Primitive Seasteading: How Ancient Man Settled the Waves

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It may surprise some of my readers to learn that seasteading is not a new concept. In fact, several examples exist from antiquity of tribes or kingdoms constructing floating settlements, either as their full time home or for military purposes. Crannogs were one such early effort at living on the water:

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A Crannog is a sort of artificial island made of wood, supported up on stilts, usually in marshy regions. They were built by Scots, the Irish and Celts mainly, and are believed to have been used for a combination of defensive and recreational purposes. Isolated retreats for chiefs and kings, or for social outliers like monastic orders.

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Most of the crannogs found date between 800 BC and 200 AD, though the oldest one ever found dates back to 2500 BC. The construction process involved repeated layerings of mud and rocks on a shallow portion of the seabed, and driving the main supports deep into it. Even a single crannog would've been a resource intensive undertaking given the means available to our ancestors during that period of human history.

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The result, however, would have been as spectacular to them as renders of open ocean floating cities are to us. Something like bronze age science fiction. To dwell out on the water in cold, rainy weather but nevertheless to be warm and dry within the central enclosure of a crannog, telling stories by a flickering campfire with friends is one of those unique human experiences lost to time.

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Next, let us examine the Uros. A people who dwell entirely on forty two floating artificial islands on Lake Titicaca, made from woven totora reeds (their boats are also fashioned this way). There are in fact three tribes, the Uru-Chipayas, Uru-Muratos and the Uru-Iruitos. Their worldview holds that they own the lake upon which they dwell, and they once claimed their blood was black, as they did not feel the severe cold inherent to dwelling on the surface of a lake in winter.

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In the modern era, they no longer speak the Uro language and have abandoned most of their old rituals and religious beliefs, but still dwell on Lake Titicaca upon their ancestral floating villages. They serve as valuable a purpose today as they did when they were first constructed: Floating settlements are supremely defensible.

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Moreover, unlike Crannogs, these 'islands' are movable. Should disputes arise with a neighboring island, one or both can easily relocate, a benefit also trumpeted by speakers for the Seasteading Institute. Don't like your neighbors? Vote to move your entire block to the other side of the city.

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Modern seasteads should have a leg up on those built by the Uros, as the totora reeds constantly rot and fresh layers must be added on top to replace those which have disintegrated at the bottom. Nevertheless, when we are living out to sea on modular floating platforms, we should remember that the Uros were doing it long before.

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This brings us to the so called "sea gypsies", more appropriately referred to as the Sama-Bajau, or Bajau Laut depending who you include. Their lifestyle entered the first world consciousness due to a spate of recent documentaries, as well as a brief feature in BBC's "Human Planet". They are the only truly ocean dwelling population, as their full time home consists of offshore villages built on stilts where most of them live out their entire lives.

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Religiously speaking, most are various forms of Sunni or folk Islam. There are small groups of Catholics as well. Their religion prior to conversion was a form of animism, still practiced by some small offshoots. Ten languages are spoken by the Sama-Bajau, a grouping referred to as Sinama, or simply "Bajau". Most Sama-Bajau families dwell in single-family houseboats rather than the oft-photographed stilt homes which make for their communal mooring points.

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Because sea dwellers rely entirely on sea life for sustenance and must dive to increasingly greater depths to hunt them with spear guns, it should not be surprising that evolution has gifted them with superior underwater vision compared to the rest of humanity. In the same respect that populations living high in the mountains often have increased lung capacity to compensate for the thinner air.

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These are the forerunners of oceanic civilization. By carefully studying the problems they faced and how they solved them, even without the benefit of modern materials and technology, we may build upon their success. As many towns in the US bear the names of displaced native American tribes (taken from them unlawfully, though that is a different article) perhaps future seasteads will bear names such as Bajau, Moka, or New Crannog.