real old timers

Hi there!

I'm an oceanography postoc fellow at UVic (BC, Canada) and have recently joined a project dealing with past human oceanic migrations. My contribution is to use current and wind data from a computer model to verify possible trans-oceanic migration routs.

It was quite simple to make our migrants drift, but now we want to give them some navigational capabilities and things are getting more complex.

The sailing problem seems not so hard. We will assume the boats can only sail downwind. In this setting , from what I read, even simple sails will get the boat to move with the lesser between wind speed and hull speed. Does this sound right?

I'm quite at loss though, when it comes to estimating the effects of the wind on non-sailing vessels. According to present day ocean rowers this is a first order effect, but I have seen no quantitative analysis of it. My first impulse is to treat them as really inefficient sail boats by truncating the hull speed. Still, I have no idea of what that number should be. Does anyone? Would anyone know a good reference for the sort of questions I have?

Thank you very much for your time!
Alvaro

 

I wouldn't write off sail technology so quickly. "Viracocha", a project boat expidition undertaken to study the feasability of trans-continental migration used triangular sails (that allow the boat to work to wind) that were inspired by picture glyphs on both Easter Island and Inca artifacts

http://www.xplorainternational.com/gen info boat.htm

Many anthropologists discount the possibilities of contact from South America reasoning that the boats available to the native South Americans in the past millennia and the navigators that sailed them were not able to make long, open ocean voyages. Contrary evidence has been uncovered throughout the South America such as reed ships provisioned with supplies and water for long voyages depicted in pyramids and ceramics outlining seagoing reed ships provisioned with supplies and water for long voyages.
http://www.thoughtsnmemories.net/xplorabuck.htm

Such sails, which already existed in the antic Mediterranean Sea, could well be the key of the success for the "Viracocha", enabling her to sail against the wind and, that way, not to miss Easter Island.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/joel.donnet/News85.htm

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It has long been my belief that the ability to work to wind and navigation by the stars has been understood and very possible for much long then we think. Clearly the sails working the Nile were able to head well into the wind several thousand years ago. The same can be said of crab claw rigs in the south seas a few thousand year back. We are sure of this because of known artifacts and remaining pictographs, etc. Because we haven't any documented evidence, doesn't mean it didn't occur earlier, just that we've not found any proof yet. The understanding, tools, skills and math was in place, so a reasonable conclusion could be made that everything except a bit of luck was available for the mariner to use in plying the distant waters, even up wind.

We openly acknowledge the stone age man was aware and keep very accurate track of the stars. There are testaments to this fact standing to this day all over the world. Because we don't have an ox hide with the tide tables scratched in or the arc of the sun, moon and stars, doesn't mean we were too stupid, just not in possession of such yet.

Mankind as a rule, has a foolish way of forgetting what it knew in favor of the "newest" thinking on the subject. Old skills are left for newer, "better" ones and the abilities die with the last of the practitioners. This is truly sad, as the formula for Greek fire would have come in handy when I was in collage. Medical cures practiced hundreds and thousands of years ago may have given us new ways to look at difficult subjects without the side effects of more modern techniques.

Much has been lost in this fashion. What the world could have gained if the Romans hadn't burned down the building full of jars in Alexandria . . .

 

To Sailsnail and PAR

Thanks for the input guys. There exists great controversy around the sailing capabilities of ancient societies, something that is not helped by the fact that boats tend not to leave much archeological evidence behind.
Still, my project deals with a quite remote past (~20-15k years before present). By giving our migrants any sailing abilities at all we are already pushing the envelope.

If you are interested in the subject (peopling of the Americas) there is a very nice and comprehensive review paper by Stuart Fiedel I would be glad to share. It is a bit lengthy, but very easy on the noggin (I have zero archeology training and it was not a problem).

Cheers!
Alvaro

 

I googled Stuart Fiedel, and John Milner Associates, and frankly I'd rather suggest you look for research. I have worked as an ecologist for 22 years on three continents and a lot of my work was feasibility studies and environmental impact assessments. One of the first things on the to-do list is get archeologists to check the site out to be sure development doesn't destroy anything of cultural or scientific significance. I have first-hand experience of the obfuscation, contradiction and (I'll call it) bickering (to be polite but it's more akin to 'sabotage by nitpicking') that is a regular part of the daily 'science' known as archeology. You think politics is dirty? And the reason it is like that is the way it is funded and the funding sources.
Even those who go into it with an open mind find themselves having to defend their findings half way into the dig just to get their funding to continue and it generates a vicious, and I mean vicious, circle of useless diatribe. The result is we, the public, end up being fed BS like the Egyptians built the pyramids, (yet not one of them has any cuniform or heiroglyphics on or in them), or that there was no contact with Southern Africa(the Swahilli word for both metal and the smelting process has a Sanscrit root) and South America, that Europe didn't trade with Asia. And I could drown you with other examples.
Far more reliable, and far more scientific, are linguists and ethno-botanists, who trace the adoption of words, terms, plants, tools, methods and their design and usage, and the transfer and dissemination of these between populations.
Needless to say, I believe that intercontinental trade goes back way beyond 20k BP and it was made possible by sail alone.

