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.

Comments

Re:They're just rocks.

[Arker]

To the untrained eye that is all they would appear, sure. I dont think the troll moderation was entirely fair - I would bet that a lot of readers looked at the photo at the top of that page and thought the same thing.

But, look for instance at the second piece from the right at the top of the story. Look at the top-left edge. See those repeated scallops that define the edge? That is not a naturally occuring stone, that is a hand-axe or "chopper" which has been intelligently worked and shaped for a purpose.

The article is pretty crappy though (as is expected with "science reporting" unfortunately.) The commentary regarding early human sea-crossing capabilities is a bit... well... warped. Even though there is a throwaway mention of non-modern humans it is given no context and the rest of the text appears quite ignorant of it. The fourth paragraph is one big facepalm. It implies several times that this find somehow indicates a 200-mile crossing from Africa, when it does nothing of the sort. Given the loose dating (prior to 130kya by geological strata) it would seem quite likely that the ancient population who made these tools crossed at or near a glacial maximum, when sea levels were much lower than today, making for much less open sea even if they did come directly from the African coast. And, at least from what I can see, there is no reason whatsoever to think they came from that direction anyway. More likely they came in over much shorter distances from the north, at a time when sea levels were low and the voyage would have been very short. If the dating comes in as early as some of the quotes indicate, this could even have been at the same time that the hippopotamus made the same journey.