Slashdot Mirror
Stone Tools Found On Crete Push Back Humans' Maritime History
The New York Times reports that stone tools discovered on the Greek island of Crete, and reported last month at an academic conference, are strong evidence for rethinking the maritime capabilities of early humans. The researchers who found the tools (hand-axes, cleavers, and scrapers) estimate them to be at least 130,000 years old; if they're right, humans have been traveling long distances at sea (Crete is 200 miles from the northern African coastline) for at least several tens of thousands of years longer than earlier believed.
Although they state that the tools have been dated to be around 230-190k years ago, but that tools could have been made far prior to that, giving a possible estimate of the tools being up to 700k years old. Despite this, they never really say why this changes their view on sea-faring of ancient times. Currently the north shore of Africa is about 200 miles from crete, but what they seem to have failed to take into account (or at least mention in the article) is that in ancient times sea levels were much much lower. This is estimated to be due to deglacification around 7k years ago. The National Institute of Oceanography states that in studies the sea level of India's coast were about 100m lower about 14k years ago, so extrapolating (a dangerous game I know =) we could say it may be possible that at some point the voyage to Crete was either walkable, or a very short sea voyage. It should also be noted that the technology is of the Acheulean type. Regardless it is still a fascinating discovery, and it never ceases to amaze me at how much we underestimate our ancestors, until we slowly find things that we never thought possible before, for example the Antikythera mechanism. Who knows what we'll find out tomorrow.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Okay. So you don't have any archaeological training and you haven't studied them under a microscope to verify that they were indeed used as tools (this can be determined by examining the amount and direction of ... uhm, microscopic marks. Don't know what it's called in English).
But just because you don't know anything about a subject doesn't mean you have to have opinions about it.
Its pretty easy to island hop from mainland Greece to Crete. You would be looking at 20km at a stretch. Thats very easy in a modern sea kayak. Even if proper hulls were beyond them they could build a sailing raft. There was more wood around in those days.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1500 meters. It is possible that parts of the sea body were shallow enough to have exposed a few islands although it would seem that a great deal of it would still be very very deep and likely rather difficult to traverse without some sort of raft/boat technology.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Sure, if you can smuggle the mathematical concept of infinity in you can always get absurd results. :)
But in reality these are indeed as you say 'the real deal' - stones dont knapp themselves. If you ever get a chance to see how things things were made up close you will understand why. It's quite a fascinating - and painstaking - craft.
I'm still thinking the article is melodramatic fluff though. It's not at all surprising to see these things on Crete with such a date. We know archaic homonids made them, we know they spread out all along the coastlines 'beachcombing' just as our own ancestors did a little later. And island-hopping to Crete during a glacial maximum should have been well within their capabilities - other large mammals were doing it too, the hippos I already mentioned, elephants, even deer made that crossing at various points.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
striations?
weinersmith
The original humans reached Australia when the sea levels were significantly lower, and while you're right that you couldn't just walk it, there may have only been a single crossing of ~90km between southeast asia and the Australia-ish landmass. Wiki
.evom ton seod gis eht
Try 5.33Mya.
Excuse me, wtf r u doin?
No, you are thinking of the black sea. The mediteranean is 5 million years old.
The Med has not been a dry basin for millions of years. You could have learned that if you'd RTFA or just did a little basic homework before spouting off a totally false statement like that.
In addition to carbon data there are other strata around things dug up that give an indication to its relative age. Another indication of a tool's age is mentioned in the article's fourth paragraph: style of manufacturer.
Since those folks didn't leave readme files or cookbooks around, everything was taught by learning how the person a little older than you did things. For that reason there's a remarkable amount of consistency in materials and manufacturer, given how difficult making stone tools with stone tools can be. The tools they used were fashioned to provide enough direct force at an angle of impact to provide the right fracture on the right material so a chip would flake off. For example, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture.
It was so difficult to make those tools stone age peoples in Colorado, USA would carry them over the Continental Divide west of the Denver area to the present day Denver area when hunting. A cache of them were found recently in a private yard where some landscaping work was done. Their protected condition and careful placement suggested the original people may have stashed a set here for a return hunting trip or similar.
These tools are very hard to make. Given a few months of time people today would do nothing but learn how to live with two fingers instead of ten. When I was an anthropology student I not only the chance to see these tools up close but watch a demonstration of someone making them. And that was rock on obsidian for arrow heads and knives.
The Luddites were ahead of their time.