Malta, a remote island in the Mediterranean, presents a curious case for prehistoric habitation. Its nearest landmass, Sicily, lies approximately 85 kilometers to the north. While modern travel via ferries and planes makes its accessibility simple today, reaching Malta in antiquity was a significant undertaking. The distance was substantial enough that it could not be seen from ground level, and a journey by canoe would have required over 24 hours of continuous paddling, necessitating navigation by starlight. This remoteness might lead one to question whether Stone Age peoples, with their presumed limitations, could have reached such a location.
However, archaeological evidence suggests otherwise. Between 2021 and 2023, a sinkhole excavation in northern Malta, led by archaeologist Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, uncovered compelling traces of human presence. These findings included ash from hearths, stone tools, and the bones of butchered deer. Radiocarbon dating placed human activity in the area at 8,500 years ago, as reported in Nature in April 2025. This discovery significantly extends the known human occupation of Malta by over a millennium. Crucially, these inhabitants were hunter-gatherers, not members of agricultural communities with more advanced toolkits. This challenges the long-held assumption among archaeologists that hunter-gatherer groups did not undertake extensive ocean crossings.
This finding lends significant support to controversial theories regarding the seafaring capabilities of ancient populations. It prompts a series of intriguing questions: If hunter-gatherers in the Mediterranean could traverse nearly 100 kilometers of open water 8,500 years ago, what other sea journeys did they undertake? How far back into prehistory does the practice of seafaring extend? And what do these voyages reveal about the cognitive abilities of early humans?
The Evolution of Understanding Stone Age Sea Crossings
Throughout much of the 20th century, prehistory scholars largely operated under the assumption that humans only began settling islands relatively recently, according to archaeologist Dylan Gaffney of the University of Oxford. This holds true for extremely remote Pacific islands like Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island), which were settled within the last 2,000 years by individuals possessing sophisticated navigation skills. However, other islands presented more accessible routes.
Determining when humans first ventured onto the water presents a fundamental challenge: watercraft, typically made from perishable materials like wood and hide, do not preserve well. Consequently, the oldest known boats are relatively recent. The Pesse canoe, a dugout discovered in a peat bog in the Netherlands, dates back approximately 10,000 years. In Kuwait, at As-Sabiyah, remnants of a reed boat estimated to be 7,000 years old have been found. Furthermore, a submerged village at Lake Bracciano in Italy yielded five canoes constructed between 7,900 and 6,800 years ago.
This period was significant for Eurasian prehistory. While modern humans had inhabited Eurasia for tens of thousands of years, primarily as hunter-gatherers, certain regions, notably the Fertile Crescent, saw the emergence of farming communities. These groups cultivated crops and domesticated animals, leading to rapid population spread and the gradual replacement of hunting and gathering lifestyles. Later innovations, such as writing, organized religion, and empires, would develop from these agricultural foundations.
The majority of early boats discovered were linked to farming communities. The Pesse canoe stands out as the sole example predating agriculture. This correlation led many archaeologists to conclude that hunter-gatherers lacked the capacity or inclination to build boats, thereby precluding them from crossing large bodies of water. Seafaring, it was thus surmised, was a practice that developed much later in human history.
This perspective has undergone a significant shift in the past two decades. “There’s been a revision,” notes Gaffney. “People have started finding sites on islands [that are] very early.” The presence of humans on remote islands like Malta necessitates a means of travel, and beyond a certain distance, swimming is impractical, implying the use of watercraft. This area of research is relatively new, with considerable debate and varying opinions among scholars, according to Curtis Runnels at Boston University.
Early Seafaring Evidence in Scotland and the Mediterranean
Archaeologist Stephanie Blankshein of the University of Southampton suggests that early seafaring may have occurred around the islands of western Scotland, such as the Hebrides. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were visiting these islands as far back as 10,000 years ago. The discovery of distinctive stones, sourced from specific islands, on mainland Britain indicates movement between these locations by Mesolithic people. While the seaways presented challenges with rapid currents and powerful tides, the islands were relatively close to one another.
For evidence of long-distance prehistoric seafaring, two primary regions stand out: the Mediterranean and the islands of Southeast Asia, as identified by archaeologist John Cherry of Brown University, co-author of *Human Dispersal, Human Evolution and the Sea*. An early indication of Stone Age seafaring in the Mediterranean comes from Franchthi Cave on the Peloponnese peninsula in Greece. In 1973, archaeologists reported finding obsidian fragments within the cave, originating from the island of Melos, located over 100 kilometers to the southeast. Subsequent dating in 2011 placed the obsidian as far back as 13,000 years ago, suggesting that hunter-gatherers were traveling to and from Melos during that era.
