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TimesLIVE
3 hours ago
- Science
- TimesLIVE
With a primitive canoe, scientists replicate prehistoric seafaring
Our species arose in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago and later trekked worldwide, eventually reaching some of Earth's most remote places. In doing so, our ancestors surmounted geographic barriers including treacherous ocean expanses. But how did they do that with only rudimentary technology available to them? Scientists now have undertaken an experimental voyage across a stretch of the East China Sea, paddling from Ushibi in eastern Taiwan to Japan's Yonaguni Island in a dugout canoe to demonstrate how such a trip may have been accomplished some 30,000 years ago as people spread to various Pacific Islands. The researchers simulated methods Paleolithic people would have used and employed replicas of tools from that prehistoric time period such as an axe and a cutting implement called an adze in fashioning the 7.5-metre-long canoe, named Sugime, from a Japanese cedar tree chopped down at Japan's Noto Peninsula. A crew of four men and one woman paddled the canoe on a voyage lasting more than 45 hours, travelling roughly 225km across the open sea and battling one of the world's strongest ocean currents, the Kuroshio. The crew endured extreme fatigue and took a break for several hours while the canoe drifted at sea, but managed to complete a safe crossing to Yonaguni.
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Ancient canoe replica recreates a 30,000-year-old voyage
Instead of putting the pedal to the metal, a team of scientists from Japan and Taiwan are putting the paddle to the water–for science. The team used time-period-accurate tools to create canoes and used them to test the methods that ancient people would have used to travel across the sea in East Asia 30,000 years ago. Their results of these test paddles and findings are detailed in two new studies published June 25 in the journal Science Advances. Archaeological evidence suggests that about 30,000 years ago, humans first made a crossing from present-day Taiwan to islands in southern Japan. This journey could have ranged from 138 to about 450 miles and was accomplished without metal tools, maps, or modern boats. While the timeline of when East Asia's earliest modern human populations set sail and where they landed is fairly clear, how they did it has been more difficult to pin down. That's where these replica canoes come in. A team led by anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu from the University of Tokyo created various simulations, experiments, and replica canoes to recreate how this feat may have been achieved. 'We initiated this project with simple questions: 'How did Paleolithic people arrive at such remote islands as Okinawa?' 'How difficult was their journey?' 'And what tools and strategies did they use?'' Kaifu said in a statement. 'Archaeological evidence such as remains and artifacts can't paint a full picture as the nature of the sea is that it washes such things away. So, we turned to the idea of experimental archaeology, in a similar vein to the Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947 by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl.' One of the new studies details the construction and testing of a real boat, which the team successfully used to paddle between islands. The team constructed the 24-foot-long dugout canoe called Sugime in 2019. It was built from one Japanese cedar trunk, and with replicas of 30,000-year-old stone tools. 'A dugout canoe was our last candidate among the possible Paleolithic seagoing crafts for the region. We first hypothesized that Paleolithic people used rafts, but after a series of experiments, we learned that these rafts are too slow to cross the Kuroshio and are not durable enough,' said Kaifu. The team paddled Sugiume about 140 miles from eastern Taiwan to Yonaguni Island in southern Japan's Ryukyu group, which includes Okinawa. They navigated only by the sun, stars, swells, and their instincts. In total, the team paddled for more than 45 hours across open sea, without a lot of visibility of the island. In the six years since, the team is still unpacking some of the data they collected during the experiment, and are using it to inform or test new models about various aspects of Paleolithic sea crossings. [ Related: Southeast Asian sailors possibly mastered seafaring before Polynesians. ] 'We now know that these canoes are fast and durable enough to make the crossing, but that's only half the story,' said Kaifu. 'Those male and female pioneers must have all been experienced paddlers with effective strategies and a strong will to explore the unknown.' However, the team does not think that a return journey towards Taiwan was possible at the time. 'If you have a map and know the flow pattern of the Kuroshio, you can plan a return journey, but such things probably did not take place until much later in history,' explained Kaifu. The team also used advanced ocean models to simulate hundreds of virtual voyages, in an effort to understand if a journey like the one the modern scientists tried could have been made in different circumstances. These simulations tested several variables, including different starting points, seasons, and paddling strategies under both ancient and modern ocean conditions. Additionally, one of the new papers used numerical simulations to show how they may have crossed the Kuroshio Current–one of the strongest currents in the world. This simulation showed how boats made using tools of the time, and the right know-how, could have navigated the Kuroshio Current. 'The Kuroshio Current is generally considered dangerous to navigate,' Yu-Lin Chang, a study coauthor and oceanography student from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, said in a statement. 