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Re: Nautical Mile, was: Why is a sextant like it is?
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Nov 19, 00:52 -0400
From: Trevor Kenchington
Date: 2004 Nov 19, 00:52 -0400
Alex, You asked: > Is there indeed any evidence of seas crossings > at these ancient times? The accepted date, in archaeological circles, for the earliest proven human crossing of the open sea is based on records of human presence in Australia (there having been no land bridge since long before the genus Homo emerged in Africa). The earliest generally-accepted site dates from before 50,000. The controversial date is based on the presence of an archaeological site on Lombok, in Indonesia. The Lombok Strait is part of the Wallace Line, which is a well-established biogeographic boundary. Yet, on its eastern shore, there are remains of hominid presence dated to 600,000 or so. At that date, the people must have been Homo erectus as our own species did not emerge until about 120,000. Nobody knows how they made it across 20+ miles of sea but, as best as anyone can tell from the evidence yet available, enough of them did to establish a colony of sorts. And that means that boatbuilders, mariners and navigators have been around for a _very_ long time. Quite long enough to gradually come up with all sorts of innovations which we innocently suppose emerged in a sudden flowering of Mesopotamian and Egyptian high cultures a mere 5,000 years ago. You also wrote: > I had an impression that sexagesimal system > (and dividing of the circle into 360 degrees) > was introduced by Babylonian astronomers > (or rather astroLOGERS), not mariners. If it did wait for a civilization as late as the Babylonians (or even the Sumerians or the earlier peoples of Dilmun, Dwarka or whatever high civilizations came earlier still), I would expect a priesthood to take the credit -- just as an Astronomer Royal (and a priest!) figured out the numbers which made lunar distances possible in almost our own time. But if that civilization was a maritime one, I would also expect that the problems of navigators were of concern to that proto-mathematicians -- as in recent centuries. Babylon was not, to my knowledge, a maritime society but it was an heir to earlier civilizations which did look to the sea. > Furthermore, even in much later times of the > Greeks, they made only cabotage voyages, > not going away from a shore. The extent to which the Mediterranean peoples crossed the open waters of the Middle Sea is a subject of active debate amongst specialists, with much received wisdom being questioned (doubtless some of it when it should not be). However, I would expect higher development of offshore navigation among the peoples outside that region. We know what the Polynesians achieved not much later than Hellenistic times. I would not rule out similar capabilities among the peoples of the Indian Ocean very much earlier. And there is a troubling imbalance between the amount of copper mined in North America and the amount used in Europe during the Bronze Age, which hints as large-scale transatlantic trade back when King Agamemnon led his (bronze-armoured) warriors along the coast to Troy. That, however, stretches too far into the wacko fringe of pseudo-archaeology for my comfort. Suffice to say that the unwritten history of human seafaring is vastly longer than the written history and may well contain much, much more than any of us realize. Trevor Kenchington -- Trevor J. Kenchington PhD Gadus@iStar.ca Gadus Associates, Office(902) 889-9250 R.R.#1, Musquodoboit Harbour, Fax (902) 889-9251 Nova Scotia B0J 2L0, CANADA Home (902) 889-3555 Science Serving the Fisheries http://home.istar.ca/~gadus