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Mar 03, 2025

Southeast Asia's 40,000-year-old marine tech challenges West's dominance

Research unveils that ancient Filipinos and neighbors were not just passive drifters but advanced. a day ago a day ago 2 days ago 2 days ago 2 days ago 2 days ago 2 days ago 3 days ago 3 days ago 3

Research unveils that ancient Filipinos and neighbors were not just passive drifters but advanced.

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Kaif Shaikh

The karst landscape of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is the result of millions of years of geological evolution.

iStock

New findings from sites in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste challenge the notion that technological advancements during the Paleolithic age were exclusive to Europe and Africa.

Many of the earliest and most well-studied Paleolithic sites were located in Europe and Africa. This led to a concentration of research and a perception that these regions were the primary centers of innovation.

An upcoming study in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (April 2025) by Ateneo de Manila University researchers Riczar Fuentes and Alfred Pawlik challenges the prevailing belief and suggests that Early seafarers possessed a level of technological sophistication comparable to much later civilizations.

The research builds on mysterious archaeological evidence that points to early human habitation in the ISEA, despite most of it being never connected to mainland Asia by land bridges or ice sheets.

This evidence raises the question: How did these ancient people manage such difficult ocean crossings since wooden and fiber-based materials used for boats rarely survived archaeological records?

The new study addresses this very question and indicates that ancient seafarers in the Philippines and ISEA built sophisticated boats and mastered deep-sea fishing 40,000 years ago.

Microscopic analysis of stone tools from these sites reveals traces of plant processing for extraction of fibers necessary for making ropes, nets, and bindings essential for boatbuilding and open-sea fishing. Some of these tools date as far back as 40,000 years ago,

Excavations from sites in Mindoro and Timor-Leste also uncovered the remains of deep ocean fish like tuna and sharks, along with fishing tools such as hooks, net weights, and gorges.

The researchers said, “The remains of large predatory pelagic fish in these sites indicate the capacity for advanced seafaring and knowledge of the seasonality and migration routes of those fish species.”

They added that the discovery of fishing implements indicates the need for strong and well-crafted cordage for ropes and fishing lines to catch marine fauna.

This collection of evidence points to the possibility that ancient seafarers built sophisticated boats with plant-based ropes to hold organic composite materials together. The same technology could have also been helpful for open-sea fishing.

It would also prove instead of passive sea drifting or fragile bamboo rafts, the movement of people across Island Southeast Asia was a product of deliberate, technologically advanced seafaring over deep waters.

The researchers were inspired to think of this topic and to test this hypothesis after several years of fieldwork in Ilin Island, Occidental Mindoro.

They recently started the ‘First Long-Distance Open-Sea Watercrafts’ (FLOW) project to test raw materials that were likely used in this region during the paleolithic age and to design and test various scaled-down seacraft models.

This initiative collaborates with naval architects from the University of Cebu and is supported by a research grant from the Ateneo de Manila University.

Such advanced maritime capabilities and technologies in prehistoric ISEA highlight the ingenuity of early Filipino people and their neighbors.

Archaeological investigations have historically favored areas of interest to Western scholars, leading to an uneven understanding of global prehistory.

This study, however, entertains the possibility that boat-building knowledge made the ISEA region a center of prehistoric innovations tens of thousands of years ago and planted the seeds for maritime traditions that still thrive even today.

Kaif Shaikh Kaif Shaikh is a journalist and writer passionate about turning complex information into clear, impactful stories. His writing covers technology, sustainability, geopolitics, and occasionally fiction. Kaif's bylines can be found in Times of India, Techopedia, and Kitaab. Apart from the long list of things he does outside work, he likes to read, breathe, and practice gratitude.

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