Boats?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Britain wasn't populated until about a million years after 'boats' were developed...

You need to do some more reasearch RS. Britain has been occupied then the occupants driven out by ice quite a number of times.

Britain was first populated by hominids (probably HE) walking across what is now the North Sea, Roy. It was a huge softly undulating flood plain (like the north of Holland today, only a thousand times bigger; for the largest part a prairie-like landscape) where mammoths, mastodons, woolly rhinos, and giant deer roamed by the hundreds of thousands*. And lots of seafood! Ideal HE trekking country.
Sure people got pushed out and south by the ice a couple times. And they returned later, just as many times. First on foot, across the North Sea flood plain, like the first time. Later by 'boat'. When that had become a) neccessary (risen sea levels), and b) possible (because boats had finally been developed). In that order.

* as a result a Dutch museum today stores the largest collection of mammoth bones and tusks in the world, thousands of them: all scooped up by fishermen trawling the North Sea bottom, as that was a huge flood plain 64,000 to 1,000,000 years BP. They catch that stuff every week!

My point in showing you those pix was to establish that it can be done, easily, and was done to get to the other side.

Problem with that RS is it is probably the only place on the planet where it can be done.

Sorry, Roy, but that is bullshit: just about every great river has an enormously wide and very shallow estuary. That defines estuaries!

That water is too shallow for most Sharks

Yep, so sharks that want to go inland/upstream adapt themselves: bullsharks can be found upto 600 miles upstream from the mouths of the rivers they entered!
But they very, very rarely attack humans!!!

Dunno

etc

'wade-walked' the world's coastlines between 2.0 and 1.0 million years BP.

Till they reached a major river then spent 'thousands of years' diverting around it.

When that was the only option that's what they did indeed! And so what? They didn't have an appointment to be on the other side inside a particular time frame. They literally had all the time in the world (and used it).

It was? Can't recall. Show me a link/quote please.

Way back! When you first postulated walking.

Like I thought: you cannot quote me on that, because I never said it.

[Digit]

Britain was first populated by hominids (probably HE) walking across what is now the North Sea, Roy.

Agreed.
But if boats were invented a million years before that event, (your date), then there would have been no need for the Andaman islanders nor Oz colonists to walk any where!

Like I thought: you cannot quote me on that, because I never said it.

Do not arrempt to make a liar out of me 'cos you happen to have a bad memory. I have NO intention of 'wading' through your short sigted comments to prove anything!
And the next time your this way you can attempt to even FIND a shallow wadeable estuary, but bring a life jacket with you, with the tide out you would not even reach the water in most of our rivers!

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Britain was first populated by hominids (probably HE) walking across what is now the North Sea, Roy.

Agreed.
But if boats were invented a million years before that event, (your date), then there would have been no need for the Andaman islanders nor Oz colonists to walk any where!

You're muddling things up, Roy: I said HE conquered the world on foot – including the Andamans, Oz, the Americas, and Britain – before 1 million years BP. So before boats were invented.
Sea levels rose a lot since then, and changed the way the world looked, neccessitating boats to get to the other side. That was when and why boats were developed.

Like I thought: you cannot quote me on that, because I never said it.

Do not arrempt to make a liar out of me 'cos you happen to have a bad memory. I have NO intention of 'wading' through your short sigted comments to prove anything!
And the next time your this way you can attempt to even FIND a shallow wadeable estuary, but bring a life jacket with you, with the tide out you would not even reach the water in most of our rivers!

No need to start calling names, Roy. When you claim someone stated something you better have proof when called out or you won't be taken seriously. Without proof it's a cheap shot.
You cannot prove I ever said "they had no boats because we never found any", because I never said that. In fact I did say exactly the opposite, a number of times: absence of evidence is not equal to evidence of absence.

[Digit]

So now we have an unproven HE migration across an unproven land bridge caused by an unproven tectonic event at an unproven time!
And doubless led by the Star of Bethlehem!

Without proof it's a cheap shot.

Look it up for yourself, I have other things to do!

And without proof so is your theory, you desire proof when you want it and ignor it when it's not convenient.

