Traveling Prehistoric Seas Critical Thinking on Ancient Transoceanic Voyages [Hardcover]

Until recently the theory that people could have traversed large expanses of ocean in prehistoric times was considered pseudoscience. But recent discoveries in places as disparate as Australia, Labrador, Crete, California, and Chile open the possibility that ancient oceans were highways, not barriers, and that ancient people possessed the means and motives to traverse them. In this brief, thought-provoking, but controversial book Alice Kehoe considers the existing evidence in her reassessment of ancient sailing. Her book
-critically analyzes the growing body of evidence on prehistoric sailing to help scholars and students evaluate a highly controversial hypothesis;
-examines evidence from archaeology, anthropology, botany, art, mythology, linguistics, maritime technology, architecture, paleopathology, and other disciplines;
-presents her evidence in student-accessible language to allow instructors to use this work for teaching critical thinking skills.

Alice Kehoe uses critical analysis of large bodies of interdisciplinary evidence to help scholars and students reevaluate the highly controversial theory that people sailed large distances across oceans in ancient times.

“Alice Kehoe understands why archaeologists demand extraordinary evidence, but challenges overly conservative attitudes that sometimes act as blinders to the real possibilities of early transoceanic contacts. Do I agree with everything she says? Hardly. But as is usual in her work, Kehoe raises legitimate questions that dare archaeologists to move beyond status quo thinking.”

—Larry J. Zimmerman, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Preface 1. The Myth of Columbus 2. The Question of Boats 3. Peripatetic People 3. The Strongest Evidence: Organisms 4. Technologies 5. Art, Architecture, and Mythology 6. The Atlantic World 7. Critically Examining Precolumbian Seas 8. Dubitanda References Index About the Author