Abstract
Abstract Man has been a seafarer for at least 40,000 years, and must have used raft or boat on lakes and rivers at an even earlier date. Maritime archaeologists seek evidence for such activities from earliest times until written records predominate. Direct evidence for water transport is not available before 8,000 B.C. and is biased towards Egypt and Europe. Much archaeological, environmental, ethnographic and experimental research is required to fill the great temporal and spatial gaps in our knowledge of the prehistoric maritime past. For later centuries, archaeologists can complement the work of historians: in this article examples of such work are given and assessed.
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