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People went to Australia and many remote islands in the oceans thousands of years ago. Probably had as good boats as the guys in the Mediterranean.

jmclnx 3y ago
Depends upon when :) I thought most migration to Australia was when they were land bridges due to the sea level. But off hand I do not remember when the Polynesian started their migrations, was it 3,000 years ago ? Their boats and navigation were quite remarkable back then. Anyway, makes sense that the Mediterranean area had good boat tech at such an early time. It is a kind of "closed" area and you throw a boat in it, it will run into some land after a rather brief time. So people with faster and reliable water transport would do better than people without. I would not be surprised if they find some good boat tech much much earlier.
- AlotOfReading 3y ago
  Australasia has not been connected to anywhere else by land for about 50 million years. The land bridges you're remembering are within australasia, particularly new guinea <-> Australia <-> Tasmania.
  - defrost 3y ago
    For better context, 70K years ago the route to Australia was mostly walkable with a few short boat hops in the vicinty of the Wallace Line: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coastlines-of-Australia-and-NG-S-50-000-years-ago-After-the-initial-spread-of-H-sapiens_fig1_6336100 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coastlines-of-Australia-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul_Shelf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul_Shelf
    - AlotOfReading 3y ago
      I guess you could call what were probably multiday trips over 100km of water "short hops", but it's not the phrase I'd use.
      - defrost 3y ago
        I would, absolutely, if you refer back you can see that in fact I did - but then I grew up in the region, have built boats, have sailed, and been diving with the Sama-Bajau in various parts of their territory. This would be the collision of actual real world relevant experience and ALotOfReading.
        AlotOfReading 3y ago
        The Sama-Bajau and all other modern humans have inherited maritime traditions that are tens of thousands of years old. They're not a good basis for comparison to the people we're discussing, just as you and I aren't. We know very little about these people and their technology, but it's worth pointing out that this is the first definitively established oceanic crossing in human history. In fact, it's one of the few crossings we know about until many thousands of years later in the Holocene. This is something that comes up regularly in these sorts of studies. There's a lot of ideas, skills, and technologies that look "easy" to us because we benefit from standing on the shoulders of giants, but are extremely difficult when you don't have that hindsight. It's entirely possible that this was a monumental feat to these people. It also might not have been, so I avoided describing it either way.
        angiosperm 3y ago
        Neanderthals got to Mediterranean islands using what had to have been boats 200,000 years ago. Of course we know nothing about the boats. It must have been terrifying to be first. One thing we have learned about island populations is that a small population loses cultural knowledge over time. It is reported Tasmanians had lost the secret to making fire by the time Europeans got there, something I find hard to believe. Anyway boats were re-invented many times in pre-history.
        082349872349872 3y ago
        > a small population loses cultural knowledge over time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family is a good example that n=6 is way too few (even if the cultural knowledge is still there, the material goods, eg seed stock, hit absorbing barriers). Do we have any reasonable (astrophysics-level) estimates of the population sizes necessary or sufficient to support some transect of various cultural and technological practices?
- freedomben 3y ago
  Yes, they had decent boats that had outriggers on them made of lashed logs to steady for ocean travel. They did not have to go super far, and their boats and nautical skills were quite primitive by today's standards, but they were able to get to and populate the Polynesian Islands.
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    > did not have to go super far The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channels_of_the_Hawaiian_Islands#Kealaikahiki_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channels_of_the_Hawaiian_Islan... in the Hawai'ian islands is where one starts to sail for Tahiti. It was far enough away (4'000+km; ~20 days sail?) to Tahiti that by the time the polynesians made it out there the original Hawai'ian colonists had lost the linguistic distinction between /t/ and /k/ in "kahiki" — but they still knew how to get back. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōkūleʻa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōkūleʻa
    - freedomben 3y ago
      Ah thank you, I think I was a little too sleep deprived last night to have commented
euroderf 3y ago
The first chapter of James Michener's "Hawaii" is a nice description of what exploring the Pacific in a huge catamaran might have been like. FWIW Taiwan seems to have been the cradle of Pacific seafaring culture.

jmclnx 3y ago

Depends upon when :) I thought most migration to Australia was when they were land bridges due to the sea level. But off hand I do not remember when the Polynesian started their migrations, was it 3,000 years ago ? Their boats and navigation were quite remarkable back then. Anyway, makes sense that the Mediterranean area had good boat tech at such an early time. It is a kind of "closed" area and you throw a boat in it, it will run into some land after a rather brief time. So people with faster and reliable water transport would do better than people without. I would not be surprised if they find some good boat tech much much earlier.

