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.
132,010 BC @ 00:12 Webster9 wrote: First Post
In a related story, next to one of the axes they found a mast with the words "First Post".
But the amazing part was the -1 Offtopic heading right beside the inscription.
Yay, now I'm a troll too
...and pretty much have always been.
Humans didn't evolve genetically to this modern technological state, the cleverness has always been inherent.
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.
I knew someone was going to say that.
Many primitive stone tools look like plain rocks at first glance, but there are distinctive chip and wear patterns on tools that just don't occur by chance. An expert will be able to tell you very quickly if you're dealing with an actual tool or just a rock that's assumed a suggestive shape.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
An expert will be able to tell you very quickly if you're dealing with an actual tool
Seriously. You're just asking for a smartass remark.
FTA:
Stone tools found on an island indicates that humans were capable of rudimentary sea travel in order to get to Crete from the mainland. Also FTA:
That is an awful lot of stone tools to have just "washed up on to the beach" wouldn't you think so?
TFA states that the team was originally looking for much younger tools on the order of ~11,000 years old when they found these instead. Also FTA:
In other words, the dating of the soil associated with the tools indicates that they are at least 130,000 years old and are of a tool style used by humans/ancestors that is very ancient. The tools were not neccessarily made by early humans as at the time these tools were likely created, humans were not the only hominids. The upper limit for the date of these tools is ~700,000 years which would pre-date modern humans although it seems unlikely that they are that old.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
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.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Crete is 200 miles from coast now. How high was middeterean see during the ice age and have there been islands in between? Maybe they did not travel 200 miles but much lower distance.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
You highlight the quote - "Crete has been an island for more than five million years"
What part of the quote are you and the GP failing to understand? Why do you both seem to be under the delusion that archeoligists have never heard of ice age migration when archeology was the discipline that discovered it?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
But just because you don't know anything about a subject doesn't mean you have to have opinions about it.
I know there's a joke in here somewhere that includes the words "Uh dude," and "Slashdot," but I can't quite make it out.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
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.
"Turning a few old tools into a theory that humans were sea travelers a hundred thousand years before previously thought is a stretch."
The article states Crete has been an island for five millions years. It also states that previously the earliest known sea crossings were 60Kya.
How did the tools get there without some species of hominoid crossing the water? 200 miles is a long way to swim, so how did the hominoids cross the water? What makes you think they brought the tools with them? How do you know that quartz is not the only suitable tool making rock found on Crete?
Nobody is suggesting they deliberately navigated to Crete but it's not a streach to think they were "going to sea" in some sort of raft/boat that was used for near shore spear fishing. Nor is it a streach to think a some of them were swept away to sea by currents/storms and ended up accidently colonising Crete.
Science is about the best available explaination that fits the evidence, do you have a better explaination of how hominoids got to Crete other than the one that says they arrived by some sort of prehistoric boat/raft?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Getting to an island that is now ~500 km off shore
Where do you get that number from? Other people are mentioning 200 miles which is also wrong. According to Wikipedia, Crete is only 100 miles (160km) from mainland Greece and looking at the map there are several small islands in between so each single journey by sea might only involve 30 miles or so. If the sea level was lower it is quite likely that there would be more islands sticking out, and if the surface was frozen in the winter, then there is your problem solved without any seafaring technology.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
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.
They could have been carried by swallows.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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
I'm not so sure the find is suggestive of "maritime capabilities". To prove such a statement, you would have to prove evidence of navigation. Even if it were only celestial navigation, stronger evidence would be to find more than one such remote site with similar styles of survival technology. From the article: More than 2,000 stone artifacts, including the hand axes, were collected on the southwestern shore of Crete, near the town of Plakias. The question, at least for now, should be whether or not they went back.
Try looking up Kon Tiki, and Maori chants as navigation.
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 fact, I don't know if you know this or not, Greeks were spawned by niggers
Really? That's absolutely fascinating. I had previously assumed that, unlike all of the other humans on the Earth whose ancestors came from Africa, the Greek civilisation had sprung full-formed from the head of Zeus. Thank you for correcting my belief.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
While the Med is, on average, 1500 meters deep, If you look at a map that shows relative ocean depth around the island of Crete you will see that it is possible for a land bridge (or very close to one) on both the east and west sides of the island. Humans have always been known to follow shore lines during migration so this doesn't seem to be a far fetched theory.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.