Stern first in the Stone Age?

Johnstone begins with obsidian whose geological sources can be identified through chemical and fission-track analysis, and considers finds in the Aegean and Cyprus. He then compares reed craft and dug-outs with prehistoric boat images and models.

At Franchthi cave the obsidian lies in a context dated by radiocarbon to the middle of the 7th millennium BCE, so the voyage to Melos must have been made more than once. Johnstone considers reed craft a plausible, though speculative, answer to what carried it, a proposal he says pollen evidence could test. Twentieth-century reed boats used by fishermen in north-western Corfu provide a comparison, described by their materials, construction and use at sea. The Mesolithic material and later Neolithic pottery from Sidari are dated in the cited study to 5870 ± 340 BCE and 5390 ± 180 BCE respectively (pp. 4–6).

For the Early Bronze Age Johnstone discusses whether the boats on Syros vessels were dug-outs and whether their high extremity was bow or stern. He reviews competing readings of Cycladic imagery on signet rings, pottery, rock engravings, a clay model and three lead boats, drawing on oars, written ship signs and comparison with other craft, and concludes that the evidence does not settle the direction of travel or whether the images show one boat type or several. The images may represent craft with high bows, high sterns or double-ended forms, and underwater finds might offer further evidence (pp. 7–11).