Human ancestors travelled the seas 130,000 years ago

Washington, August 21 (ANI): Human ancestors travelled the high seas 130,000 years ago, which is 100,000 years earlier than previously thought, a new study has found.

The evidence found by a team of researchers that included a North Carolina State University geologist is based on stone tools from the island of Crete.

Because Crete has been an island for eons, any prehistoric people who left tools behind would have had to cross open water to get there.

The tools the team found are so old that they predate the human species, said Thomas Strasser, an archaeologist from Providence College who led the team. Instead of being made by our species, Homo sapiens, the tools were made by our ancestors, Homo erectus.

The tools are very different from any others found on Crete, Strasser said. They're most similar to early stone-age tools from Africa that are about 700,000 years old, he said.

"The thing to me that really makes this unique and exciting is ... these other sister species maybe weren't entirely stupid like we portray them," Wegmann said. "They were capable of really complex things." (ANI)