CROSSING SEAS, 130,000 YEARS AGO

Archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered tools they believe prove that man sailed the sea tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

A Greek Culture ministry statement said experts from Greece and the United States have found rough axes and other tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old close to shelters on the island’s south coast.

“Every textbook may have to be rewritten,” says Curtis Runnels, a professor of archaeology in the College of Arts & Sciences at Boston University, one of a team that worked on the Greek island of Crete in 2008 and 2009.

The researchers unearthed Palaeolithic tools dating back at least 130,000 years, suggesting that humans travelled by sea much earlier than previously hypothesized.

Sponsored by the National Geographic Society, Runnels, Thomas Strasser of Providence College, and Eleni Panagopoulou of the Greek Ministry of Culture travelled to Crete in 2008 and 2009.

Before this research, the first confirmed sea crossing was that of Homo sapiens travelling to Australia 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. The first travel across the Mediterranean Sea, where Crete is located, was thought to have occurred about 12,000 years ago. The tools the archaeological team found seem to prove that people were living on Crete much earlier, and that because the island has been isolated for five million years, whoever made them must have arrived by sea.



Artefacts were found in caves and rock shelters located in Preveli Gorge, where freshwater rivers and streams have eroded rocky sediment. Among the artefacts were hand axes, cleavers, and scrapers made from local quartz rock. According to Runnels, the tools may have been used to hollow out large tree trunks, to turn them into boats.


“We have also been contacted by archaeologists interested in early boats and early seafaring who are very excited by these finds,” he says.

The team’s discovery puts centuries-old beliefs about movements of early humans out of Africa into question, according to Runnels, and will have worldwide implications. “Every hypothesis is suddenly on the rack,” he says.


The Greek Culture Ministry stated that “The results of the survey not only provide evidence of sea voyages in the Mediterranean tens of thousands of years earlier than we were aware of so far, but also change our understanding of early hominids’ cognitive abilities“. The previous earliest evidence of sea travel was 60,000 years ago, so the findings upset the current view that human ancestors migrated to Europe from Africa by land alone.

This is not the first time Runnels has been involved in research that could shift paradigms. In the 1980s and 1990s, he helped show that the people of prehistoric Greece caused catastrophic environmental change through soil erosion and deforestation. “That work challenged a long-held belief that prehistoric peoples were careful stewards of the natural environment,” he says.

Other research by Runnels in Greece revealed that Neanderthals were not related to Homo sapiens.

Rough stone implements such as the ones found on Crete are associated with Heidelberg Man (600,000 – 400,000 years ago) and Homo Erectus (1.8 – 1.3 million years ago), extinct precursors of the modern humans.

“Up to now we had no proof of Early Stone Age presence on Crete,” explained senior ministry archaeologist Maria Vlazaki in the statement.

The archaeologists have applied for permission to conduct a more thorough excavation of the area, which Greek authorities are expected to approve later this year.

Other large Mediterranean islands, such as Cyprus and Sardinia, will also need to be examined to learn more about early human occupation.

with thanks to Boston University Today

Past Horizons