'I thought if you entered it, you could only drift aimlessly. But the results of our simulations went far beyond what I had imagined. I'm pleased this work helped illuminate how ocean voyages may have occurred 30,000 years ago.' These various simulations helped fill in some gaps that a simple one-time experiment could not. They also revealed that launching a vessel from northern Taiwan offered seafarers a better chance of success than from points further south. Additionally, paddling slightly southeast instead of directly towards the destination was essential for compensating against the powerful ocean current. All in all, these findings suggest that the early modern humans in the area must have had a high level of strategic seafaring knowledge. 'Scientists try to reconstruct the processes of past human migrations, but it is often difficult to examine how challenging they really were. One important message from the whole project was that our Paleolithic ancestors were real challengers. Like us today, they had to undertake strategic challenges to advance,' said Kaifu. 'For example, the ancient Polynesian people had no maps, but they could travel almost the entire Pacific. There are a variety of signs on the ocean to know the right direction, such as visible land masses, heavenly bodies, swells and winds. We learned parts of such techniques ourselves along the way.'
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
With a primitive canoe, scientists replicate prehistoric seafaring
By Will Dunham (Reuters) -Our species arose in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago and later trekked worldwide, eventually reaching some of Earth's most remote places. In doing so, our ancestors surmounted geographic barriers including treacherous ocean expanses. But how did they do that with only rudimentary technology available to them? Scientists now have undertaken an experimental voyage across a stretch of the East China Sea, paddling from Ushibi in eastern Taiwan to Japan's Yonaguni Island in a dugout canoe to demonstrate how such a trip may have been accomplished some 30,000 years ago as people spread to various Pacific Islands. The researchers simulated methods Paleolithic people would have used and employed replicas of tools from that prehistoric time period such as an axe and a cutting implement called an adze in fashioning the 25-foot-long (7.5-meter) canoe, named Sugime, from a Japanese cedar tree chopped down at Japan's Noto Peninsula. A crew of four men and one woman paddled the canoe on a voyage lasting more than 45 hours, traveling roughly 140 miles (225 km) across the open sea and battling one of the world's strongest ocean currents, the Kuroshio. The crew endured extreme fatigue and took a break for several hours while the canoe drifted at sea, but managed to complete a safe crossing to Yonaguni. Just as prehistoric people would have, the voyagers navigated by the sun and stars, as well as the direction of the ocean swells, though for safety's sake they were accompanied by two escort craft. Yonaguni is part of the Ryukyu chain of islands stretching from Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, down to Taiwan. The researchers previously failed with attempted crossings using reed rafts and then bamboo rafts, finding that they were too slow, insufficiently durable and unable to overcome the strong ocean current. "Through the project with many failures, we have learned the difficulties of crossing the ocean, and this experience gave us a deep respect for our Paleolithic ancestors," said University of Tokyo anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu, lead author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. "We found that the Paleolithic people could cross the sea with the strong ocean current if they had dugout canoes and were skillful, experienced paddlers and navigators. They had to face the risk of being drifted by the strong ocean current and the possibility that they would never be able to come back to their homeland," added Kaifu, who was aboard one of the escort boats. Archeological evidence indicates that people approximately 30,000 years ago first crossed from Taiwan to some of the Ryukyu islands, which include Okinawa. But scientists had puzzled over how they could do this with the rudimentary technology of the time - no maps, no metal tools and only primitive vessels. And the Kuroshio current, comparable in strength to the Gulf Stream off Mexico, presented a particular challenge. The research was in the vein of the famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition in which Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl carried out a much longer journey by raft from South America across the Pacific to the Polynesian islands. Heyerdahl aimed to show how prehistoric people from the Americas could have colonized Polynesia. "His theory is now countered by a series of pieces of evidence, but it was a great trial at the time. Compared to the time of the Kon-Tiki, we have more archeological and other evidence to build realistic models" of prehistoric voyages, Kaifu said. The researchers in a companion study published in the same journal used simulations of sea conditions between Taiwan and Yonaguni 30,000 years ago to examine whether such a crossing was attainable at a time when the Kuroshio was even more powerful than today. "As our paleo-ocean model simulation showed, crossing the Kuroshio was possible in ancient times, so I believe they achieved it," said physical oceanographer and study lead author Yu-Lin Chang of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. "However, ocean conditions were highly variable. Thus, ancient people may have encountered unpredictable weather conditions during their journey, which could have led to failure," Chang added.
