The Starset Societyby
Long before the legendary voyages of the Polynesians or the 16th-century expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, the islands of Southeast Asia (ISEA) were already home to master seafarers.
Newly discovered ancient stone tools from archeological sites in the Philippines, Indonesia and Timor-Leste are shedding light on how some of the islands of Southeast Asia were so well-inhabited early in history despite the fact that they were not connected to mainland Asia by land bridges or ice sheets.
The ISEA has yielded evidence of early human habitation but researchers have long wondered how the ancient people of these islands crossed the oceans. Now, a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports in April 2025 suggests that the early occupants of ISEA had sophisticated seafaring knowledge that enabled them to accomplish the feat.
Master Seafarers Long Before Magellan and the Polynesians
Study researchers Riczar Fuentes and Alfred Pawlik, from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology (DSA) of Ateneo de Manila University’s Dr Rosita G Leong School of Social Sciences (RGL SOSS), say that the ancient people of ISEA may have been masters of seafaring millennia before the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and even the Polynesians travelled the world’s oceans.
Magellan led the 16th-century Spanish expedition that sought to secure a maritime trade route with the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, in what would later become present-day Indonesia. During this expedition, the explorer discovered the Strait of Magellan, led the first European crossing of the Pacific Ocean and made the first known European contact with the Philippines.
He introduced Catholicism in the Philippines but unfortunately died in a battle with the natives of Mactan, which is now part of the modern-day Cebu in 1521. Following his death, his remaining crew returned to Spain, accomplishing the first circumnavigation of Earth.
The Polynesians are master seafarers who explored the vast expanse of the Pacific using ancient navigation skills that rely on stars, currents, clouds and bird movements. The group settled nearly every inhabitable land in the Pacific Ocean long before European explorers arrived in the 16th century.
This group is believed to be the direct descendants of the neolithic Lapita people who are known for their pottery skills. The culture appeared around 1400 BC in the Bismarck Archipelago of northwest Melanesia and by about 1300 to 900 BC, reached the Polynesian islands of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.
Linguistic, genetic and archaeological data suggest that the ancestors of this group originated in Taiwan and possibly the nearby south China coast, but studies have also found ties between the Lapita and Southeast Asia.
In a 2014 research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide, and colleagues found evidence suggesting that the Philippines is the ancestral homeland of Polynesians.
The researchers studied the origins and dispersal of the ancestral Polynesian chickens by analyzing ancient DNA from chicken bones recovered in archaeological digs in islands including Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Niue.
They said that the genetic signatures of the original Polynesian chicken can be used to track early movement and trading patterns across the Pacific.
“The analysis of ancient and modern specimens reveals a unique Polynesian genetic signature, which can be traced back to ISEA, and promises to allow further resolution of migration and trading routes in the area,” the researchers wrote in their study.
Technological Advancement During the Old Stone Age
The study by Fuentes and Pawlik challenges the widely-held idea that technological progress during the Paleolithic only emerged in Europe and Africa.
Based on their microscopic analysis of the excavated stone tools that date back 40,000 years ago, the ancient seafarers of ISEA had technological sophistication comparable to that of much later civilizations.
The researchers identified clear traces of plant processing in the stone tools, in particular the extraction of fiber needed to make ropes, nets and binding essentials for boatbuilding and open sea-fishing.
They also found remains of deep ocean fish such as tuna and sharks along with fishing hooks, gorges and net weights in the archaeological sites in Mindoro and Timor-Leste. The evidence suggests that the ancient seafarers who lived in the islands built sophisticated boats that used organic composite materials bound by plant-based ropes.The people also used the same rope technology for open-sea fishing.
“The remains of large predatory pelagic fish in these sites indicate the capacity for advanced seafaring and knowledge of the seasonality and migration routes of those fish species,” the researchers said. “The discovery of fishing implements indicates the need for strong and well-crafted cordage for ropes and fishing lines to catch the marine fauna.”
Gleaning the History of Seafaring Using Stone Tools
Proving history of seafaring comes with challenges because organic wood and fiber that would have likely been used to build Paleolithic seacraft rarely survive. The stone tools discovered at the archeological sites suggest advanced maritime technology in prehistoric ISEA.
“In this paper we explore the connection between traces of plant working and boatbuilding in coastal sites during the Pleistocene to infer how prehistoric people migrated to and through the region. Artefactual evidence of watercrafts is missing in the archaeological record of the region as the maritime technology employed was most likely dominantly made of plants and its components have decayed over time,” Fuentes and Pawlik wrote.
The body of evidence also indicates that prehistoric migrations across the ISEA were not carried out by passive sea drifters who used crude bamboo rafts but by highly skilled navigators who have the knowledge and technology to travel long distances to remote islands over deep waters.
“The presence of such advanced maritime technology in prehistoric ISEA highlights the ingenuity of early Philippine peoples and their neighbors, whose boat-building knowledge likely made the region a center for technological innovations tens of thousands of years ago and laid the foundations for the maritime traditions that still thrive in the region today,” the researchers.
