by By Will Dunham
(Reuters) -Our species were created about 300,000 years ago in Africa and later ran worldwide and eventually reached some of the most remote places of the earth. In addition, our ancestors have overcome geographical barriers, including treacherous ocean eviction. But how did they do that with only rudimentary technology that is available to them?
Scientists have now taken an experimental journey over a part of the East Chinese Sea, paddling from USIBI in East -Taiwan to the Japanese Yonaguni Island in a Dugout -Kano to show how such a trip was achieved about 30,000 years ago when people spread to different Pacific Islands.
The researchers simulated Methods Paleolithic people are said to have used and used replicas of aids of that prehistoric time period, such as an ax and a cutting implement, called an Adze in modeling the 25-foot long (7.5-meter) canoe, called Sugime, from a Japanese cedar tree.
A crew of four men and a woman paddled the canoe on a journey that lasts more than 45 hours, about 140 miles (225 km) over the open sea and fighting against one of the world’s strongest ocean currents, the Kuroshio. The crew stood by extreme fatigue and took a break for a few hours while the canoe drifted at sea, but managed to complete a safe cross to Yonaguni.
Just as prehistoric people would have, the voyagers navigated through the sun and the stars, as well as the direction of the ocean swellings, although they were accompanied by two escort vessel for safety reasons. Yonaguni is part of the Ryukyu chain of islands that extend from Kyushu, the southernmost of the four most important islands of Japan, to Taiwan.
The researchers failed earlier with attempted crossings with the help of reed rafts and then bamboo flies, and discovered that they were too slow, insufficiently durable and were unable to overcome the strong ocean stream.
“Through the project with many failures we learned the difficulties to cross the ocean, and this experience gave us a deep respect for our Paleolithic ancestors,” said Anthropologist from the University of Tokyo Yousuke Kaifu, main author of the study published on Wednesday in the Journal Science Advances.
“We discovered that the Paleolithic people could cross the sea with the strong ocean stream if they had canoes and were competent, experienced paddlers and navigators. They had to run the risk of being driven by the strong ocean stream and the possibility that they could never come back to their home country,” added Kaifu.
Archaeological evidence indicates that about 30,000 years ago people crossed Taiwan for the first time to some of the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa. But scientists were surprised at how they could do this with the rudimentary technology of that time – no cards, no metal tools and only primitive barrels. And the Kuroshio current, similar in strength to the Gulf Stream of Mexico, was a certain challenge.
The research was in the spirit of the famous Kon-Tiki expedition from 1947 in which the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl carried out a much longer journey from South America Vlot across the Pacific to the Polynesian Islands. Heyerdahl wanted to show how prehistoric people from America had colonized Polynesia.
“His theory is now being prevented by a series of evidence, but it was a great test at the time. Compared to the time of the Kon-Tiki, we have more archaeological and other evidence to build realistic models” of prehistoric trips, Kaifu said.
The researchers in a corresponding study published in the same magazine used simulations of sea conditions between Taiwan and Yonaguni 30,000 years ago to investigate whether such a cross was accessible at a time when the Kuroshio was even more powerful than today.
“As our Paleo-Ocean model simulation demonstrated, crossing the Kuroshio was possibly in ancient times, so I believe they have achieved it,” said physical Oceanograph and studied chief author Yu-Lin Chang of the Japan Agency for the Navy-Earth Science and Technology.
“Ocean conditions, however, were very variable. Thus, old people could have experienced unpredictable weather conditions during their journey, which could have led to failure,” Chang added.
(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
