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16h ago

Scientists Recreate 30,000-Year-Old Taiwan-Ryukyu Voyage with Stone-Age Canoe

The Science Advances publication combines experimental archaeology with paleo-ocean modeling to demonstrate that simple dugout canoes could have carried Paleolithic people across the Kuroshio Current.

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

  • A team led by University of Tokyo anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu carved a 7.5-meter dugout canoe named Sugime from a single Japanese cedar trunk using replica 30,000-year-old stone tools and paddled it 225 km from eastern Taiwan to Yonaguni Island over 45 hours.
  • Initial trials with reed-bundle and bamboo rafts proved too slow and fragile to withstand the strength of the Kuroshio Current.
  • Numerical simulations under modern and Late Pleistocene sea conditions tested varied departure points, seasons and paddling strategies to evaluate the ancient voyage’s viability.
  • Combined experimental and modeling results indicate that early modern humans possessed advanced navigational skills and strategic seafaring knowledge to tackle one of the world’s strongest currents.
  • Researchers are now unpacking experimental data to refine models of Paleolithic sea crossings and improve understanding of human migration across the East China Sea.