tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post5765840992101470361..comments2024-03-28T21:52:52.100-06:00Comments on Dispatches From Turtle Island: Epipaleolithic Island ColonizationAndrew Oh-Willekehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315236707728759521.post-18868508137957269652012-11-16T18:19:49.515-07:002012-11-16T18:19:49.515-07:00"The sea journey that made modern human colon..."The sea journey that made modern human colonization of Australia and Melanesia seem likely to have been one time only one way journeys" <br /><br />Unlikely. That is what people used to say regarding the Polynesian expansion too. But you need at least a few women to start a colony so presumably any watercraft involved in the water crossing contained both men and women. That is unlikely to be an accidental combination. Of course it is quite possible that a craft containing both men and women got blown off course while traveling within some other islands. But that implies boating technology sophisticated enough to travel two way from Timor to Australia anyway. <br /><br />"Alternately, one technology that may be a good fit for regular maritime travel is the development of pottery". <br /><br />A fact often ignored is that it wasn't only the Lapita pottery and the Austronesian language that spread from the admiralty Islands into the Pacific carrying what became the Polynesian haplogroups. The boating technology that enabled that expansion also spread through Near Oceania, carrying the Melanesian haplogroups beyond their region of origin. Perhaps you can explain it to Maju. He seems unable to grasp the concept when I try to point it out to him. <br /><br />"It is a fair assumption that archaic hominins had maritime technologies that were no better than those of Upper Paleolithic modern humans". <br /><br />Much worse so, would be my guess. Even in island SE Asia and Melanesia we seem to see a gradual improvement in boating technology that enabled people to move gradually further and further out into the Pacific. And back again. <br /><br />"whether there was some sort of behavior modernity shift (perhaps cultural rather than genetic) in the Epipaleolithic" <br /><br />To me it looks very much as though a sudden improvement in boating ability must have been introduced from outside. Perhaps it took all the time from when humans reached Australia for the required boating technology to move west to the Mediterranean. And that would explain completely your comment, 'Consistent long distance maritime travel seems to have been nearly non-existent until roughly the Copper Age (and contemporaneous Austronesian journeys)'. Otherwise it is a surprising coincidence. terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.com