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Upright Man in Socotra

Sea-crossing began early on in prehistory. Farmers crossed to italy by 6,000 BCE, hunter-gatherers made the voyage to Cyprus around 13,000 BCE. Flores, an island in the east of the Indonesian archipelago, was colonised even earlier by hominids around 700,000 BCE, and the island of Crete saw its first visitors potentially over a million years before the present. There is one island, however, which bears witness to a record that is unlikely to be beaten by any future discovery: Socotra.

Situated 100km from the tip of East Africa and 180km from the southern shore of the Arabian peninsula, Socotra is a seemly inhospitable island with a wealth of ecological diversity. During the Pleistocene and earlier, it would have been almost a tropical island, brimming with micro-climates, forest canopies, wetlands and savannahs. It was never part of any mainland, and many miles separated it from the flora and fauna of Africa or Asia. Yet, somehow, around 2 million years ago, Homo Erectus got there.

In 2008 & 2009, an expeditionary team of Russian archaeologists and paleoanthropologists announced the discovery of several clusters of stone tools, made in the archaic Oldowan or Mode 1 fashion. These had been left beside lush wadi, or oases, and is distinct by an absence of cores, which are much more prevalent in continental assemblages. The same team also uncovered a rich tool industry the east of Iran and in Azerbaijan, both attributable to Homo Erectus or another Erectus-like archaic species. Since this lithic tradition spans more than a million years, the earliest date for an arrival on the island is about 2.5million years ago. On the other hand, Erectus only emerged after 1.8mya, a species credited with crossing rough seas to Flores, Sulawesi and possibly the Philipines. It seems unlikely that their predecessor Homo Habilis, who could not even hunt and lived a partially arboreal lifestyle, could have accomplished the trip, even if they may have reached as far as the east Asian mainland.



Some of the bifacial choppers found in Socotra, comparable with artefacts from eastern Iran.


What gave them the idea to do it, and how did they go about it? The drive for new territory, new lands is a defining characteristic of our species, and perhaps there was an element of inter-group competition. Maybe one band of Erectus challenged the other to float on the open ocean; maybe even as punishment or as a result of forced exile following a territorial takeover. How they did it is another matter, but it was likely with the same boat technology as was used to cross over to Flores and Timor. Sea levels were up to 50m lower in this part of the Pleistocene, so it is possible that there were several islets and marshy banks, visible from the shore, that served as stepping stones to the island. 

To build rafts, probably from locally-sourced driftwood, to navigate the shallow straits to Socotra, would have surely needed a language, or at least a proto-language capable of expressing commands, explaining techniques and giving words of encouragement. The wood had to be of a certain type and shape, the lashings from a certain plant, and the raft had to be set adrift in favourable winds. Moreover, there would not have been a instinctual reason to set sail, so to speak. Many firelit conversations and arguments, where personalities clashes and ideas were entertained, must have been had leading up to the decision.

From the contexts of the tools, it is clear that Erectus quickly found good environmental niches, with a ready supply of water, hides, flint cores, meat, fruits and berries within walking distance. There is a strong possibility that the evidence actually conceals several episodes of brief occupation by different Erectus groups across the Lower Palaeolithic, as there is no indication of permanent occupation or built-up caves that would suggest that they were there to stay. However, the several different sites all have tools of the same unique variation of the Oldowan, which could be indicative of a common ethos. 

The island was also visited in the Upper Palaeolithic, perhaps during the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa or towards the end of the period, although the material evidence is lacking. 


References:

Bednarik, R. (2003). Seafaring in the Pleistocene. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 13(1), 41-66. doi:10.1017/S0959774303000039

https://web.archive.org/web/20111009101750/http://www.ihae.ru/konfer/simpozium.htm

Damme, K. V., & Banfield, L. (2011). Past and present human impacts on the biodiversity of Socotra Island (Yemen): implications for future conservation. Zoology in the Middle East, 54(sup3), 31-88.




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