erice 732 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 In the next week or so, five adventurers will attempt to paddle a primitive hand-hewn canoe across 200 kilometers of ocean in hopes of revealing how humans originally populated East China Sea islands. The 40-hour trip, from Taiwan to Yonaguni, the westernmost of Japan’s Okinawa Islands, is the culmination of a 6-year effort to experimentally determine what kinds of craft Paleolithic peoples may have built and used, and how they navigated over long ocean voyages. Kaifu’s team—all seasoned ocean kayakers—will be paddling a log boat or dugout canoe of a type found in China and Japan dating back 8000 years. The team used simple stone axes, modeled on Paleolithic era archeological findings in Japan, to chop down a 1-meter-thick tree and then hew it into a 7-meter-long, 350-kilogram dugout. To emulate the ancients in other ways, the crew will not use modern navigational tools. Instead, the team includes a Maori man from New Zealand who can navigate by following the stars and judging winds and ocean swells. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/07/explorers-voyage-japan-primitive-boat-hopes-unlocking-ancient-mystery 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Kevin McCready 83 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Like Quote Link to post Share on other sites
armchairadmiral 411 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Yeah...it's amazing stuff. But think about the fact of how did they know ,in those days,if there was really something there or were they going to paddle off the edge of the world. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dtwo 157 Posted July 10, 2019 Share Posted July 10, 2019 Love the Paleolithic nav lights Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erice 732 Posted July 11, 2019 Author Share Posted July 11, 2019 am guessing that stretch of water didn't have as much night traffic back then probably heaps of whales tho... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DrWatson 379 Posted July 12, 2019 Share Posted July 12, 2019 Update, 10 July, 6:20 a.m.: A team of adventurers succeeded in paddling a primitive dug-out canoe across more than 200 kilometers of ocean to demonstrate how ancient humans may have reached the Ryukyu Islands scattered between Taiwan and Japan. “It was an unexpected big success,” says archeologist Yousuke Kaifu of Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erice 732 Posted July 12, 2019 Author Share Posted July 12, 2019 well done! bet there were blisters aplenty They lost their way the second night when clouds obscured the stars they used to navigate. Rather than paddle in an uncertain direction, they decided to rest. As they slept, ocean currents carried them toward their target. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Sail Rock 28 Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Current thinking is Polynesians and a number of other Pacific peoples originated from Taiwan. They island hopped across the Pacific in a series of purposeful migrations, eventually discovering NZ. I lived in Taiwan for four years and had the good fortune to stay a night in a small hotel owned by an aboriginal family in the mountains. We managed a basic conversation (in Chinese) discussing their people’s ultimate connection with Maori. More recently I was in Tonga (having sailed there) and had a couple of conversations with locals who were aware of their ancestors’ navigational prowess but lamented this was lost following arrival of Christian missionaries. Back then their navigators, like other highly skilled and specialised trades, were venerated “tohunga” - sort of priests that the missionaries considered pagans that had to be overcome and discredited. Much recent research and the removal of Eurocentric bias has lead to the realisation of how great the early Pacific navigators were. What they achieved with limited technology is amazing. Big respect from this sailor! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Black Panther 1,591 Posted July 19, 2019 Share Posted July 19, 2019 Read David Lewis. We, the navigators. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erice 732 Posted July 19, 2019 Author Share Posted July 19, 2019 a pic of an aboriginal taiwanese, from about 50 years before the millions? of han chinese of chiang kai-shek arrived, escaping from mao's mainland china in 1948 note the snazzy taiwanese cloud leopard cloak thought to have been extinct the last 100 years they now think their may be a few left in the misty mountains Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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