I think there's a trend in archaeology of us realizing we've been underestimating the past.
The Polynesians were capable of voyaging across the Pacific to South America, and another Austronesian group made it all the way to Madagascar. This was pretty controversial until Kon-Tiki; even now, Polynesian-South American contact isn't fully accepted.
(IIRC, we weren't sure how the Polynesians even found so many islands, until an archaeologist asked a few of them and discovered that there's a simple algorithm for it: follow the birds.)
Australia had to have been sailed to from somewhere, possibly more than once, possibly intentionally.
Stone tools can be pretty good, especially obsidian. There are surgeons today who use obsidian knives.
Roger Blench has a paper on Greco-Roman lamps turning up as far afield as Palau, which implies more complex trade networks at an earlier stage than most people would think: http://www.academia.edu/9237516/The_Romans_in_Palau_how_did_...
And now, Neanderthals with boats. This isn't really new -- Homo floresiensis (the ebu gogo, maybe) had to have gotten there somehow. But it's part of an important trend.
The Polynesians were capable of voyaging across the Pacific to South America, and another Austronesian group made it all the way to Madagascar. This was pretty controversial until Kon-Tiki; even now, Polynesian-South American contact isn't fully accepted.
(IIRC, we weren't sure how the Polynesians even found so many islands, until an archaeologist asked a few of them and discovered that there's a simple algorithm for it: follow the birds.)
Australia had to have been sailed to from somewhere, possibly more than once, possibly intentionally.
Stone tools can be pretty good, especially obsidian. There are surgeons today who use obsidian knives.
Roger Blench has a paper on Greco-Roman lamps turning up as far afield as Palau, which implies more complex trade networks at an earlier stage than most people would think: http://www.academia.edu/9237516/The_Romans_in_Palau_how_did_...
And now, Neanderthals with boats. This isn't really new -- Homo floresiensis (the ebu gogo, maybe) had to have gotten there somehow. But it's part of an important trend.