Homo erectus may have been a sailor – and able to speak
They had bodies similar to modern humans, could make tools, and were possibly the first to cook. Now one expert is arguing that
Homo erectus might have been a mariner – complete with sailing lingo.
Homo erectus first appeared in Africa more than 1.8m years ago and is thought to be the first archaic human to leave the continent. ...
“Oceans were never a barrier to the travels of
Erectus. He travelled all over the world, travelled to the island of Flores, across one of the greatest ocean currents in the world,” said Daniel Everett, professor of global studies at Bentley University, and author of How
Language Began. “They sailed to the island of Crete and various other islands. It was intentional: they needed craft and they needed to take groups of twenty or so at least to get to those places.”
While Everett is not the first to raise the controversial possibility that
H. erectus might have fashioned some sort of seagoing vessel, he believes that such capabilities mean that
H. erectus must also have had another skill: language. ...