Research carried out by the University of Patras in the Peloponnese has concluded that as long ago as half a million years ago, hominids managed to sail across vast distances of the sea and inhabit the islands of the Aegean.

Ancient artefacts excavated on the islands have been dated to the Middle Pleistocene, which predates the first known appearance of modern man, Homo sapiens.

Tools dating to the ‘Acheulean Culture’, attributed to Homo erectus and derived species, which developed around 1.76 million years ago in Africa and Asia, have been found in Greece and Turkey dating back 1.2 million years, so their appearance on the islands is not surprising.

Further evidence suggests these were not the first sea crossings, between 700,000 and one million years ago, archaic humans are believed to have travelled by sea around Indonesia and the Philippines.

The findings suggest that sea travel was not a practice developed by Homo sapiens, but by our human ancestors and related species that came before. This further supports the belief that early hominids were both intelligent and creative.