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Hōkūleʻa, Hikianalia Make Landfall in French Polynesia
- On June 25, anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu's team published studies in Science Advances recreating a 30,000-year-old sea crossing from Taiwan to Japan's Ryukyu Islands using a dugout canoe.
- The project began in 2013 to answer how Paleolithic people reached remote islands like Okinawa and how difficult their journey was, testing hypotheses starting with raft attempts.
- The team constructed a 25-foot dugout canoe called Sugime using tools authentic to the period and paddled approximately 140 miles across the challenging Kuroshio Current, all without the aid of modern navigation equipment.
- Kaifu stated, “A dugout canoe was our last candidate,” explaining rafts were too slow and fragile, while canoes offered enough speed and durability but required skilled paddlers facing strategic challenges.
- The project showed Paleolithic humans possessed advanced seafaring skills and endurance, suggesting ocean voyages were possible despite variable conditions, and that their journeys were more complex than previously credited.
14 Articles
14 Articles
Hōkūleʻa, Hikianalia make landfall in French Polynesia
HONOLULU (KHON2) -- Polynesian Voyaging Society's traditional voyaging canoe duo Hōkūleʻa and Hikianalia, accompanied by Tahiti's canoe Faʻafaite, made landfall at Taputapuātea in French Polynesia on the morning of June 24. Taputapuātea is located on the island of Raʻiātea and is seen as the ancestral homeland and spiritual center of Polynesia voyaging. Hōkūleʻa, Hikianalia continue trek to Tahiti Hōkūleʻa and Hikianalia departed from Hilo…
Scientists attempted an experimental voyage, crossing the East China Sea, rowing from Ushibi, in eastern Taiwan, to Yonaguni Island, Japan, in a makeshift canoe, to show that this was possible about 30,000 years ago.
The Straits Times
With a primitive canoe, scientists replicate prehistoric seafaring
Our species arose in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago and later trekked worldwide, eventually reaching some of Earth's most remote places. In doing so, our ancestors surmounted geographic barriers including treacherous ocean expanses. But how did they do that with only rudimentary technology available to them? Read more at straitstimes.com.
Archaeology: People must have made voyages on the sea in prehistoric times. But how? Japanese and Taiwanese archaeologists tried it. They succeeded,…
Ancient canoe replica tests Paleolithic migration theory
When and where the earliest modern human populations migrated and settled in East Asia is relatively well known. However, how these populations moved between islands on treacherous stretches of sea is still shrouded in mystery.
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