artifacts.

[Minimalist]

I like that. The "Gilligan Theory."

And if people who were capable of building a raft in the first place were shipwrecked on Crete what would stop them from repairing (or re-building) their raft/boat? Crete was heavily forested in antiquity. Surely they would have thought to cut down some Cretan Trees?

Ah well. No theory is too outlandish when it comes to dismissing unwanted evidence!

[Rokcet Scientist]

Great! Every new piece of evidence underscores that HE conquered the world, from about 1,9 mio BP forward, first on foot along the coasts (of that epoch!), later by boat, crossing seas. Not HS(S) between 70,000 and 40,000 years BP! HS(S) merely followed in their ancestor's footsteps and hybridized with their pioneering cousins when they met them along the way and in far lands (Aboriginals being the best example; but present day Asians/Indians, Caucasians, and Africans are also all descendants of hybrids of HE and HS(S)).

Hail to Gramps!

[hardaker]

Ahhh.
The Nookie Factor!

[hardaker]

This has got to revolutionize Mediterranean archaeology, perhaps out to the Canary Islands? England? Waterworld?

If anyone can find photos of the site or artifacts, please post. I am wondering if the rock is really quartzite instead of quartz. It has to be a quarry site given the many bifaces. The guy's been working there twenty years on 9-11k stuff and younger. How could he overlook quartz in such quantities? How could this guy walk over it until somebody else had to come along and ask, "hey, what's that quartz thingy over there??" Even it if is quartzite, I immediately have to suspect his lithics acumen. I don't know if it is erectus/acheulean hand axe bifaces (?); possibly an erectus refugia in the older deposits? The outstanding aspect of the discovery is the range of ages covered: the final stages of our evolution in lithics. That's incredible in itself. But it is also the final stages acted out in an island environment, over a long period of time. Sweet.

Just found another article at Wired
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/ ... more-16626

[kbs2244]

“They merely followed in their ancestor's footsteps and hybridized with their pioneering cousins when they met them along the way and in far lands.”

Well:
Sailors will be sailors.


Interesting concept though.
Not quite as far out as the Florida Manatee being the basis for the mermaid stories,
so worth considering.

[Rokcet Scientist]

HS(S) merely followed in their ancestor's footsteps and hybridized with their pioneering cousins [HE] when they met them along the way and in far lands

OTOH... if you look at Gramps's mouth it's easy to understand why they called him homo...

[Minimalist]

Not quite as far out as the Florida Manatee being the basis for the mermaid stories,

Sailors drink a lot, and after you've been at sea a while...........

[Sam Salmon]

igneousatic no definition found-can anyone enlighten me?

[Minimalist]

I think Chris was inventing a word to cover my sarcastic suggestion that the Club would prefer to think that these hand axes were blasted over to Crete by volcanic activity.

[hardaker]

Rats! Busted. It's a good cop.