对人类来说，海洋是，而且一直是一个陌生的环境。它是一个没有时间的地方，与人类活动造成的固定和伤痕形成鲜明对比，它的情绪不断变化，这是一个没有时间的地方。虽然陆地是熟悉的，甚至令人安心，但海洋是未知的，具有威胁性。人类把自己带到海里，任由它摆布。它经常被认为是一种外来的力量，在戏弄和哄骗。大海可以给予，但需要。
那么，为什么人类会成为海员呢？部分原因是，我们的基因决定了我们是贪得无厌的动物：我们喜欢获得稀有材料，我们渴望获得深奥的知识，而社会对这两者都给予了很好的回报。向大海望去，大多数人都会好奇外面有什么——也许是一个神秘的岛屿，但远处有什么？我们天生的好奇心驱使我们去探索。
巴里·坎利夫（Barry Cunliffe）观察了地中海和大西洋的航海发展，这两个截然不同的海洋——没有明显潮汐的地中海，封闭的，很快就会被熟悉；有着可怕潮汐范围的大西洋，一个没有尽头的海洋。我们从地中海东部旧石器时代中期的狩猎采集者开始建造简单的船只，让他们非凡地穿越克里特岛，到16世纪初，西班牙、葡萄牙和英国的水手们建立了从拉布拉多到巴塔哥尼亚的海洋界限。信息是，人类和海洋之间的竞争一直是人类历史上的一个驱动力，也许是驱动力。
On the Ocean: The Mediterranean and the Atlantic from Prehistory to AD 1500
For humans the sea is, and always has been, an alien environment. Ever moving and ever changing in mood, it is a place without time, in contrast to the land which is fixed and scarred by human activity giving it a visible history. While the land is familiar, even reassuring, the sea is unknown and threatening. By taking to the sea humans put themselves at its mercy. It has often been perceived to be an alien power teasing and cajoling. The sea may give but it takes.
Why, then, did humans become seafarers? Part of the answer is that we are conditioned by our genetics to be acquisitive animals: we like to acquire rare materials and we are eager for esoteric knowledge, and society rewards us well for both. Looking out to sea most will be curious as to what is out there–a mysterious island perhaps but what lies beyond? Our innate inquisitiveness drives us to explore.
Barry Cunliffe looks at the development of seafaring on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, two contrasting seas– the Mediterranean without a significant tide, enclosed and soon to become familiar, the Atlantic with its frightening tidal ranges, an ocean without end. We begin with the Middle Palaeolithic hunter gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean building simple vessels to make their remarkable crossing to Crete and we end in the early years of the sixteenth century with sailors from Spain, Portugal and England establishing the limits of the ocean from Labrador to Patagonia. The message is that the contest between humans and the sea has been a driving force, perhaps the driving force, in human history.
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