I don't think it's that simple. Pre-Socratic Greeks, like Xenophanes, lived on the coast and went to sea, but thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.

I don't think it's that simple. Pre-Socratic Greeks, like Xenophanes, lived on the coast and went to sea, but thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenophanes Until 1600s or so, Chinese people thought the world was flat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#East_Asia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#East_Asia , even though many Chinese people lived on the coast and sailed the seas.