Humans made 60-mile sea crossings in canoes 8,000 years ago

By Stephen Beech

Humans were making "astonishing" sea crossings of more than 60 miles in simple dugout canoes over 8,000 years ago, suggests new research.

Early Mediterranean hunter-gatherers navigated long-distance sea journeys - partly at night - to the island of Malta well before the first farmers, say scientists.

Small, remote islands were long thought to have been the last frontiers of "pristine" natural systems.

Humans were not believed to have been able to reach or inhabit such environments prior to the dawn of agriculture, and the technological shift that accompanied the transition.

But new evidence, published in the journal Nature, shows that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometers of open water to Malta 8,500 years ago, a thousand years before the arrival of the first farmers.

The discoveries were made by a team led by Professor Eleanor Scerri, of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI-GEA) in Germany, and the University of Malta.

Study co-investigator Professor Nicholas Vella, of the University of Malta, said: “Relying on sea surface currents and prevailing winds, as well as the use of landmarks, stars, and other wayfinding practices, a crossing of about 100kms is likely, with a speed of about 4km per hour.

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"Even on the longest day of the year, these seafarers would have had over several hours of darkness in open water.”

The research team found traces of humans in the form of their stone tools, hearths, and cooked food waste at the cave site of Latnija in the northern Mellieħa region of Malta.

Scerri said: “We found abundant evidence for a range of wild animals, including Red Deer, long thought to have gone extinct by this point in time.

“They were hunting and cooking these deer alongside tortoises and birds, including some that were extremely large and extinct today.”

The research team also found clear evidence for the exploitation of marine resources.

Study corresponding author Dr. James Blinkhorn, of the University of Liverpool and MPI-GEA, said: “We found remains of seal, various fish, including grouper, and thousands of edible marine gastropods, crabs and sea urchins, all indisputably cooked."

The researchers say the finds also raise questions about the extinction of endemic animals on Malta and other small and remote Mediterranean islands, and whether distant Mesolithic communities may have been linked through seafaring.

Scerri added: “The results add a thousand years to Maltese prehistory and force a re-evaluation of the seafaring abilities of Europe’s last hunter-gatherers, as well as their connections and ecosystem impacts."