Who invented the first boat?

Answer 1

Frankly, no one knows for sure. There is evidence that the Aborigines of Australia may have originated in Indonesia some 50,000 years ago. To travel to Australia from Indonesia, they would have needed some sort of boat as no land bridge has ever existed there. Additionally, there is evidence of human habitation (settlements) in the southern US and South America that predates the Clovis people (the first commonly accepted settlers in North America, who most assume walked over the land bridge at the Bering Straits between the last major ice age and the resurgence of ocean waters. Some of these settlements may date as far back as 70,000 years before now. Travel to South America in particular would have been nearly impossible except by boat or some sort of floating conveyance.

Also, we would need to agree on the definition of a 'boat.' Many would include any unsophisticated raft of logs or even a single log. I would include any floating object that can carry a human or some useful cargo. If that is the case, then it may be much older.

A museum in Cadiz, Spain has stone ax heads on display, that are clearly man-made. They could not be randomly broken rock. The oldest one that I recall was 500,000 years old. The art of making such things may seem very simple and crude if you have never done it before. However, if you try it, you find that it requires a surprisingly high degree of sophistication. A mind that could create an ax head of the quality on display, 500,000 years ago, seems very likely to be analytical enough to see a log floating in the water, or a mass of floating reeds, and decide to climb aboard, thereby inventing the first boat.

Archeologists have compelling evidence that ancient peoples certainly used stone tools on the island of Crete 130,000 BCE. They could have only arrived by boat. So, very serviceable boats are at least that old.

Therefore, as the beginning of this article says, 'no one knows for sure.' But it is very likely that they are much older than we can imagine.