An interesting news item (Zach Zorich, Palaeolithic Tools, Archaeology, January/February 2011), but why the surprise that H. erectus/ergaster could cross 40 miles of open sea to reach Crete?
When I was little, my family often went camping and many times my brother and I made use of a drift log to reach islands out in a lake, or to cross a river. As a young field biologist working in remote wilderness in northern Canada, we often lashed a few logs together to make a raft to cross rivers; the photo is an example. It seems obvious that Homo erectus , who clearly had the tool-using skills, would have done so.
Much earlier than the Crete crossing, H. erectus evidently crossed Mab el Mandeb at the mouth of the Red Sea (although it was probably narrower then), and reached the islands of Java and Sumatra (but the Sunda Shelf may have been exposed). Regardless of these uncertain sea crossings, they must have also crossed the Indus, Ganges, and Irrawaddy Rivers to reach Java, and the Mekong River to reach China, in addition to countless smaller, though still daunting, rivers. These crossings imply technology for river/sea transport, not only of people (including infants and toddlers who could hardly have straddled a floating log, for example) but also of tools and supplies.
Crossing to Crete is another matter: 40 miles is a long way. But I feel certain that if any homonids from H. erectus on could see land across the water, they could reach it.
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