Scientists have found conclusive evidence of ancient sailors traveling across the Mediterranean some 450,000 years ago.

What Ancient “Civilization” Sailed the Mediterranean Sea 450,000 Years Ago?

According to new archaeological discoveries, ancient humans, some 450,000 years ago, may have been the very first sailors, building ships and exploring and colonizing the Mediterranean region. According to new research on the coasts during the middle Pleistocene period, there is no other way these ancient hominins could have reached what we now call the Aegean islands. In other words, these ancient humans must have built ships capable of surviving the voyages.

Even more interesting is the fact that archaeological excavations have yielded artifacts on the islands that even predate the first known appearance of Homo sapiens. This evidences that the ancient people must have found ways to transverse these large bodies of water. As revealed by the experts, these findings have several implications on how ancient humans migrated across the planet and when the first “real” sailors appeared. While 450,000 years ago may seem out of the mainstream, archeological evidence exists. Now the question remains: “is it time to rewrite history books?”

The first sailors?

Who were the first sailors on Earth? This is probably one of the most challenging questions we can answer. If sailors were navigating the globe hundreds of thousands of years ago, evidence of their travels must be scarce. After all, a lot can happen in 450,000 years. We assume that ships from antiquity were made from wood, and this material isn’t known for surviving the harsh climatological and geological conditions throughout the years. Finding ships that are a few hundred years old and in good condition is difficult. Now imagine trying to find ships that are thousands or hundreds of thousands of years old. In other words, finding ships that sailed Earthy’s oceans hundreds of thousands of years ago is a difficult mission.

So how can we know?

Instead of looking for ships that are thousands of years old, we look for records of artifacts. Like bones or examples. Then using different methods, we can use the scientific method and reconstruct how our world, and its many cultures, have changed and evolved over millennia. And this is what scientists just did. Scientists from the University of Petra in Greece looked into the possibility of whether these islands may have been connected during glacial periods, allowing ancient people to walk across the ice and reach islands that are now separated by seas.

Ancient Sailors 450,000 years ago

Scientists found out that this was not the case. The scientists reconstructed the geology of the region, together with the reconstruction of the coastal region around the Aegean Islands, dating back to approximately 450,000 years. To do this, they looked at ancient river deltas. These allow scientists to understand sea levers and subsidence rates driven by Tectonic activity. They found that people could not have walked across the region, despite seeing the islands in the distance. Scientists found that during its lowest point in the last 450,000 years, the sea level dropped by as much as 225 meters.

What this means

This has some significant implications. It tells us that even though some Aegean islands may have been connected when sea levers were lower, these islands have remained isolated for the past 450,000 years from surrounding landmasses. It also means that ancient sailors still needed to sail across several kilometers of open sea to reach the nearest Aegean Islands at the lowest point of sea level. Moreover, evidence suggests that this may not have been the earliest evidence of people sailing across the sea. Sometime between the last 700,000 and 1,000,000 years, ancient humans likely sailed across the sea between Indonesia and the Philippines.