Stone Age Sailors

Paleolithic Seafaring in the Mediterranean

Alan H Simmons

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315419718
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Archeologia

Over the past decade, evidence has been mounting that our ancestors developed skills to sail across large bodies of water early in prehistory. In this fascinating volume, Alan Simmons summarizes and synthesizes the evidence for prehistoric seafaring and island habitation worldwide, then focuses on the Mediterranean. Recent work in Melos, Crete, and elsewhere-- as well as Simmons' own work in Cyprus-- demonstrate that long-distance sailing is a common Paleolithic phenomenon. His comprehensive presentation of the key evidence and findings will be of interest to both those interested in prehistory and those interested in ancient seafaring.

CHAPTER 1

NEANDERTHALS AFLOAT? INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH BACKGROUND

INTRODUCTION

Stereotypes die hard, and archaeology can claim no exceptions. In 2010, one of Archaeology magazine’s “10 most important discoveries” was the claim that over 100,000 or more years ago, “Stone Age” Lower or Middle Paleolithic people set foot on the Mediterranean island of Crete. This was a controversial proposition because many Mediterranean archaeologists believed that the initial use of any of these islands occurred much later, during the Neolithic, less than 10,000 years ago. In the surrounding and inevitable media frenzy, the popular French magazine Le Monde published a story relating to this discovery. This was admirable, since archeology needs to reach out to the general public. But, the cover depicted a rag-tag raft and, in another part of the cover mélange, it showed a stooped-over semi-human figure. This is where the stereotype comes into play. If indeed it is true that early Paleolithic people plied the Mediterranean Sea and ended up on Crete, they likely were representatives of either Homo erectus or Homo neanderthalensis ancestors. The depiction in Le Monde was that of a famous, but now discredited, re-creation of a Neanderthal “cave man” from la Chapelle-aux-Saints in France. This vision, however, is seriously flawed, since we now know that this elderly (for a Neanderthal) individual was afflicted with severe arthritis and other maladies that caused his unusual appearance. When the Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton was reconstructed in 1911 by the French paleoanthropologist, Marcellin Boule (1920), this distorted image came to represent “primitive” Neanderthals, a stereotype that has been hard to live down (Hammond 1982), despite current thinking that Neanderthals really were not that much different from us (cf. Gibbons 2011).

It is somewhat ironic that Le Monde chose to use such an uninformed depiction of an ancient hominin who, it was being claimed, had the physical and cognitive skills not only to construct seaworthy vessels but also to navigate the Mediterranean Sea. But, these “stone-age sailors” left behind few traces and have proven difficult to document. Their existence prior to the Neolithic, when many of the Mediterranean islands were finally colonized permanently by farmers and herders living in villages, is what this book is about.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

The Mediterranean islands (Figure 1.1) witnessed some of the most sophisticated and innovative cultural adaptations known in antiquity, and much has been written of the elaborate cultures of the Minoans, Phoenicians, and other highly developed groups who flourished on many of the islands and clearly possessed sophisticated seafaring technologies. There is an enormous archaeological literature documenting these people. By comparison, the story of the initial “discovery” and subsequent colonization of these islands is limited. Until slightly over two decades ago, conventional wisdom was that the islands were not occupied until relatively late by Neolithic peoples (e.g., Stanley-Price 1977a, 1977b; Cherry 1981, 1985, 1990). Of all the Mediterranean islands, only Cyprus stood out by having the earliest well-documented human colonization with the aceramic (or “pre-pottery”) Neolithic Khirokitia Culture (KC), commencing around some 9,000 years ago, or some 2,000 years later than the Neolithic on the Near Eastern and Anatolian mainlands (cf. Le-Brun et al. 1987). Thus, the prevailing belief was that, despite some claims to the contrary, people generally were absent from the islands until the later Neolithic.

There was ample reason for this paradigm, and if it were true, this book could not have been written. An often-stated perception was that the Mediterranean islands were too impoverished to have maintained hunters and gatherers and could only have supported farmers. This was not an unusual view, as many of the world’s islands were first occupied by food-producing humans relatively late in time, with the Pacific islands perhaps being the best example. An important element here was the distinction made by scholars such as John Cherry (1981:45–64, 1990:198–199) between “colonization” and “visitation.” While Cherry was specifically addressing the Mediterranean, his observations could be extended to other islands as well. Cherry (1981:45–64, 1990:198–199) makes a compelling argument, noting that actual colonization would result in “founder populations” and implied permanent, likely year-round habitation. Visitation, on the other hand, could have been based on the mere utilization of an island’s resources on a temporary or seasonal basis. This leaves open the possibility that many of the islands could have been at least visited prior to the Neolithic, but robust supporting evidence was rare.

Of course, any such dichotomies are far too simplistic, which Cherry readily realized, noting that “colonization” is perhaps a misleading term, since it implies well-planned expeditions by groups intending to establish a permanent base. He believes that a more realistic perspective regards early seafaring in the Mediterranean as “many, tentative, impermanent, short-distance reciprocal movements by mere handfuls of individuals” (Cherry 1981:60). Researchers have yet to resolve distinctions between “colonization” and “utilization,” and perhaps this is a semantic issue that deserves little attention. But, what is important is that prior to establishing permanent, visible settlements, many island visits would in all likelihood have produced remains that would be translated into the archaeological record as ephemeral, low-visibility sites, if indeed they would be detectable at all. And this is one crux of the problem, a methodological issue that has stymied researchers in the Mediterranean, and elsewhere, for decades—simply finding and documenting such early sites.

