In a recent study published in Science Magazine entitled ‘Searching for a Stone Age Odysseus’ based on excavation finds in Crete between 20018 and 2010 it is possible that man had explored the Mediterranean as early as 130,000 years ago.
Up until the discovery of stone tools which indicate the Neanderthal was already active in maritime migration from the Near and Middle East to Europe, scientists and archaeologists believed the travels of Odysseus as described in Homer’s Odyssey placed some 10,000 years ago were the first recount of sea travel.
Apparently, that endeavour did not commence in the Bronze Age but thousands of years before that accepting that Crete, an island for over five million years, was colonised by people who sailed there. Based on the 2008 discovery of hundreds of Homo Erectus tools on the island dating over a million years ago, attempts could have even taken place earlier than 130,000 years ago.
This new assumption is also supported by finds of possibly Neanderthal origin like the Stelida site on Naxos, where even more sophisticated stone tools were unearthed.
It is hard to determine when smaller islands were cut off from the mainland but in Crete, Naxos and in Ionian islands like Zakynthos and Kafalonia paleolithic findings prove man was travelling the seas much earlier than 10,000 years ago.
