Thank you very much for taking the time to read this article closely and contribute additional material. Much appreciated, and I get yet another chance to talk further about this fascinating subject.

1. You are quite correct that Homo erectus had control of fire before leaving Africa. The best evidence and dating that places sites in the Early or Middle Middle Pleistocene are: Koobi Fora, Kenya at 1.5 mya; and b) Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel 0.790 – 0.690 mya. Evidence for fire at Zhoukoudian, China (Peking Man) often quoted as 0.500 mya is being re-evaluated. The burnt material there may have been formed by natural events and the cave itself may have been the lair of hyenas. Human mediated charcoal at Trinil on the island of Java is near impossible to date precisely. This evidence may be 500,000 years old, then again it might be less than 100,000 years old and post date the H. erectus era. It seems that many H. erectus groups did not use fire, and this is a bit mysterious considering the many advantages of this ‘tool’

2. Robert G. Bednarik of the First Mariner’s Project mentions a Middle Pleistocene site on an Indonesian Island that might hold evidence of Homo erectus having domesticated fire. A Stegodont bone found at To’os appeared to have violently smashed and one end was heavily calcified and it was lying in remnants of a fire ‘believed’ to be of human origin. The critical details that might establish exact contemporaneity of elephant bone and fire, geological context, radiometric dating and the fire as of unquestionable human origin are not mentioned but are ‘in press’. I submit the case for Homo erectus using controlled fire in Indonesia is very weak. But then we do not need Indonesian H. erectus to be using controlled fire in the Middle Pleistocene for these groups to be First Mariners. All the absence of fire precludes is the building of dug out canoes, which are not needed for the premise under scrutiny.

3. Homo floresiensis dates to a much later time period than that of the first mariners, the end of the Upper Pleistocene. All fossil bones, with one exception, fall within the time range of 38,000 to 13,000 BP. The one exception is an arm bone dated to 74,000 BP. Skull anatomy resembles that of H. erectus and H.erectus is the best candidate for the ancestral population that evolved into this dwarf species of Homo. The story of this short (~1 meter tall) human species has no connections to attempts to find the first mariners that I can see. I agree that the circumstances of Homo floresiensis speak to isolation because they are a good candidate for the evolutionary mechanism known as genetic drift. Genetic drift requires small, isolated populations so that atypical gene clusters and their possibly unusual phenotypes can be favored. I’m not certain we should generalize back hundreds of thousands of years from Homo floresiensis to the Middle Pleistocene and try to deduce the degree of isolation of H. erectus populations on several islands in Wallacea. Travel between these islands may, or may not, have been intimidating to Homo floresiensis even with the capability to do so. Inadequate food supply may not have the situation on Flores at this time, and we don’t need a deficient diet hypothesis to explain the short stature and anatomy of H. floresiensis. It is also not necessary to theorize about limits on intelligence to explain isolation on this island. H. floresiensis may have chosen to ‘hide’ particularly if aware of full size hominids on Flores and other islands and/or occasionally experienced interactions with full size humans who treated them badly. There is little if anything in the anatomy, inferred mental capacity, dating and fossil record of H. floresiensis that addresses any of the questions about H. erectus as first mariner.

4.H. erectus drifting to islands on logs seems to be unlikely for several reasons: a) body size is much larger than monkeys, although perhaps in the orangutan range. But then orangs are animals that live deep in the rain forest. We are assuming a level of H. erectus cognition that can assess a situation in the immediate environment, its characteristics and challenges. It may not have been beyond the mental abilities of H. erectus to look at rough channel currents and realize that putting oneself into such a situation on a large log is dangerous. There is no way to control the journey. If one slides into the ocean, or knocked off the log by a large wave, drowning is a very real danger. Pre-image of this journey does not inspire confidence, it generates fear. A log raft that is paddled can be controlled, the rough water may be mastered and a safer journey is very possible. H. erectus may have been able to think out the details of a cross channel voyage to an offshore island. The much later date for voyages to Australia may be explained by the much greater challenge and the heightened fear posed by a journey to a land mass out of sight as the article discusses.

5. Don’t go back if you like where you are. This may be irrelevant but aspects of the early Polynesian settlement of Hawaii come to mind. The island of Maui in Hawaii (where I live) was settled primarily by two bursts of Polynesian immigration: a ) from the Marquesa Islands in the 10th century A.D.; and b) from Tahiti > 1350 A.D. Voyages back to home islands were rare, but not because of lack of capability. The large two hulled catamarans used in these voyages are extraordinary examples of ship architecture. They have been recreated and the replicas sailed throughout the Pacific to demonstrate their capability and further study Polynesian navigation. Early Hawaiians did not often return to their home islands ~2.000 miles distant because one model for generating such voyages is the exile of a defeated king and his family. Return to your former island, where land and food resources are still at a premium, and the local king who defeated you now rules over your former lands, and you become a target for assassination. Much better to stay in the new home, islands recently discovered and free of enemies. If this level of social and group behavior seems too complex for what we image H. erectus could do, note that chimpanzee society for reasons human observers find puzzling, occasionally identifies unwanted individuals and then drives them out of the group into permanent exile.

To be discussed in a future article in this series is the evidence for significant ocean voyages in the Mediterranean region during the middle and late Middle Pleistocene which strengthen the case presented here. At the end of the day, we are taking small bits of direct evidence and mixing in a strong circumstantial brief to try and recreate and identify the first ocean voyages in history. Do these sea voyages and what they imply for cognition in Home erectus justify the use of the phrase ‘First Mariners’? I like to think they do .:)

Once again, thank you Diana for ‘plunging’ into this discussion.

Additional sources -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/anthro/programs/csho/Content/Facultycvandinfo/Anton/Yearbook2003.pdf

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/web/mariner1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_floresiensis

Crossing rivers was a daily activity for many ancient people so they were familiar with bodies of water, they didn’t need a canoe to sail just a big tree brough down by a storm or a raft made out of smaller pieces of wood was enough.

Just looking at what other animals did allowed then to imitate and improve later to do better.

Those scientists should be more free thinkers than thinkers by the book. They seems paralized by the academy and that is terrible for Science. The sacred cows cotrol the out put wasting millions in theories like the Clovis that has become more stubborn thet the Bible tales.