Did humans colonise the world by boat ~10,000 years ago?
Concerned that evidence of human settlement and migration may be lost under the sea, researchers are finding new ways of tracking ancient mariners. By combining archaeological studies on remote islands with computer simulations of founding populations and detailed examinations of seafloor topography and ancient sea level, they are amassing crucial new data on voyages from northeast Asia to the Americas 15,000 years ago, from Japan to the remote island of Okinawa 30,000 years ago, and from Southeast Asia to Australia 50,000 years ago. New evidence even raises the possibility that our modern human ancestors may have journeyed by raft or simple boat out of Africa 60,000 to 70,000 years ago, crossing the mouth of the Red Sea.
“If they could travel from Southeast Asia to Australia 50,000 years ago, the question now is, how much farther back in time could they have been doing it?”
May 23rd, 2008 - 03:03
Our body’s need for iodine, salt and some marine fatty acids are some indicators of a long evolutionary relationship with the sea.
May 27th, 2008 - 17:29
I’ve been following Paul Kekai Manansala’s fascinating blog
http://sambali.blogspot.com/
for a long time, and while I don’t agree altogether with his hypothesis about modern civilisation beginning in Kampampanga, he’s dug up some very interesting stuff.
The human body’s need for iodine, salt and some marine fatty acids may have come from my website, http://www.coconutstudio.com.
I’m no longer convinced that humans were once aquatic, but I’m absolutely certain that they utilised coastlines to spread around the world. Just look at the babel in what was California natives’ homeland, or along the north coast of New Guinea, both areas that were bypassed by later migrations.
regards
Richard