Historical people had been seafaring far sooner than we realised

Malta is likely one of the Mediterranean’s most distant islands. The closest land is Sicily, about 85 kilometres north. At present, with ferries and planes, getting there may be mild work, however within the distant previous, Malta was troublesome to achieve. It’s far sufficient from Sicily you could’t see it over the horizon, at the least from floor degree – and paddling there in a canoe would take over 24 hours, so you would need to navigate by starlight after the day turned darkish.

Briefly, for those who attempt to think about someplace that Stone Age peoples had been in a position to attain, Malta in all probability isn’t on the prime of the listing. But attain it they did.

We all know this as a result of archaeologist Eleanor Scerri on the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, and her colleagues excavated a sinkhole in northern Malta, from 2021 to 2023. They discovered traces of people: ash from hearths, stone instruments and butchered deer bones. Carbon courting confirmed that individuals had been dwelling there 8500 years in the past, the crew reported in Nature in April 2025.

At a stroke, this extends the human occupation of Malta by over 1000 years. However extra importantly, these individuals weren’t solely alive within the Stone Age; they had been additionally hunter-gatherers, versus individuals from farming communities with extra superior instruments. Archaeologists had usually assumed that hunter-gatherers didn’t cross huge spans of ocean. Scerri’s crew confirmed in any other case.

It’s a discovering that brings very important recent weight to what have been controversial concepts in regards to the voyaging capabilities of historical peoples, and one which asks us to contemplate a collection of intriguing questions. If Mediterranean hunter-gatherers might cross practically 100 kilometres of ocean 8500 years in the past, what different sea crossings did they make? How far again into prehistory does seafaring prolong? And what do these crossings reveal in regards to the minds of early people?

Stone Age sea crossings

For a lot of the twentieth century, students of prehistory assumed that people reached islands solely pretty not too long ago, says archaeologist Dylan Gaffney on the College of Oxford.

That’s true for distant Pacific islands like Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). They had been settled inside solely the previous 2000 years, by individuals with phenomenal navigation expertise. Different islands, although, are simpler to achieve.

When researchers strive to determine when individuals first took to the water, they face a right away downside. Boats don’t protect effectively as a result of they’re usually manufactured from supplies like wooden and conceal, which rot. Consequently, the oldest identified boats aren’t very outdated in any respect. The oldest, at about 10,000 years, is the Pesse canoe, a dugout canoe discovered buried in a peat bathroom within the Netherlands. At As-Sabiyah in Kuwait, researchers discovered the remnants of a reed boat from about 7000 years in the past. And at Lake Bracciano in Italy, a submerged village contained 5 canoes made between about 7900 and 6800 years in the past.

This was an essential interval in Eurasian prehistory. Trendy people had been dwelling in Eurasia for tens of 1000’s of years, all the time as hunter-gatherers. However in a couple of areas, just like the Fertile Crescent within the Center East, some teams began farming: they grew crops like wheat and saved domesticated animals like cows. These populations had been spreading quickly, and the farming life-style was changing searching and gathering. Later, farming communities would develop different improvements like writing, organised faith and empires.

Nearly all of the early boats discovered had been related to farming communities; the Pesse canoe is the one one which predates agriculture. So, it has been tempting for archaeologists to imagine that hunter-gatherers couldn’t or didn’t make boats, and due to this fact didn’t cross huge our bodies of water. Seafaring, they concluded, was a extra fashionable occupation.

That has all modified prior to now 20 years. “There’s been a revision,” says Gaffney. “Individuals have began discovering websites on islands [that are] very early.” If people had been dwelling on a distant island – like Malta – they will need to have travelled there in some way. Past a sure level, swimming isn’t sensible, so that they will need to have had watercraft. “It is a comparatively new analysis space,” says Curtis Runnels at Boston College. “There are numerous opinions on the market and many controversy.”

One place the place seafaring might have begun early is the islands of western Scotland, just like the Hebrides, says archaeologist Stephanie Blankshein on the College of Southampton within the UK. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers had been visiting these islands as early as 10,000 years in the past. Distinctive stones, which might solely be sourced from sure islands, could be discovered on mainland Britain. “So we all know Mesolithic individuals had been transferring between these locations,” says Blankshein. The seaways had been difficult, with fast currents and highly effective tides, however the islands are pretty shut collectively.

For long-distance prehistoric seafaring, the proof comes from two predominant areas. That’s the Mediterranean and islands of South-East Asia, says archaeologist John Cherry at Brown College in Rhode Island, co-author of Human Dispersal, Human Evolution and the Sea.

An early Mediterranean trace of Stone Age seafaring got here from Franchthi cave, on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece. In 1973, archaeologists described items of obsidian discovered within the cave, which had come from the island of Melos, over 100 kilometres to the south-east. In 2011, the obsidian was dated to as much as 13,000 years in the past – suggesting hunter-gatherers had been voyaging to and from Melos at the moment.