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Look for the book "1421" and corresponding website. It gives amazing information about the ancient Chinese voyages of discovery. Travel via currents, celestial navigation, mapping of the entire planet, the Chinese did it first.

 

Migrating by boats raises all sorts of interesting questions. What would compel people to take boats far over the horizon? I guess I am cynical about a lot of research also. Assuming only downwind sailing seems much too simplistic. It is the sort of assumption that can get buried in a study like what you are proposing and that is very sad for science. There is a tremendous amount of buried, simplified assumptions and I think a good researcher waves a big red flag about such issues, even in his own work. How often to you see a research not support a hypothesis?

 

What would complel people to take boats over the horizon? Why to see whats on the other side, of course. I believe people have been messing about in boats for some time now. I am not an archeologist, nor a historian, but let us not forget the polynesian navigators who settled the pacific before the time of christ. No gps there... Following is and excerpt from

http://leahi.kcc.hawaii.edu/org/pvs/migrationspart1.html

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While dates constantly change with new archaeological discoveries, the general sequence for the settlement of Polynesia has been relatively well established (Dates represent earliest archaeological finds; they almost certainly do not represent the earliest presence of human beings.):

--Hunters and gatherers inhabited Australia and New Guinea by 50,000 years ago.

--Around 1600-1200 B.C., a cultural complex called Lapita (identified by a distinctive pottery and named after a site in New Caledonia) spread from New Guinea in Melanesia as far east as Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. Polynesian culture developed at the eastern edge of this region (i.e., in Samoa and Tonga).

--Around 300 B.C. or earlier, seafarers from Samoa and Tonga discovered and settled islands to the eastÑthe Cook Islands, Tahiti-nui, Tuamotus, and Hiva (Marquesas Islands).

--Around 300 A.D. or earlier, voyagers from central or eastern Polynesia, possibly from Hiva, discovered and settled Easter Island.

--Around 400 A.D. or earlier, voyagers from the the Cook Islands, Tahiti-nui, and /or Hiva settled Hawai'i.

--Around 1000 A.D. or earlier, voyagers from the Society and/or the Cook Islands settled Aotearoa (New Zealand).

The ethnobotanical evidence reflects this progression of settlement from the Western Pacific islands, through central Polynesia (the Cook Islands, Society Islands, and Hiva), and then to Hawai'i. Of the 72 plants identified as having been transported to Polynesia by people, 41-45 are found in the Cook Islands, the Society Islands, and Hiva; 29 are found in Hawai'i, including taro, breadfruit, sugar cane, bamboo, ti, yam, banana, 'awa, paper mulberry, kukui, coconut, gourd, sweet potato, and mountain apple. The settlers also brought the pig, dog, chicken, and rat along with them. The transport of plants and domesticated animals on voyaging canoes suggests that the early settlers planned to colonize Hawai'i, after having discovered its location.
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Tom Ask:
At this time we are actually not running any simulations with sailing boats. We are generating vessel displacements using the models adopted by the US Coast Guard to estimate the drift in their search and rescue efforts. The scenario would not be of some colonizing party, but coastal sailors that get pushed out to sea and become adrift. Some might see this as a very conservative position. We assume this because tere is no archeological evidence of any sailing (or other type) of vessel for the period we are interested in.

Our study does not try to test the trans-oceanic colonization of the Americas in a did/did not happen sort of way. We aim at setting some spatial and temporal limits. Our conclusions will be more of the type: If the crossing took place, it most llikely happened from area A to area B in so many days and the people would have to control these and these tools/technologies. For that, we test a number of vessels and sailing capabilities, starting of course with the very simple (or simplistic if you prefer) ones.

Sketch:
the colonization of Plynesia is fascinating but it happened much, much later than the period we are studying. To assume the techonology used in reaching the Pacific Isalnds was already available to people 18k years into the past is a little risky. We can't really say it was not there, but with no hard evidence it is just a though sell.

 

Contact Dr. Knut Fladmark - prof of archaeology - Simon Fraser University. He believes technology for making long passages by boat has been around for 30K years. He argues that coastal rowing in advantageous currents (not sailing) beats walking in the cold...

Polynesian technology was based on studies of the natural world, the principles of which would have been available to any observant peoples as they did not require instruments. Incidentally there is a theory that polynesians helped colonize the americas 10K+ years ago. the walk to chile is a long one. check out this site.

http://starbulletin.com/2001/07/15/editorial/special.html

Regards,

Kevin Barry

 

Dr. Knut R. Fladmark Tel.: (604) 291 4883; Fax.: (604) 291 5666;
e-mail: fladmark@sfu.ca