structural:summarization, structural:expansion
Maritime history dates back thousands of years. In ancient maritime history, evidence of maritime trade between civilizations dates back at least two millennia. The first prehistoric boats are presumed to have been dugout canoes which were developed independently by various Stone Age populations. In ancient history, various vessels were used for coastal fishing and travel. A mesolithic boatyard has been found from the Isle of Wight in Britain The first true ocean-going boats were invented by the Austronesian peoples, using technologies like multihulls, outriggers, crab claw sails, and tanja sails. This enabled the rapid spread of Austronesians into the islands of both the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, known as the Austronesian expansion. They laid the groundwork for the maritime trade routes into South Asia and the Arabian Sea by around 1000 to 600 BC, which would later become the Maritime Silk Road. Egyptians had trade routes through the Red Sea, importing spices from the "Land of Punt" and from Arabia. By the time of Julius Caesar, several well-established combined land-sea trade routes depended upon water transport through the sea around the rough inland terrain features to its north. Navigation was known in Sumer between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BC. The search for the source of spices in these maritime trade routes later led to the Age of Exploration.