7000 Year Old Oar Found in Korea

[Minimalist]

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNew ... 67405.html

SEOUL - SOUTH Korean archaeologists said on Tuesday they have unearthed a rare neolithic period wooden boat oar, believed to date back about 7,000 years but still in good condition.

The oar was discovered in mud land in Changnyeong, 240 kilometres southeast of Seoul, the Gimhae National Museum said. 'This is a very rare find, not only in South Korea but also in the world,' museum researcher Yoon On-Shik told AFP. 'We have to check with Chinese artefacts to confirm whether it is the oldest watercraft ever found in the world.'

One of the oldest boats or related artefacts was found in China's Zhejiang province in 2005 and was believed to date back about 8,000 years. The oar, which was found intact in its entirety, is 1.81 metres long. 'The oar was well preserved because fine mud layers completely blocked oxygen from decaying it,' Mr Yoon said.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Wake me up when they've found seven hundred thousand year old oars.
If 100 million year old dino soft tissue and feathers can be found, then why not 700,000 year old oars (if they ever existed)?

[Minimalist]

I figured you say something like - "just because they had oars does not mean they had boats."

[Rokcet Scientist]

I figured you say something like - "just because they had oars does not mean they had boats."

Let me repeat then for your benefit: I theorize that (the first*) hominids who developed sailing – as in willful navigation – did so around 1 MYA (after they walked to Java, 1,57 MYA, and before Bednarik's HE sailed, ± 800 KYA. We still need to find evidence of that, of course. And 700,000 year old oars would be a good start.

At the same time I hold that hominids on their continental migrations, with whole family groups including women, children, infirm, and elderly, even if they knew about sailing, would prefer to walk as long as they could, in preference to sailing, which was a high-risk enterprise to which one doesn't like to expose one's loved ones voluntarily.
Hominid hunting parties, that would consist of young, healthy men, would be another matter entirely, of course. I can see hunting parties trying to reach the next (is)land by straddling a tree trunk and paddling like mad. (Of course they would often be swept out to sea by the tide, never to be seen again...). But that wouldn't be the transport mode of choice of whole families and/or for long distances unless you put a gun to their heads.

*if one group of HE, on one side of the globe, developed some sort of sailing/navigation ± 1 MYA, doesn't mean that all HE, all around the planet, would know about it around that same time! They didn't have TV, radio, the internet, or telephones. For that knowledge to travel/disperse to more or less all around the globe probably took a few hundred thousand years.

[Digit]

One logical answer RS is that the dead dinos simply died and fell over. The oars didn't!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

would prefer to walk as long as they could, in preference to sailing, which was a high-risk enterprise to which one doesn't like to expose one's loved ones voluntarily.

To be completely serious this is the bone of contention. Travel by sea ( as long as you remain near the coastline ) is vastly easier and safer than land travel once you have developed boating technology. There are no rivers/streams to cross. No gullies. No tidal flats. No mountains. You get the idea. Further, you are more or less protected from sudden ambush by hostiles. At sundown, you put into shore and forage for water and food. Next day, weather permitting, you can sail on. This model of coasting remained in use for many centuries. Frankly, it seems unlikely that any significant overland travel could have occurred without some conception of how to cross a large river. Out of Africa would have been in trouble when they reached the Shatt al Arab. Yet we know they got across.

The Romans built an extensive network of roads but sea travel remained the predominant method of shipping because of speed and cost factors, and that was with the Romans patrolling the roads for brigands. Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, even your beloved Carthaginians never bothered with a road network as it was unimportant to them.

The key remains when did humans learn how to sail.

[Rokcet Scientist]

would prefer to walk as long as they could, in preference to sailing, which was a high-risk enterprise to which one doesn't like to expose one's loved ones voluntarily.

To be completely serious this is the bone of contention. Travel by sea ( as long as you remain near the coastline ) is vastly easier and safer than land travel once you have developed boating technology. There are no rivers/streams to cross. No gullies. No tidal flats. No mountains. You get the idea. Further, you are more or less protected from sudden ambush by hostiles. At sundown, you put into shore and forage for water and food. Next day, weather permitting, you can sail on. This model of coasting remained in use for many centuries. Frankly, it seems unlikely that any significant overland travel could have occurred without some conception of how to cross a large river. Out of Africa would have been in trouble when they reached the Shatt al Arab. Yet we know they got across.

The Romans built an extensive network of roads but sea travel remained the predominant method of shipping because of speed and cost factors, and that was with the Romans patrolling the roads for brigands. Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, even your beloved Carthaginians never bothered with a road network as it was unimportant to them.

The key remains when did humans learn how to sail.

Yes: the key remains WHEN did humans learn HOW to sail.
Your concept of sailing seems to assume a real 'boat-boat' from Day One, a floating hollow container large enough to hold a group of people, that they could propel and steer at will. I submit that there probably was at least half a million years between that paddled and barely steerable tree trunk, my 'boat' 1 MYA, and your self-propelled and navigable 'boat' – say canoes with outriggers – that was practical and safe enough to gamble one's loved ones on, and could reliably cover considerable distances across open water.

[Minimalist]

Well, since we don't know WHEN they started sailing it also follows that we don't know WHAT they were sailing in.

Still...I'll allow that it is unlikely that someone sat down and designed a boat from scratch. But the hollowed out log...maybe even with an outrigger....doesn't seem like like a great advance on the evolutionary scale from a raft.

[Digit]

Thanks for that Min, you have clearly expressed what I consider to be the logical view.
RS, I do not make that assumption as one point has been missed by both you and Min, one which I made some time ago.
According to the experts HE arose in the area of the great rift, which as I understand it was an area of lakes, thus logic would suggest that HE was water craft familiar long before he left Africa.
I would also repeat the point that I and Sam Salmon? made at that time, walking through virgin forest not a sensible alternative to beach combing/water travel.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Overland travel - forested or not - is both slower and more dangerous than sea travel.

Good point about the lakes, Dig.

[kbs2244]

"A floating hollow container large enough to hold a group of people, that they could propel and steer at will. "

Reed boats are not hollow.
At most pointed rafts with splash walls along the sides.

But they were extensively used on both fresh and salt water for trips of some distance.

[Minimalist]

Right, kb. Humans have developed various solutions to the problem of sea travel dependent, it would seem, on the materials at hand. As Heyerdahl showed one could get a pretty fair distance across open sea in a reed boat.

The issue remains when did humans develop the cognitive power to solve the problem?

[Rokcet Scientist]

Overland travel - forested or not - is both slower and more dangerous than sea travel.

Beach combing/hugging is faster and safer than cutting through dense forests and crossing mountain ranges. It is also a lot safer than sailing. Besides: the waterline was the best, steady food source. You don't want to leave a reliable, safe food source.
Yes sailing would have been faster, but afaik that's a completely moot point as they didn't have any appointments to keep... Or do you have information that they were in a hurry to get to some specific place fast?

[Minimalist]

I don't think walking along a beach is all that easy. In addition you have marshes and tidal flats and then there are those damned estuaries which are always biggest at the shoreline.

So much easier to move 50 yards off shore and sail.

[Digit]

Enter picture of nutty Hollanders walk/wading an estuary!
Not to mention fast incoming tides Min quick sands etc.

Roy.