Ancient Sea Travel

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:49 am

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5398850.stm

After leaving Africa, human groups probably followed coastal routes to the Americas and South-East Asia.

Professor Jon Erlandson says the maritime capabilities of ancient humans have been greatly underestimated

From our news section.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 11:47 am

Tonight on Discovery channel is a rerun of Before Columus - the First Americans. A study that includes a fictionalized account of how humans from ancient France may have crossed the Atlantic to America.

Prior to that is a new show on Neanderthal. Check local listings.

Harte · Post by **Harte** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 2:03 pm

Beagle wrote:Tonight on Discovery channel is a rerun of Before Columus - the First Americans. A study that includes a fictionalized account of how humans from ancient France may have crossed the Atlantic to America.

Prior to that is a new show on Neanderthal. Check local listings.

Beagle,

Don't tell me you're gonna watch this over the Tennessee-Georgia game!

Harte

stan · Post by **stan** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 3:12 pm

The other day I watched the film Kon-Tiki, the great original black and white documentary of the voyage to Polynesia from Peru made by Thor Heyerdahl and crew on a balsa-log raft.
In the context of the peopling of the Americas that we've been discussing, the conclusions of this voyage aren't so helpful, in that the KonTiki followed the trade winds and currents in the opposite direction. Heyerdahl felt that this proved the peopling of Polynesia from South America.
On the other hand, the voyage proved a couple of things that are germaine to sea travel in general.

1. Balsa wood, lashed toghether by ropes, will float a long time and a long way....101 days, and three thousand miles or so.
2. There is plenty to eat in the ocean. These guys had no trouble catching dolphins, shark, flying fish, squid, and other things.

The drawback of the Kon-Tiki as a craft was that she couldn't be steered much. With a fixed sail, she had to keep her stern to windward at all times, and couldn't land at will when passing islands.
It would seem that a long narrow raft of balsa wood and a more flexible sail system would be much more navigable....
so if the raw materials and the desire to travel were present, it seems plausible that early humans could have taken long voyages.

marduk · Post by **marduk** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:39 pm

lose the sail and folow the right current and its much easier
and quicker

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 4:47 pm

Harte wrote:
Beagle wrote:Tonight on Discovery channel is a rerun of Before Columus - the First Americans. A study that includes a fictionalized account of how humans from ancient France may have crossed the Atlantic to America.

Prior to that is a new show on Neanderthal. Check local listings.
Beagle,

Don't tell me you're gonna watch this over the Tennessee-Georgia game!

Harte

No way fellow UT fan! Discovery repeats the shows on late night. Long evening ahead.

Go Vols.

stan · Post by **stan** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 6:05 pm

ose the sail and folow the right current and its much easier
and quicker

But you might want to go somewhere else. WIth a different sail rig,you could really navigate.

Leona Conner · Post by **Leona Conner** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:14 pm

How about the use oars when the wind failed? If you see an island and want to go there, drop the sails and start paddling.

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:26 pm

The Club has probably decreed that oars were not invented until 6,000 BC in the Crimea.

Leona Conner · Post by **Leona Conner** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:36 pm

"The Club" is that another name for the G.O.D.s (Guardians Of Dogma)?

Post by **Minimalist** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:55 pm

Indeed!

stan · Post by **stan** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:56 pm

How about the use oars when the wind failed? If you see an island and want to go there, drop the sails and start paddling.

One reason the Kon-Tiki couldn't be steered is that it was a rectangular raft with several centerboards. It did have a rudder, but it was not of much use except in keeping the stern to the wind.
That's why I suggested a redesign with a more long and narrow shape, and maybe some other kind of keel.
Surely the observation of floating trees, and the idea of tying them together must have occurred early on.
Don't know about sails, though.

Beagle · Post by **Beagle** » Sat Oct 07, 2006 8:29 pm

Beagle wrote:
Harte wrote:
Beagle wrote:Tonight on Discovery channel is a rerun of Before Columus - the First Americans. A study that includes a fictionalized account of how humans from ancient France may have crossed the Atlantic to America.

Prior to that is a new show on Neanderthal. Check local listings.
Beagle,

Don't tell me you're gonna watch this over the Tennessee-Georgia game!

Harte
No way fellow UT fan! Discovery repeats the shows on late night. Long evening ahead.

Go Vols.

Sam Salmon · Post by **Sam Salmon** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:43 am

Having spent a lot of time in small boats sportfishing off the coasts of the Americas North/Central and South it's easy to see how people could use the resources at hand to live/migrate further and further onward.

What the article doesn't convey is how tough/resourceful/adaptable/bloody minded those humans were.

It's not enough to just 'follow kelp forests'.

Yes there are huge stretches of kelp but the sea is more often than not rough/cold/dangerous and never welcoming.

Post by **Minimalist** » Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:57 am

Even classical Greco-Roman sailors stayed close to land, beached their ships at night and stayed put if they saw a storm coming. Still, the following the coast and living off the sea theory makes a great deal more sense than a great land migration...which would also have a great deal of danger and climatic discomfort associated with it.