Tuesday, January 4, 2011

"We were the first that ever burst / Into that silent sea ..." (Ancient Cretans stake claim as the most ancient of mariners.)

Cretan tools point to 130,000-year-old sea travel:

"I'm endeavoring, ma'am, to fashion an ocean-worthy vessel using stone knives and bear skins."
We imagine he then cocked an eyebrow.

A ministry statement says archaeologists from Greece and the U.S. have found rough axes and other tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old in shelters on the island's south coast.

Crete has been separated from the mainland for about five million years, so whoever made the tools must have traveled there by sea (a distance of at least 40 miles).
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