“…It has been (plausibly) argued that watercraft manufacture and navigation entail a level of communication that would be unattainable without a (proto)language. Although rafting on flotsam is a possibility (Gibbons, 1998a), it is not a likely one, given H. erectus's ability to manufacture mode 2 tools and successful colonization of much of the Old World (from Africa and Western Europe to Java, China and, possibly, Central Siberia - Ascenzi, Benvenuti, & Segre, 1997;Asfaw et al, 2002;Bar-Yosef & Belfer-Cohen, 2001;Gibbons, 1998b;Larick et al, 2001;Waters, Forman, & Pierson, 1997).…”