Island Hopping in Southeast Asia and Australasia
However, it is in Southeast Asia and Australasia where researchers have uncovered evidence of truly ancient long-distance seafaring, stretching back as far as 100,000, or even over a million, years ago.
Around 70,000 to 60,000 years ago, modern humans began migrating out of Africa in considerable numbers. This movement may have been driven by an increased ability to adapt to diverse ecosystems or by population growth. Some migrated eastward into Asia, eventually reaching its southeasternmost reaches, a region corresponding to present-day Malaysia. During this period, the geography of the region was different. Earth was experiencing a glacial period, resulting in lower sea levels as vast amounts of water were trapped in ice sheets. Consequently, areas now submerged were dry land. The islands of Borneo, Sumatra, and Java were connected to the Asian mainland, forming a landmass known as Sundaland. Humans could traverse from modern-day Thailand and Vietnam to the eastern tip of Java without encountering open ocean.
At this point, they would have faced a significant barrier: deep water and strong currents. To the south and east lay another extensive landmass, comprising Australia and New Guinea, which were joined by exposed land to form a continent called Sahul. This landmass lay far beyond the horizon, although the smoke from bushfires or migrating birds might have offered clues to its existence. Ahead lay open water, interspersed with islands such as Sulawesi and Timor.
Despite these obstacles, humans reached Sahul relatively quickly. In 2022, at a rock shelter in northern Australia named Madjedbebe, archaeologists discovered stone tools dating back 65,000 years. While this dating is still debated among some experts, it is widely accepted that humans were present in Australia at least 50,000 years ago. Similarly, evidence indicates human presence on New Guinea 49,000 years ago.
Gaffney has conducted excavations on the Raja Ampat islands, west of New Guinea. His team reported in 2024 on a fragment of plant resin suggesting human habitation there 55,000 years ago. The implication is that people voyaged eastward from Sundaland, reaching Raja Ampat and subsequently Sahul. Gaffney suggests that seafaring may not be entirely surprising in this region, citing several contributing factors: “It was warm water. They had lots of vegetation to make rafts from. Some of the island crossings aren’t that far.” This pushes the timeline for seafaring back significantly, to at least 65,000 years ago, predating the 10,000-year-old Pesse canoe and the Hebridean voyages.
Nevertheless, this represents only a small portion of the human story. Our species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa approximately 300,000 years ago. However, other human-like hominins existed as far back as 7 million years ago. The earliest of these appear to have been confined to Africa, but around 2 million years ago, some began migrating into Eurasia. Homo erectus reached as far east as Java, while Neanderthals inhabited Europe and Western Asia for hundreds of thousands of years. The question remains whether any of these earlier hominin species also took to the water.
Revisiting Early Hominin Seafaring: Luzon and Flores
The argument for modern humans utilizing boats to reach Australia is straightforward: no other means of access existed. Therefore, if a landmass was consistently an island and hominin traces are found there, it follows that those hominins were seafarers.
Applying this logic, it becomes possible to extend the timeline of seafaring much further back into prehistory. On the island of Flores, east of Java in Indonesia, lived a distinct hominin population known as Homo floresiensis, identified in 2004. Nicknamed “hobbits” due to their small stature, rarely exceeding one meter in height, their fossil record is limited but indicates they inhabited Flores between 190,000 and 50,000 years ago. Cherry notes that “Flores has never been connected with the immediately adjacent islands.”
Further back in time, another enigmatic group of hominins, Homo luzonensis, inhabited Luzon in the Philippines. Discovered in 2019, knowledge about this species is still developing. The available fossils, all recovered from a single cave, range from 67,000 to 50,000 years old. However, a 2018 study reported butchered rhinoceros bones on the island, suggesting a hominin presence dating back 709,000 years.
The oldest evidence to date comes from Sulawesi, where researchers in August 2025 described seven stone tools dating between 1.04 million and 1.48 million years old. These tools represent the most ancient hominin evidence found on Sulawesi by a significant margin. While some scholars interpret these findings as indicative of seafaring by hominins predating our species by hundreds of thousands of years, both Cherry and Gaffney caution against such definitive conclusions.
They point out that other animals occasionally cross oceans by accident, and hominins could have done the same. Instances such as being swept out to sea on floating vegetation following floods are plausible. Southeast Asia’s monsoon climate frequently brings intense rainstorms and floods.
“Even today, there is ample evidence of ‘huge floating rafts of vegetation being swept out to sea, including not only all the trees and plants and everything, but all of the other critters that were on that block of land at the time, including primates’,” states Cherry. While such rafting events are infrequent and survival rates low, over vast time scales, a few successful journeys are possible. Cherry cites the divergence of Old World and New World monkeys as an example, suggesting a group was carried west across the Atlantic from Africa to South America. Similarly, a study in March 2025 provided evidence that iguanas may have made an epic journey, possibly rafting west across the Pacific from North America to Fiji around 30 million years ago, covering over 8,000 kilometers.
