Friday, September 7, 2012

A Journal of Pacific Maritime History


As I sit on the sand the salty ice water approaches my toes, I let the sand run through my fingers and listen to the seagulls on the Pacific coastline, and all of my focus is driven to the beautiful sun setting into the ocean. I am amazed by the fact that seventy one percent of earths surface is covered by the ocean. I can’t even begin to imagine the quantity of artifacts, lives, and histories that are hidden deep inside the large body of water that lies before me.  I, like many other individuals, rarely take the time to actually consider how much history, is yet to be revealed with the numerous amounts of historical artifacts and evidence concealed in the sea.
It amazes me how much society underestimates our ancestors that astonishingly voyaged their way around the world. I believe they were extremely courageous individuals that were capable of crossing dangerous and large water barriers to disperse around earth. Our ancestors also managed to discover various coastal adaptations required for survival while voyaging.  Their intelligence allowed them to construct composite forms of watercrafts. They somehow understood the sophisticated technology and engineering required to construct a boat to get them across the huge ocean. Without any education, these individuals worked out of desperation and managed to survive off of marine resources and maintained a strong boat that got them across vicious open waters to a land where they had the opportunity to colonize.
It’s unbelievable how many years it has taken archeologist and maritime historians to discover the antiquity of maritime people. Many families spread around the earth’s surface during a period of dramatic sea-level changes. There were many glaciers during the time of their voyages.  It disappoints me how many archeological evidence is eroding in the ocean due to global warming and the rapid sea-level rise. It is truly unfortunate that most of the coastlines our ancestors used is now submerged deep inside the ocean, making it nearly impossible to discover more ancient seafaring history.
As scholars continue to search for evidence for systematic seafaring, island colonization, and marine hunting, fishing, and shellfish they come to realize that the theories, that were once thought to be true, are being contradicted by artifact found in the ocean and it’s geographical evolution over time. I strongly agree with the most recent theoretical scholar prospective “individuals have always had the capacity to rapidly adapt to a challenging condition. This human ability to innovate during periods of heightened environmental stress is one of the hallmark characteristics of our specie and has been central to out ability to enter and expand throughout the entire breadth of the New World since the last Ice Age.” It’s evident that as time progresses, assumptions scholars are making today is either going to be contradicted or further proven correct. However, something that will certainly remain the same is our amazing ability to adapt correspondingly to situations that rise in our lives. That same courage and strength that we have today, is the strength and courage our ancestors used to survive years of voyage across the oceans, a challenge that is slowly but surely being revealed through time. 

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