AlotOfReading 3y ago
Australasia has not been connected to anywhere else by land for about 50 million years. The land bridges you're remembering are within australasia, particularly new guinea <-> Australia <-> Tasmania.
- defrost 3y ago
  For better context, 70K years ago the route to Australia was mostly walkable with a few short boat hops in the vicinty of the Wallace Line: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coastlines-of-Australia-and-NG-S-50-000-years-ago-After-the-initial-spread-of-H-sapiens_fig1_6336100 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Coastlines-of-Australia-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul_Shelf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul_Shelf
  - AlotOfReading 3y ago
    I guess you could call what were probably multiday trips over 100km of water "short hops", but it's not the phrase I'd use.
    - defrost 3y ago
      I would, absolutely, if you refer back you can see that in fact I did - but then I grew up in the region, have built boats, have sailed, and been diving with the Sama-Bajau in various parts of their territory. This would be the collision of actual real world relevant experience and ALotOfReading.
      - AlotOfReading 3y ago
        The Sama-Bajau and all other modern humans have inherited maritime traditions that are tens of thousands of years old. They're not a good basis for comparison to the people we're discussing, just as you and I aren't. We know very little about these people and their technology, but it's worth pointing out that this is the first definitively established oceanic crossing in human history. In fact, it's one of the few crossings we know about until many thousands of years later in the Holocene. This is something that comes up regularly in these sorts of studies. There's a lot of ideas, skills, and technologies that look "easy" to us because we benefit from standing on the shoulders of giants, but are extremely difficult when you don't have that hindsight. It's entirely possible that this was a monumental feat to these people. It also might not have been, so I avoided describing it either way.
        angiosperm 3y ago
        Neanderthals got to Mediterranean islands using what had to have been boats 200,000 years ago. Of course we know nothing about the boats. It must have been terrifying to be first. One thing we have learned about island populations is that a small population loses cultural knowledge over time. It is reported Tasmanians had lost the secret to making fire by the time Europeans got there, something I find hard to believe. Anyway boats were re-invented many times in pre-history.
        082349872349872 3y ago
        > a small population loses cultural knowledge over time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykov_family is a good example that n=6 is way too few (even if the cultural knowledge is still there, the material goods, eg seed stock, hit absorbing barriers). Do we have any reasonable (astrophysics-level) estimates of the population sizes necessary or sufficient to support some transect of various cultural and technological practices?
freedomben 3y ago
Yes, they had decent boats that had outriggers on them made of lashed logs to steady for ocean travel. They did not have to go super far, and their boats and nautical skills were quite primitive by today's standards, but they were able to get to and populate the Polynesian Islands.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > did not have to go super far The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channels_of_the_Hawaiian_Islands#Kealaikahiki_Channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channels_of_the_Hawaiian_Islan... in the Hawai'ian islands is where one starts to sail for Tahiti. It was far enough away (4'000+km; ~20 days sail?) to Tahiti that by the time the polynesians made it out there the original Hawai'ian colonists had lost the linguistic distinction between /t/ and /k/ in "kahiki" — but they still knew how to get back. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōkūleʻa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōkūleʻa
  - freedomben 3y ago
    Ah thank you, I think I was a little too sleep deprived last night to have commented

euroderf 3y ago

The first chapter of James Michener's "Hawaii" is a nice description of what exploring the Pacific in a huge catamaran might have been like. FWIW Taiwan seems to have been the cradle of Pacific seafaring culture.