I’ve seen it suggested that the Philippines would have been inaccessible without boats (due to deep waters and strong currents). I wonder how (apparent) boat-building ability (in order to get there) affects apologists’ claims (e.g. by RTB) that archaic homo species (such as Neanderthal, and presumably, Denisovians) weren’t “human”.
The Philippines was connected by land bridges to Asia. Why would boats be needed?
Homo erectus had boats. Homo erectus may have been a sailor – and able to speak | Evolution | The Guardian
Decades ago, the story of Asia seemed far more straightforward, if
incomplete. Paleoanthropologists knew that archaic hominins such as
/Homo erectus /ventured over land bridges into parts of what is now
Indonesia nearly a million years ago. But farther east, it was thought
that these hominins ran into ocean currents considered impassable
without boats.
Luzon seemed especially difficult for ancient hominins to reach, as it
had never been connected to the mainland by land bridges, so
archaeologists thought that digging into deeper, older layers of soil
wouldn’t yield much. When Mijares first excavated Callao Cave in 2003,
he found 25,000-year-old evidence of human activity
but he didn’t dig any deeper than about four feet down.
(Paywalled)
I don’t think that we give enough credit to Homo Erectus for all that the species did to make us human.
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