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2mo ago

Experimental Archaeologists Recreate 30,000-Year-Old Sea Crossing From Taiwan to Yonaguni

Using a dugout canoe built with prehistoric tools, ocean-current simulations, celestial navigation, researchers demonstrate how Paleolithic voyagers could have paddled 140 miles to reach the Ryukyu Islands.

A dugout canoe with four men and one woman paddling is pictured during a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from near Ushibi, Taiwan to Yonaguni Island, traversing the Kuroshio current, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS
Researcher Kunihiro Amemiya uses a period-accurate axe to chop down a Japanese cedar tree in Noto Peninsula, Japan, to make a dugout canoe for a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from Taiwan to Yonaguni Island, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES
© photograph by Yousuke Kaifu
An axe accurate to a period of 30,000 years ago, that scientists used to make a dugout canoe for a crossing across a region of the East China Sea from Taiwan near Ushibi to Yonaguni Island, traversing the Kuroshio current, is seen at Noto Peninsula, Japan, in this handout image released on June 25, 2025. Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via REUTERS

Overview

  • Two papers published in Science Advances combine hands-on canoe construction with numerical ocean models to test Paleolithic seafaring across the East China Sea
  • In 2019, the team carved a 7.5-meter dugout canoe named Sugime from a single Japanese cedar using replica stone tools and paddled it for over 45 hours
  • Early tests with reed-bundle and bamboo rafts proved too slow and fragile to overcome the powerful Kuroshio Current
  • Simulations showed that departing from northern Taiwan and steering slightly southeast significantly improved the odds of a successful crossing
  • Navigating solely by sun, stars, swells and instinct, the experiment underscores advanced strategic seafaring skills of early modern humans despite an impractical return voyage without maps