Gaffney observes that in Southeast Asia, “you can often see, after storm events, lots of driftwood, lots of massive vegetation coming down the rivers.” He posits that “a few hominins hanging on to logs there, or mangroves, and being washed out to different islands” is imaginable. This does not preclude earlier hominins from possessing some maritime capabilities; they might have had the ability to float, cling to rafts, paddle, or even swim, thus surviving longer at sea than other animals.
Intentional Seafaring: Distinguishing Accidental Rafting from Deliberate Voyages
Gaffney argues that only frequent water crossings, involving watercraft, should be considered evidence of intentional seafaring. The discoveries on Flores, Luzon, and Sulawesi represent a few crossings over a million years, easily explained by chance. In contrast, modern humans’ journeys to Australia around 60,000 years ago, involving multiple crossings within approximately 20,000 years, are seen as significant and suggest deliberate action.
While preserved boats from tens of thousands of years ago are absent, modern humans possessed “composite technology,” meaning they could combine multiple objects. They fashioned hafted stone tools onto spears, utilized resins and adhesives, ropes, and bamboo. These components suggest the capability to construct rafts. There is no evidence that other Asian hominins, such as *Homo floresiensis* or *Homo luzonensis*, possessed composite technology, implying they likely could not build boats or rafts.
Neanderthals may represent an exception. Once stereotyped as primitive, they are now understood to have possessed capabilities comparable to modern humans. They exhibited adaptability, surviving in diverse environments from southern Spain to the Altai Mountains. Evidence of their burial practices, cave art, and crafting of jewelry from seashells suggests advanced cognition. The discovery that they could produce twine or similar cordage was particularly significant.
“I think people are open to the idea that Neanderthals were also seafaring, or at least crossing water gaps, what we might call seagoing,” remarks Gaffney. This idea is primarily supported by evidence from the Ionian Islands off the western coast of Greece, where hominins were present as early as 110,000 years ago, during the Neanderthal dominance of Europe.
Further evidence emerges from more remote Greek islands. Stone tools on Crete, though not definitively dated, have been suggested to range from 130,000 to 700,000 years old. Similarly ancient tools have been found on the nearby island of Gavdos. A 2019 study reported 9,000 stone artifacts, characteristic of Neanderthal craftsmanship, on Naxos, with the oldest dating to around 200,000 years ago.
“There is probably growing acceptance that early humans, and perhaps hominins like Neanderthals, were making sea crossings to the Greek islands earlier than 200,000 years ago,” states Runnels.
Cognitive and Social Implications of Prehistoric Seafaring
The fact that our distant ancestors, and even our Neanderthal relatives, traversed considerable bodies of water provides significant insight into their minds and capabilities. Undertaking such journeys required planning multiple steps ahead: gathering materials and constructing a vessel. As Gaffney puts it, “They have to think in the future.”
Seafaring also points to an intangible aspect: prehistoric peoples were cooperative. Building boats was a time-consuming endeavor, and “you would have reduced that labour cost by having multiple people,” he adds.
Moreover, seafaring serves as evidence for something even more challenging to discern across deep time: courage. Blankshein reflects on reconstructed Norse Viking ships, noting their sturdiness. However, simpler craft would have offered less security. “If you start thinking about getting into a hide-skin boat and travelling long distances… there’s absolutely no way that most people would do that.”
Yet, many prehistoric individuals, including those who reached Malta at least 8,500 years ago, must have embarked on boats, taking a chance to voyage to new lands they could not be certain existed, lying far beyond the horizon. These were remarkable, inspiring leaps of faith that ultimately carried our ancestors across the globe.
Isolated on Islands: Survival and Evolution in Founder Populations
If a few hominins were accidentally swept out to sea and washed ashore on an island, would their fate be sealed? The small founding group would presumably struggle to breed and eventually perish.
This might lead one to assume that evidence of hominins on an island must signify purposeful crossings by large groups. However, small populations can endure for surprisingly long periods. Ecologists discuss “extinction debt”: the concept that an ecosystem, despite suffering significant harm, has not yet fully realized the consequences, allowing species to persist temporarily despite an ultimate unfavorable trajectory. Small hominin groups on islands might have faced eventual extinction but could have persisted for many generations, leaving traces in the archaeological record.
This phenomenon might even help explain certain peculiarities observed in island hominin populations. The diminutive size of the hobbits of Flores and *Homo luzonensis* on Luzon, for instance, remains unexplained. However, it has been suggested that small founding populations with limited genetic diversity can lead to unusual evolutionary pathways in island species.