Scientific American
13 hours ago
- Science
- Scientific American
Scientists Used Prehistoric Tools to Build a Canoe, Then Paddled Across 140 Miles from Taiwan to Japan
More than 30,000 years ago, seafaring humans made a momentous trek from present-day Taiwan to the Ryukyu Islands of southwestern Japan—a journey of some 140 miles without any of the advanced technology that guides us today. Though Paleolithic sites on these islands contain remnants of human life from that era—including stone tools, fishhooks and hearths—they give very few clues to the boat technology of the time, likely because it relied heavily on quick-to-decay organic matter. For a new study, published on Wednesday in Science Advances, researchers reenacted that treacherous journey over three days on a boat constructed with stone tools from the period. 'Before our project, no one had seriously considered how this maritime migration occurred,' says the study's lead author Yousuke Kaifu, an anthropologist at the University of Tokyo. Years ago Kaifu gathered a team of researchers to test out possible boat designs early modern humans could have used. The team first tested reed-bundle rafts and bamboo rafts, but the vessels were too slow and were easily knocked off course by the very strong currents of the area. So the researchers next decided to try a simple canoe like those known to have been used in the area about 10,000 years ago. They chopped down a three-foot-thick Japanese cedar tree using stone axes with wooden handles, dug out the inside and shaped it into a 25-foot-long canoe that became known as ' Sugime,' a nickname that incorporates the Japanese word for cedar. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. In July 2019, after two weeks of waiting for calm waters, five experienced paddlers embarked on their journey without using modern navigational tools. They soon encountered choppy seas and later struggled with sleepiness and bodily discomfort. With no GPS, the team relied on the sun, stars and other indicators of its direction. Forty-five hours and 140 miles after it started, Sugime at last arrived at the closest of the Ryukyu Islands. Although the dugout canoe was the best of the team's candidate boats, it was far from perfect—it constantly took on water, which one of the paddlers had to frequently bail out. 'I would of course love to see other researchers test other watercraft for deeper understanding of how our ancestors first ventured into the sea,' Kaifu says. The reenactment helped illustrate just how skilled and coordinated the original seafarers would have needed to be to pull off such a voyage. 'I enjoyed the project throughout because there were some new discoveries almost every day,' Kaifu says. This effort has continued a global trend of experimental archaeological boat reconstructions. One group replicated a bamboo raft from more than 800,000 years ago and used it to travel between Indonesian islands. Another team reconstructed remnants of eighth-century-C.E. boats to test on the Charente River in France. 'There's also a massive resurgence of Indigenous seafaring voyaging and experimental voyaging in the Pacific, which is really interesting at the moment,' says Helen Farr, a maritime archaeologist at the University of Southampton in England and co-host of the archaeology-focused podcast Before Us, who was not involved in the study. 'Indigenous communities are reclaiming their maritime heritage through these voyaging societies.' These and other experimental archaeological projects can help illuminate parts of human migration that have been lost history. 'You suddenly see a level of skill and planning that is really hard to see in the archaeological record for this time period,' which mostly consists of fossils and stone tools, Farr says. 'So to get an insight into an activity—a temporal, spatial, specific activity like seafaring in this region—and just the little human details that you get from it, that's what is a real, real joy.'