FIGURE 1.1. Map of the Mediterranean islands, showing some of the major islands and seas (drafted by Russell Watters).

But beyond methodology, there also is a critical theoretical issue that has undermined much early research. In critically examining early island occupation, both Cherry (1981:58–59) and Evans (1973, 1977:14–15) noted that Mediterranean islands are generally unsuitable as home bases for hunters and gatherers. This is due to their small sizes and consequent limited exploitation territories; furthermore, they frequently also had limited faunal and floral resources: these are not lush islands, as are many in, for example, the Pacific. Cherry (1981:59) noted that only with the inception of agriculture, allowing increased production from decreased amounts of land, would the islands be perceived as appropriate places for permanent settlement. He has somewhat modified this view (Cherry 1990), and it is important to note that he never denied the possibility of pre-Neolithic visits. Rather, he called into question the frequency and intensity of such visitations. A potentially fatal flaw with this line of reasoning based on resource scarcity, however, is that it underestimates human abilities to adapt to extreme environments. As I noted some time ago (Simmons 1999:26), “if pre-agriculturalists could live in, for example, the deserts of the American west, or Australia, I find it hard to believe that hunters and gatherers, especially ones with a knowledge of sea-faring, could not have eked out some existence on many of the Mediterranean islands.”

All of this has now changed. Both the theoretical perception that the islands could only support sustained occupation by Neolithic peoples and the methodological problem of detecting low-visibility sites have been at least partially resolved. There is now clear evidence that late pre-Neolithic seafarers reached at least some of the islands, most notably Cyprus. This was best documented with the discovery of the controversial site of Akrotiri Aetokremnos¹ on the southern coast of Cyprus (Figure 1.2), which showed occupation at around 12,000 years ago. Aetokremnos is extremely important, as addressed in Chapter 6, but its antiquity, dating to the Late Epipaleolithic, was only a few thousand years earlier than the Cypriot Neolithic. A vexing question remained: is there evidence for earlier Paleolithic usage of the Mediterranean islands? Current studies increasingly seem to support the likelihood of this scenario (Simmons 2012b).

We have to be careful, however, in uncritically accepting weak evidence. While most archaeologists are relatively conservative beings, over the years there certainly have been many claims for pre-Neolithic occupations on many of the islands. These, however, have been generally flimsy and unsubstantiated. Thoughtful summaries by several scholars (such as Cherry 1981, 1990, 1992; Lewthwaite 1989; and Vigne 1987, 1989, 1992) have addressed this issue in a systematic fashion, showing that most claims were relatively easy to dismiss once critical archaeological criteria were applied. Hampering many early studies was the lack of an explicitly anthropological approach for investigating the processes and consequences of early seafaring; such a perspective is a relatively recent development in the Mediterranean islands (Patton 1996).

FIGURE 1.2. Akrotiri Aetokremnos overview (author’s photo).

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Why is the study of early seafaring important, either in the Mediterranean or elsewhere? As summarized in Chapter 2, maritime and island archaeology are well-established subdisciplines of archaeology, and several seminal works, cited throughout this volume, have pointed out the many contributions made to both the discipline and to a wider, public audience. Most such archaeology, however, focuses on later periods of the past rather than what might be called the “deep time” of early prehistory. There is no mystery why this is so: later cultures, especially “literate” ones, have left both written and illustrative examples of their seafaring skills and abilities. Mediterranean examples are particularly well documented with the Egyptians, Phoenicians, and others. Additionally, many of the actual underwater vessels that have been recovered date to these cultures.

Going further back into prehistory, however, is more of a challenge, since there is little direct evidence for early shipwrecks, and visual depictions of early seagoing vessels are rare. Of course, we suspect that humans have been taking to the sea for quite some time, although when this initially occurred is controversial (e.g., Balter 2007, 2011b; Bednarik 1998, 1998a, 1998b, 2003; Simmons 2012b). There must be considerable antiquity for early seafaring abilities, however. For example, witness the early occupation of Australia, at least 50,000 years ago (Hiscock 2007), or the findings from the remote Indonesian island of Flores and the so-called “hobbits” (Homo floresiensis) and suggestions of hominins as early as 800,000 years ago (Morwood and van Oosterzee 2007; Morwood et al. 1998). While direct evidence for the types of very early seagoing crafts no longer remain, we know that these early maritime voyagers must have had such vessels, since even at times of lower sea levels, Australia and Flores, for example, still were separated from the mainland by a considerable expanse of open sea. Thus, once again, archaeologists have had to contend with methodological issues related to the lack of direct evidence for early seafaring. This clearly has hampered systematic explanation, and one reason why the study of early seafaring is important is to help fill this data void.

From a broader anthropological perspective, the study of early seafaring is important because it can address two important issues. The first is, when did early humans have the cognitive and technological abilities to take to the sea, and second, why would people want to take the risks associated with maritime travel to unknown areas? The first point is tantalizing simply in assessing what degrees of “humanness” were required for seafaring and for determining if this can be pushed back to pre-Homo sapiens hominins. The second point is particularly challenging when examining early examples of seafaring, prior to the establishment of maritime commerce. Certainly there were practical reasons for early seafaring, such as short-term exploitation to obtain raw materials while at the same time obtaining information on new landscapes (Colledge and Conolly 2007:53). In the Mediterranean, the classical pre-Neolithic example of this is the procurement of obsidian some 12,000 years ago from the island of Melos in the Cyclades for use at Franchthi Cave in mainland Greece, some 130 km distant (Laskaris et al. 2011; Perlès 1979). Perhaps there also were less tangi...