ATS Lecture: ‘The Argonauts of the Stone Age’, Dr Dominique Goerlitz, 10 December 2019 - flyer - poster
Dr Dominique Goerlitz (website) in the centre surrounded by friends after the lecture.
1- All the reed boats which you built and then crafted have been called ‘Abora’ with a suffix number in sequence. What is the meaning of this name?
The name is derived from a divinity of the Canary Islands. Better to say from the ancient Guanches people there who worshipped this spiritual power on large step pyramids… So it signifies the “good force” which supports men in travel and work.
For me it was the right symbol for my planned expeditions…
2- Reed boats can have developed in all the continents where this material grows, so presumably it might have been the technology that took non-Mediterranean people on long-distance voyages, such as the first colonisers of Australia deep in the Stone Age? Do you think we still see world history from a European centric-view and thus the possibility of rather than Europeans going to the Americas first it may have been the other way around and perhaps there was even open trading going on between Pharaonic Egypt and central American Kingdoms of the time?
These questions are hard to answer: From where it started we cannot say exactly. We have the oldest evidences in the Shunda Sea about 900.000 B.C. Moreover, we have strong evidence for the first Atlantic crossing from Africa to Brazil around 50.000 B.C. but estimate to be even as far back 100.000-150.000 B.P. And not to forget the Solutreen and the Magdalenian people about 20.000 B.P. crossing the Northern Atlantic to America…
3- Homer and other ancient writers noted this traffic with reed-boats and do they contain precise information in helping work out details such as cargo loads, destinations and ethnicities involved in this Black Sea to the Mediterranean long-haul trade?
Sometimes but with very limited information. The best source is Eratosthenes from Alexandria who is reported via Pliny the Elder. But we obtain more information about the construction and rigging from pre-dynastic rock drawings surrounding the Mediterranean, Upper Egypt and the North of Spain…
4- The Bronze Age had the vital task of bringing tin and copper from far away sources and the former metal was always the hard one to source as it is absent from most of the Levant region. Do you think some of these crafts could have covered this long voyage and braved the Atlantic Ocean to reach the Cornwall mines or do you think the land route across Europe to the Danube basin of this ore transport was more likely?
I feel your second suggestion fits better with the archaeological records in Central and SE Europe! Nevertheless, we should not completely fade out Cornwall. At least in SW Europe Cornwall must have had maritime interactions with their neighbours there.
But we always think too narrow mindedly. Ancient people were never truly divided and blocked out behind barriers! The world oceans were highways which always brought people together wherever they were and from where the traders came from!
5- How stable is a reed boat in a storm, perhaps laden with cargo? Have you experienced such conditions yourself?
Of course! When we crossed the N-Atlantic we faced 13 storms!
Two of them were 10 on the Beaufort scale!
I would not be able answer you if such an predynastic square rigger was not absolutely seaworthy and stable. Therefore, I was encouraged enough to set sail on the Atlantic Ocean once again!!!
6- The bay of Poliochni on the Island of Limnos in the Northern Aegean was clearly a vital stop-over port in ancient times for sea-farers in the metal trade. Do you think the vital factor here was the well protected natural harbour or its location that was the primary factor in the location of this metal working centre founded even before nearby Troy rose?
Troy and Poliochni belonged together! The first site controlled the trade mainly from South to North. And Poliochni controlled the trade back in the Southern direction. Situated exactly opposite to the exit of the Dardanelles it was perfectly located so that traders could exchange their goods there as Minoan findings are proving. The Nortern people exported Thracian tin, amber and other goods; and from Poliochni or Troy gold and jewellery went to the Northern territories…
7- What is your next planned project?
With the ABORA V Expedition, I plan to provide the ultimate evidence on the feasibility of possible trading activities. Along the Equatorial current, following a pre-determined course, the new expedition will travel to targeted commercial ports, providing evidence that the Atlantic was a "high-way" for traders in both directions, long before Columbus sailed.
Where did the tobacco found in the mummy of Ramses II come from? Was there trade with South America? And how? Were cultivated plants from the Americas transported to Cyprus, Israel or Morocco?
All these questions cannot be answered if you search the answers only on dry land. The ocean must have played a major role in these postulated trade networks. Therefore, we need to make this expedition in order to demonstrate experimentally that such maritime interactions were possible by water-crafts of the late Stone Age and the beginning of the Bronze Age!