Nonetheless, it’s in South-East Asia and Australasia that researchers have discovered proof of really historical long-distance seafaring, spanning intervals of time as deep into the previous as 100,000, and even 1,000,000 and past, years in the past.

Island hopping

Round 70,000 or 60,000 years in the past, fashionable people started leaving Africa in giant numbers, maybe as a result of that they had realized to reside in a greater diversity of ecosystems or their populations had grown. A few of them wandered east into Asia and ultimately reached the continent’s south-eastern restrict. At present, that’s the Malaysian peninsula. The geography of the area was totally different at the moment, although.

Earth was deep in a glacial interval, so huge volumes of water had been locked away in ice sheets. Consequently, sea ranges had been decrease, so locations that at this time are shallow seas had been then dry land. The trendy islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java had been all related to the Asian mainland, forming a landmass referred to as Sundaland. People might stroll from modern-day Thailand and Vietnam all the way in which to the jap tip of Java with out crossing an ocean.

There, they will need to have stopped, having discovered deep water and powerful currents. To the south and east, there lay one other big landmass: Australia and New Guinea, which had been joined by uncovered land, forming a continent referred to as Sahul. However that lay far past the horizon – though the smoke from bushfires, or migrating birds, may need given them clues as to its existence. Forward was open water, dotted with islands like Sulawesi and Timor.

Regardless of this, people acquired to Sahul rapidly. In 2022, at a rock shelter in northern Australia referred to as Madjedbebe, archaeologists discovered stone instruments spanning the previous 65,000 years. Whereas that date isn’t universally accepted, says Gaffney, it appears clear individuals had been in Australia at the least 50,000 years in the past. Likewise, there may be proof of individuals on New Guinea 49,000 years in the past.

Gaffney has excavated on the Raja Ampat islands, simply west of New Guinea. In 2024, his crew described a chunk of plant resin, which indicated that individuals had been dwelling there 55,000 years in the past. The implication is that individuals voyaged east from Sundaland, reaching Raja Ampat after which occurring to Sahul.

Maybe we shouldn’t be too shocked that people in South-East Asia took to seafaring, says Gaffney. There have been a number of enabling elements: “It was heat water. That they had a lot of vegetation to make rafts from. A few of the island crossings aren’t that far.” This implies we are able to push seafaring again a lot earlier into prehistory: 65,000 years or extra, versus the ten,000-year-old Pesse canoe and Hebridean voyages.

Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless solely a fraction of the human story. Our species, Homo sapiens, developed in Africa, maybe round 300,000 years in the past. Nonetheless, different human-like hominins existed way back to 7 million years in the past. The earliest ones appear to have been confined to Africa, however from round 2 million years in the past, some wandered into Eurasia. Homo erectus acquired all the way in which east to Java, whereas Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia for tons of of 1000’s of years. Did any of those different hominins ever take to the water?

To Luzon and Flores

The argument that fashionable people used boats to achieve Australia is easy: there was no option to get there apart from over water. So if a chunk of land was all the time an island, and we are able to discover traces of hominins, then these hominins had been seafarers.

In the event you observe that logic, then it’s attainable to extrapolate seafaring approach again into prehistory. On the island of Flores, east of Java in Indonesia, there lived a singular inhabitants of hominins referred to as Homo floresiensis, first described in 2004. As a result of they had been so quick, barely a metre tall, they’ve been nicknamed “hobbits”. Their fossil file is restricted, however they appear to have lived on Flores between 190,000 and 50,000 years in the past. “Flores has by no means been related with the instantly adjoining islands,” says Cherry.

Additional again in time, one other mysterious group of hominins lived on Luzon within the Philippines. Homo luzonensis was found solely in 2019, so we don’t but know a lot about them. The fossils are all from one cave and are between 67,000 and 50,000 years outdated. Nonetheless, a 2018 research reported butchered rhinoceros bones on the island, which suggests a hominin presence, courting again 709,000 years.

Oldest of all, in August 2025, researchers described seven stone instruments from the island of Sulawesi. They had been between 1.04 million and 1.48 million years outdated. The instruments are, by far, the oldest proof of hominins on Sulawesi. A number of students have interpreted these finds as proof of seafaring tons of of 1000’s of years in the past, by hominins that lengthy predated our species. Nonetheless, each Cherry and Gaffney argue that we are able to’t say that with confidence.

Different animals do generally cross the ocean accidentally, in any case – and hominins might have, too. They could be swept out to sea, maybe on floating vegetation after a flood. And South-East Asia has a monsoon local weather, so intense rainstorms and floods are commonplace.

Even at this time, there may be ample proof of “big floating rafts of vegetation being swept out to sea, together with not solely all of the bushes and vegetation and every part, however the entire different critters that had been on that block of land on the time, together with primates”, says Cherry. Such rafting journeys are rare, and infrequently the animals don’t survive. However over huge spans of time, a couple of journeys would achieve success (see “Remoted on islands”).

