From Jon Astell, Holden, Massachusetts, US
Your article and the many letters on solving the mystery of Stone Age seafarers take a rationalist approach to the discovery of Malta from Sicily. Accident and emotion are at least as likely explanations. Stone Age fishers plying coastal waters off Sicily would have occasionally been caught in storms and blown out to sea. Survivors searching for home might have chanced upon Malta and then had further luck returning to Sicily.
As for emotion, Stone Age teenagers must have gotten their hands on fishing boats at times and set out to joyride or show off. Anyone with experience of groups of modern teens and automobiles will know what I mean. Some of these Stone Age teens would have sailed their boats over the horizon, gotten lost and, if very lucky, would have returned one day with stories of a new land they found.
