jects had to have been left there by seafarers from the main-
land who had ventured out of sight of the Turkish or Syrian
coast at least 30 miles away. Th is fi nd provides evidence of
the earliest seafaring in the Mediterranean Sea. Evidence for
adventurous seafaring has also been found in northern wa-
ters. Th e fi rst Stone Age settlers to reach Ireland would have
required watercraft to cross the Irish Sea, for example; except
for the very narrow northern part where Ireland is visible
from Scotland under ideal conditions, they would have been
out of sight of land for some part of this trip.
In any case, the sea may not have been the obstacle that
historians long thought it was. Th ey note that the archaeo-
logical record shows remarkable similarity among cultures
up and down the Atlantic seaboard and around through the
Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea during the
Mesolithic Period, or the Middle Stone Age, ranging roughly
from 12,000 or 10,000 b.c.e. to at least 7000 b.c.e. and per-
haps as late as 3200 b.c.e. (Dates for these broadly defi ned
periods can diff er for diff erent geographical regions.) Some
believe that these similarities could have come about only if
people along the Atlantic coast traveled by sea, carrying ar-
tifacts and practices of their culture with them. Th e cultural
connections seen around the coasts of the North Sea and the
Baltic Sea could have been possible only thanks to the ability
to navigate across open seas.
An increasing number of fi nds have off ered considerable
insight into prehistoric European seafaring. By the Bronze
Age people in northern Europe were building boats out of
planks that were propelled by more than a dozen rowers. Th e
earliest-known plank-built ships date from about 1900 b.c.e.,
and others have been found dating from perhaps 800 b.c.e. An
important recent example is the Dover Boat, found in 1992,
which appears to have been used for crossing the English
Channel. In addition, a large collection of bronze axes found
at the bottom of Langdon Bay, also near Dover, appears to be
a cargo load that did not make it all the way across. Th e chief
advantage of these plank boats was that the freeboard, the
distance between the waterline and the top of the hull, was
higher than those of other boats, making them more stable in
ocean swells. Meanwhile, the Iberians (in modern-day Spain
and Portugal) and the Irish were building lightly framed boats
covered with hides. Th ese types of vessels were probably used
for trade, particularly to carry tin to Gaul and Rome.
Th e ancient Celts, in particular, were seafaring peoples
and developed sophisticated boat-building and navigational
skills. Th e Celts were an ethnic group that spread across large
portions of Europe and into the British Isles. One Celtic group
was the Veneti, who, along with several other nations, inhab-
ited the region of Gaul the Romans called Aremonica. Th is
region included Brittany, a peninsula that juts westward and
is surrounded by the English Channel and the Bay of Biscay.
Largely surrounded by water, the Veneti developed sophisti-
cated seafaring technology.
Th e Roman emperor Julius Caesar (r. 49–44 b.c.e.) fought
his greatest naval battle against the Veneti in 55 b.c.e. In hisaccount of the battle in his work Commentarii de bello Gal-
lico, he described the Celtic fl eet as consisting of 220 ships.
Th e ships were tall and graceful—Caesar called them “swan
ships”—and each was able to carry 200 men. Th e ships were
powered by leather sails rather than rowed with oars; because
the hulls did not need openings for oars, the hulls were far
stronger than those of the Romans’ ships. Th ese ships were
able to navigate the open seas during storms, but because of
their broad beams and shallow draft , they were also able to
sail in shallow waters and estuaries. Th eir timbers were made
of oak and fastened with iron nails rather than the wooden
pegs the Romans used in constructing ships. Adding to the
Veneti’s advantage was the rocky and tempestuous coastline,
which they could navigate better than the Romans could in
their oar-powered galleys. Caesar eventually was able to de-
feat the Veneti by having his sailors use long grappling hooks
to shred the ships’ sails, leaving the ships dead in the water.GREECE
BY EDWARD M. W. A. ROWLANDS
Ancient Greek sailors were fi rst able to sail to the islands
around them and then later used those islands as stepping-
stones to other locations in the Mediterranean and into the
Black Sea. Th ey learned how to use the sun and the stars as
a means of direction and determined the best times of the
year to sail. Seafaring could be tough, but the experience
that sailors would acquire, along with the technological im-
provements to ships, meant that speed and fl exibility would
increase over time.
In the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1600–1100 b.c.e.) people from
Greece were able to travel from island to island in the Aegean.
Th e Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations spread throughout
the Aegean from Crete and Greece, respectively. Depictions
of ships, for example, have been found on fresco fragments
from the island of Th era (now Th íra) that date from around
1600 b.c.e. Islands were used as landing stages and could be
accessed in a day’s journey. Shelter, fresh water, and food sup-
plies could then be found on land. Navigation was accom-
plished by keeping in sight of land and following the coast.
Greek ships were constructed so that they could be moved
onto dry land upon arrival. Th is design was to prevent the de-
struction of the boat by any sea storm. Homer describes boats
as being fast and hollow, suggesting that these boats would
have been light and easy to move ashore. Th is practice con-
tinued for many centuries. Ships were also moved overland so
that sailors could gain access to other branches of the sea. Th e
port of Corinth became very famous for its Diolkos. Th e Di-
olkos was a paved road that was used for the transportation of
boats on a platform from the Saronic Gulf to the Corinthian
bay, which are on either side of the Peloponnese in Greece.
Th is route proved very successful and was used from the sev-
enth century b.c.e. up to the ninth century c.e.
Ancient Greek navigation was based on observation, and
it was important for every ship to have experienced sailors.seafaring and navigation: Greece 9570895-1194_Soc&Culturev4(s-z).i957 957 10/10/07 2:30:33 PM