Roy.

[Sam Salmon]

Apparently you've never heard of 'dead tide': a period of about half an hour when the tide is not coming in, nor going out. I.o.w.: no current! 4 times a day. Two of which – the change from low tide to incoming tide – are excellently 'wade-able'! So estuaries can be waded during low tide and dead tide. That's 13 hours each day! I.o.w.: plenty 'wade-ability'!

This is nothing more than wishful thinking and that's being polite about it.

Depending on the tide swing there is generally a period of slack water that can last as much as 20 minutes however 10 is more common after that the whole process starts up again, living where I do with up to 5 metre tides slack water is often not worth the mention and anyone depending on low slack to travel is in tough shape.

[Digit]

And with my local river Sam low tide is accompanied by increases in the flow rate of the water of course, as I pointed out to RS.
With a pack on my back I would be very dubious about entering a moderately fast flow that was more than a couple of feet deep, as I know from experience, and flowing water can of course be damned cold!

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Roy, everything I say about HE walking the earth, wading through estuaries, etc. is pure theory. Speculation. Out loud thinking. There is no proof yet (because I propose it is under 400 feet of water), except for the south African Australopithecines living on the coast on a seafood diet, with red ochre, 4 million years BP. The rest is projection from there. Following a logical train of thought. I don't have proof for it, nor have I ever claimed I had.

But what you do is you attribute certain statements/positions to me, a.k.a. putting words in my mouth. I don't appreciate that and therefore ask you for proof to back up your tainting of me. You don't have that proof of those statements by me. SO STFU AND DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH I NEVER SAID!

[Rokcet Scientist]

So now we have an unproven HE migration across an unproven land bridge caused by an unproven tectonic event at an unproven time!
And doubless led by the Star of Bethlehem!

You forget the unproven statements by me...

[Digit]

SO STFU AND DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH I NEVER SAID!

Never did, like you I'm too bone idle to check all your posts, so have a nice day yourself!!

Roy.

[Sam Salmon]

So how about Rafts?

[Digit]

Personally I'm a bit ambivalent about rafts Sam.
I assume that river or lake craft came before sea travel and that lashing a raft together for a single river crossing might have been okay, but for actual river travel a boat is a hell of a lot handier than a raft.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Personally I'm a bit ambivalent about rafts Sam.
I assume that river or lake craft came before sea travel and that lashing a raft together for a single river crossing might have been okay, but for actual river travel a boat is a hell of a lot handier than a raft.

Concur.
Now we only need proof...

[Digit]

I know from previous posts that Sam has had considerable experience of small boats in open water, mine being limited to inland, but it soon becomes very evident, from home made rafts etc, that a craft with a high aspect ratio requires far less motive power to move it and is also much handier.
HE would have found the same.
Some time ago I discussed, mainly with Min, the expansion/migration of early people and the need they would have to pass through 'occupied' areas.
The Chinese published a report some time ago demonstrating that HE had spread along the southern coast of Asia, with much less movement inland, this supports the coastal migration theory. It still leaves the problem of peacful expansion!
Take our 'founder' group, group A, after a certain period of time their numbers require that they hive off a part of their group, which we will say move east along the coast.
Time passes and group B is now faced with the same problem and group C is formed.
Meantime Group A is again in the same position, but they must now pass through groups B and C without depleting B and Cs resourses.
Time passes, C expands and moves east into the only virgin area to form D, and A B and C also have to do the same.
It would seem that very soon the groups would face two alternatives.
Warfare or water craft!
Based on the Kung's birth control methods I would suggest that without water craft A,B,C, etc would not expand.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

It would seem that very soon the groups would face two alternatives.
Warfare or water craft!

No, they would face 4 alternatives: warfare, and trade and peaceful coexistence, and watercraft, and inland detours!

[Digit]

How the heck is trade gonna over come over crowding?
Detours in land are not supported by the Chinese and argues against your walking the coast, and as I pointed a long time ago walking through virgin forest is a very difficult exercise.
During WW2 the allied forces had to cut a path in PNG as did the SAS in the 60s!

Roy.