Straits Times
15 hours ago
- Science
- Straits Times
With a primitive canoe, scientists replicate prehistoric seafaring
A dugout canoe with four men and one woman paddling is pictured during a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from near Ushibi, Taiwan to Yonaguni Island, traversing the Kuroshio current, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS Researcher Kunihiro Amemiya uses a period-accurate axe to chop down a Japanese cedar tree in Noto Peninsula, Japan, to make a dugout canoe for a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from Taiwan to Yonaguni Island, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS An axe accurate to a period of 30,000 years ago, that scientists used to make a dugout canoe for a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from Taiwan near Ushibi to Yonaguni Island, traversing the Kuroshio current, is seen at Noto Peninsula, Japan, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS A dugout canoe with four men and one woman paddling is pictured during a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from near Ushibi, Taiwan to Yonaguni Island, traversing the Kuroshio current, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS A dugout canoe is pictured before departure on a crossing across a region of the East China Sea to Yonaguni Island, with leaf wave guards at the bow and stern, near Ushibi, Taiwan, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS Our species arose in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago and later trekked worldwide, eventually reaching some of Earth's most remote places. In doing so, our ancestors surmounted geographic barriers including treacherous ocean expanses. But how did they do that with only rudimentary technology available to them? Scientists now have undertaken an experimental voyage across a stretch of the East China Sea, paddling from Ushibi in eastern Taiwan to Japan's Yonaguni Island in a dugout canoe to demonstrate how such a trip may have been accomplished some 30,000 years ago as people spread to various Pacific Islands. The researchers simulated methods Paleolithic people would have used and employed replicas of tools from that prehistoric time period such as an axe and a cutting implement called an adze in fashioning the 25-foot-long (7.5-meter) canoe, named Sugime, from a Japanese cedar tree chopped down at Japan's Noto Peninsula. A crew of four men and one woman paddled the canoe on a voyage lasting more than 45 hours, traveling roughly 140 miles (225 km) across the open sea and battling one of the world's strongest ocean currents, the Kuroshio. The crew endured extreme fatigue and took a break for several hours while the canoe drifted at sea, but managed to complete a safe crossing to Yonaguni. Just as prehistoric people would have, the voyagers navigated by the sun and stars, as well as the direction of the ocean swells, though for safety's sake they were accompanied by two escort craft. Yonaguni is part of the Ryukyu chain of islands stretching from Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan's four main islands, down to Taiwan. The researchers previously failed with attempted crossings using reed rafts and then bamboo rafts, finding that they were too slow, insufficiently durable and unable to overcome the strong ocean current. "Through the project with many failures, we have learned the difficulties of crossing the ocean, and this experience gave us a deep respect for our Paleolithic ancestors," said University of Tokyo anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu, lead author of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. "We found that the Paleolithic people could cross the sea with the strong ocean current if they had dugout canoes and were skillful, experienced paddlers and navigators. They had to face the risk of being drifted by the strong ocean current and the possibility that they would never be able to come back to their homeland," added Kaifu, who was aboard one of the escort boats. Archeological evidence indicates that people approximately 30,000 years ago first crossed from Taiwan to some of the Ryukyu islands, which include Okinawa. But scientists had puzzled over how they could do this with the rudimentary technology of the time - no maps, no metal tools and only primitive vessels. And the Kuroshio current, comparable in strength to the Gulf Stream off Mexico, presented a particular challenge. The research was in the vein of the famous 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition in which Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl carried out a much longer journey by raft from South America across the Pacific to the Polynesian islands. Heyerdahl aimed to show how prehistoric people from the Americas could have colonized Polynesia. "His theory is now countered by a series of pieces of evidence, but it was a great trial at the time. Compared to the time of the Kon-Tiki, we have more archeological and other evidence to build realistic models" of prehistoric voyages, Kaifu said. The researchers in a companion study published in the same journal used simulations of sea conditions between Taiwan and Yonaguni 30,000 years ago to examine whether such a crossing was attainable at a time when the Kuroshio was even more powerful than today. "As our paleo-ocean model simulation showed, crossing the Kuroshio was possible in ancient times, so I believe they achieved it," said physical oceanographer and study lead author Yu-Lin Chang of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. "However, ocean conditions were highly variable. Thus, ancient people may have encountered unpredictable weather conditions during their journey, which could have led to failure," Chang added. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