“My favorite instance is definitely the divergence of Previous World and New World monkeys,” says Cherry. The monkeys that reside in South America at this time are solely distantly associated to these in Africa and Eurasia: the 2 teams cut up tens of thousands and thousands of years in the past. One of the best rationalization we’ve got is {that a} group of monkeys was unintentionally carried west throughout the Atlantic, from Africa to South America, at a time when that ocean was not fairly as huge as it’s at this time. “That’s, I believe, completely clearly what occurred.”

A research printed in March 2025 supplied proof that iguanas as soon as made an much more epic journey. At present, iguanas could be discovered dwelling on the islands of Fiji, within the south-west Pacific Ocean, east of Australia. Nonetheless, the research discovered that the closest dwelling kin of Fijian iguanas are North American desert iguanas, indicating that the iguanas rafted westwards over the Pacific round 30 million years in the past, a journey of greater than 8000 kilometres. That is, Cherry says drily, “in all probability a file”.

In South-East Asia, “you possibly can usually see, after storm occasions, a lot of driftwood, a lot of huge vegetation coming down the rivers”, says Gaffney. “So you possibly can think about a couple of hominins hanging on to logs there, or mangroves, and being washed out to totally different islands.”

This doesn’t imply that earlier hominins just like the hobbits had no maritime expertise in any respect. “Perhaps these hominins had the power to drift, the power to cling onto rafts and paddle or the power to even swim,” says Gaffney. “In the event that they had been washed out to sea, they might survive a bit longer than different animals.”

Boat builders

Gaffney argues that we should always solely infer purposeful seafaring, utilizing watercraft, if hominins crossed water continuously. Flores, Luzon and Sulawesi signify a handful of crossings over 1,000,000 years – simply defined by likelihood. In distinction, the journeys made by fashionable people to Australia round 60,000 years in the past signify a number of crossings inside, at most, 20,000 years. That’s “the blink of a watch”, says Gaffney, and “reveals that individuals are intentionally doing one thing”.

Whereas we don’t have preserved boats from tens of 1000’s of years in the past, we do know that fashionable people had “composite know-how”, that means they might mix two or extra objects, says Gaffney. As an example, they had been hafting stone instruments onto spears. “We all know individuals had resins and adhesives. Individuals had string and wire. Individuals had been utilizing bamboo… The entire parts are there to make a raft.” There’s no proof that different Asian hominins, just like the so-called hobbits or H. luzonensis, had composite know-how. This suggests they in all probability couldn’t construct boats or rafts.

The one species that maybe might have finished so was the Neanderthals. Lengthy derided as lumbering numbskulls, Neanderthals at the moment are understood to have been extraordinarily just like fashionable people of their capabilities. They had been extremely adaptable, surviving equally effectively within the south of Spain and the Altai mountains of Siberia. There’s proof of them burying their lifeless, portray on cave partitions and making jewelry from seashells. And so they might make twine or related cordage. “That was an enormous, thrilling discovery,” says Cherry.

“I believe individuals are open to the concept that Neanderthals had been additionally seafaring, or at the least crossing water gaps, what we’d name seagoing,” says Gaffney. “That’s coming primarily from proof within the Ionian Islands off the western coast of Greece.” Hominins had been there as early as 110,000 years in the past, when the Neanderthals dominated Europe.

There’s additionally proof from extra distant Greek islands. Stone instruments on Crete have been prompt to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years outdated, though they haven’t been firmly dated. Equally historical instruments have been discovered on the close by island of Gavdos. In the meantime, a 2019 research reported 9000 stone artefacts, typical of these made by Neanderthals, on Naxos. The oldest had been round 200,000 years outdated.

“There’s in all probability rising acceptance that early people, and maybe hominins like Neanderthals, had been making sea crossings to the Greek islands sooner than 200,000 years in the past,” says Runnels.

The truth that our distant ancestors, and even our Neanderthal cousins, had been crossing huge our bodies of water tells us an important deal about their minds and skills. To make a journey, you should first collect supplies and construct a craft, so that they will need to have been in a position to plan many steps forward. “They should assume sooner or later,” says Gaffney.

However seafaring additionally factors to one thing intangible – prehistoric peoples had been cooperative. Constructing boats takes a very long time, so “you’d have lowered that labour value by having a number of individuals”, he provides.

Seafaring can also be proof for one thing even more durable to see throughout deep time: braveness. “I’ve been in reconstructed Norse Viking ships,” says Blankshein. “They really feel fairly sturdy.” However easier craft don’t really feel so safe. “In the event you begin fascinated about getting right into a hide-skin boat and travelling lengthy distances… there’s completely no approach that most individuals would try this.”

But many prehistoric individuals, like those that made their option to Malta at the least 8500 years in the past, will need to have jumped into boats and brought that likelihood, voyaging to new lands that they couldn’t make certain had been there, as a result of they lay far past the horizon. These had been unbelievable, inspiring leaps of religion – and so they took our ancestors throughout the globe.