### L154 The ancients traded via boat > Southeast Asian mainlanders were paddling or sailing from island to island to New Guinea and Australia by at least 50,000 years ago; their descendants were living in the Bismarck Strait region of the southwestern Pacific by 30,000 years ago. People were crisscrossing open water to Aegean islands by at least 8000 B.C.E.; Chinese fleets visited the East African coast a good century before Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope; raft sailors from what is now Ecuador traded with Maya lords in Central America long before 1492. - [[Beyond the Blue Horizon by Brian Fagan#L154 The ancients traded via boat|View in Vault]]