Hominins or early humans may have discovered how to sail across the sea to other locations roughly half a million years ago. A recent examination of mid-Chibanian shorelines revealed ancient artifacts that predate the evolution of Homo sapiens some 450,000 years ago and experts can not find other alternative reasons as to how they reached the now Aegean Islands.
The findings imply that these hominins must have discovered a technique to cross enormous expanses of water, Science Alert reported. It may have ramifications for how ancient and modern humans expanded over the planet, suggesting that reliance on land bridges was not necessary for human migration.
Homo Sapiens May Not Be the Only Species Who Learned to Sail
It is unclear when hominins first started sailing. Boats have traditionally been fashioned of wood, which does not frequently endure the ravages of time intact especially not for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. As a result, there is no record of the first boats sailing across the oceans.
But a record of items and bones that have survived, like stone tools, used for analysis allows scientists to recreate how the world has evolved over millennia. This is how a team of researchers led by geologist George Ferentinos of the University of Patras in Greece was able to undertake the new analysis.
The Aegean islands are an archipelago of hundreds of islands spread over the Aegean Sea between Turkey, Greece, and Crete. These islands have been inhabited for a long time, with relics dating back as far as 476,000 years linked to the Acheulean style developed some 1.76 million years ago and associated with Homo erectus in Africa and Asia.
Previous studies suggested that humans crossed to islands on bare feet during ice ages. Researchers of the latest study found that water was at its lowest point over the last 450,000 years, which is approximately 225 meters (738 feet) lower than it is today.
But that would still mean that there are still several kilometers of open water that ancient humans have to traverse to reach the nearest Aegean Islands. The reconstructed geography of the region, including a reconstruction of the shoreline around the Aegean Islands during that time, could be evidence of hominins sailing.
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Hominins Did Not Invent Boats
Despite the possibility of ancient humans sailing, researchers emphasized that this does not mean they invented the boat. They could have island hopped through using primitive rafts or by clinging to logs.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that hominins might have been tracking herds of large animals, such as elephants. The team argues that it is possible that as megafauna herds dwindled on the mainland, early humans of the Aegean went looking for new hunting grounds.
Maria Gkioni, the lead archaeologist on the study, told Haaretz that this means these hominins had advanced cognitive capabilities to cross over and colonize an island that requires them to form groups with a common language to communicate.
Researchers noted that this is not the earliest hominins to sail the seas as there is evidence of Homo erectus and other hominins that may have colonized the island of Flores in Indonesia some 800,000 years ago of sailing. A similar hominin presence in the Philippines dating back to 700,000 years ago has shown similar evidence.
Professor Israel Hershkovitz, a physical anthropologist at Tel Aviv University, said that it means the idea of hominins sailing to the Aegean Islands nearly half a million years ago is possible.
Their findings can be found in the study, titled "Archaic Hominins Maiden Voyage in the Mediterranean Sea," published in the journal Quaternary International.
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