Ancient Boats and Brave Voyagers: Crossing the Kuroshio Current

A long time ago, people lived on the Ryukyu Islands near Japan. No one knows how they got there. The trip was tough because of a super strong ocean current called the Kuroshio Current. To figure it out, scientists built a boat like the ones from that time and tried the journey themselves. They used tools from the Upper Paleolithic era, around 50, 000 to 10, 000 years ago. The boat was a dugout canoe made from a Japanese cedar tree. It was 7. 5 meters long and had a fire-charred inside. Five people paddled it across the 68. 4-mile-wide strait between Taiwan and Yonaguni Island. It took them about 45 hours. This shows that people could have traveled from Taiwan to the Ryukyu Islands a long time ago. Before this success, the scientists tried other boats like reed-bundle rafts and bamboo rafts. But those didn't work well against the strong current. The dugout canoe was the winner. The team also used computer models to simulate the journey. They found that the starting point, direction, and navigation skills were very important. The scientists wanted to show that people from the Paleolithic era were not "inferior. " They did amazing things with the technology they had. This experiment helps us understand how ancient people might have traveled across the ocean. Even though this experiment gives us clues, it's not the same as finding real archaeological evidence. But it's a creative way to learn more about the past.