Ancient maritime history

Ancient history
Preceded by prehistory
Near East
Europe
Horn of Africa
North Africa
Eurasian Steppe
Central Asia
East Asia
South Asia
Northern America
Mesoamerica
Andes
Caribbean
West Africa and Central Africa
Southeast Asia and Oceania
See also

Maritime history dates back thousands of years. In ancient maritime history,[1] evidence of maritime trade between civilizations dates back at least two millennia.[2] The first prehistoric boats are presumed to have been dugout canoes which were developed independently by various Stone Age populations. In ancient history, various vessels were used for coastal fishing and travel.[3][obsolete source] A mesolithic boatyard has been found from the Isle of Wight in Britain[4]

The first true ocean-going boats were invented by the Austronesian peoples, using technologies like multihulls, outriggers, crab claw sails, and tanja sails. This enabled the rapid spread of Austronesians into the islands of both the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, known as the Austronesian expansion. They laid the groundwork for the maritime trade routes into South Asia and the Arabian Sea by around 1000 to 600 BC, which would later become the Maritime Silk Road.[5][6][7][8]

Egyptians had trade routes through the Red Sea, importing spices from the "Land of Punt" and from Arabia.[9][10] By the time of Julius Caesar, several well-established combined land-sea trade routes depended upon water transport through the sea around the rough inland terrain features to its north. Navigation was known in Sumer between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BC.[11] The search for the source of spices in these maritime trade routes later led to the Age of Exploration.

  1. ^ Walter Macarthur. Sea Routes of Commerce: An Outline of Maritime History in Ancient and Medieval Times, with Four Map. Stratford Company, 1925
  2. ^ Denemark, John (2000). World System History: The Social Science of Long-Term Change. Routledge. p. 107. ISBN 0-415-23276-7.
  3. ^ Augustus Hamilton. Fishing and sea-foods of the ancient Māori. J. Mackay, govt. printer, 1908
  4. ^ Schiermeier, Quirin (2015-02-26). "Ancient DNA reveals how wheat came to prehistoric Britain". Nature. doi:10.1038/nature.2015.17010. S2CID 87800214. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  5. ^ Meacham, Steve (11 December 2008). "Austronesians were first to sail the seas". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 April 2019.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Doran1974 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mahdi1999 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bellina was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Rawlinson 2001: 11–12.
  10. ^ see Trade_route of Maritime_trade
  11. ^ Denemark 2000: 208