Uluburun wreck and outrigger buoyancy

The fourteenth-century BC Uluburun wreck shows that sophisticated shell-first shipbuilding was already the product of generations of development. Its cedar keel, roughly 15-to-16-metre hull, and substantial cargo point to an established Mediterranean tradition. Large Fijian outrigger vessels provide a different solution, using the buoyancy of their materials and an offset float to create stable ocean-going craft with comparatively simple technology. Communities could solve the same problems of buoyancy, stability, capacity, and open-water travel through very different hull arrangements. Ship design adapted to local materials and accumulated practice rather than following a single linear progression.