As a child, I loved reading Thor Heyerdahl’s book about his voyage across the Pacific on his tiny raft, the Kon-Tiki. He was testing his theory that the Pacific islands were populated by people who sailed there from South America. Although his team did cross the Pacific, he didn’t change the established view that Polynesian people migrated from Southeast Asia.
Recently, Japanese researchers used Heyerdahl’s approach to explore another aspect of Pacific migration: How did ancient humans navigate powerful currents between Taiwan and the southern Japanese islands without maps, metal tools or modern boats?
First, the scientists used mathematical ocean models to re-create hundreds of virtual voyages to pinpoint plausible routes.
Then, they embarked on a real journey to document whether such a voyage could be done by relying only on the stars, sun and wind for their bearings.
Their early trials with boats made of cattail reeds and bamboo failed, as those materials were too fragile. They then chose a sugi, a Japanese cedar tree in the cypress family. They replicated the methods of over 30,000 years ago, using stone axes with wooden handles. They christened the boat “the Sugime.”
Their five-person team paddled the wooden canoe from Taiwan across the open sea to the Ryukyu Islands, 120 miles away.
Such voyages help reveal lost histories of human migration that are invisible in traditional archeological records. And trees are a central part of those stories.
