www.timesoneline.co.uk A bunjee jumping spot at a Cypriot  beach popular with British tourists is the site of an ancient campsite that has yielded what archaeologists say may be the earliest evidence of Mediterranean seafaring.

Fragments of rudimentary imported stone implements thought to be up to 12,000 years old have been found near Nissi Beach in Ayia Napa.

The flints, which may have been used at some of the islandأ¢â‚¬â„¢s first beach barbecues, are different to any known locally and pre-date Cyprusأ¢â‚¬â„¢s first inhabitants, which settled from the 9th millenium BC, by more than 1,000 years.

There were similar finds at a second site at Aspros near the Akamas Peninsula on the western coast of the island. There is no evidence of any ancient building at either site. This suggests that they were used as temporary camping spots by ancient mariners on forays from what is now Syria, Lebanon and Turkey.

"The sites were located in good places for those making seasonal visits," Pavlos Flourentzos, director of Cyprusأ¢â‚¬â„¢s department of antiquities, told The Times.

The island lies at least 30 miles from any land mass and the discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that contradicts academic views that ancient mariners never dared to venture out of sight of land.

"If this is verified this would be the earliest evidence of seafaring in the east Mediterranean," Mr Flourentzos said. What enticed the ancient tourists to set sail to Cyprus long before Homerأ¢â‚¬â„¢s epic hero Odysseus ventured out into the "wine-dark" seas remains a matter of conjecture. Archaeologists suspect that they may have been attracted by richer fishing waters or the succulent pygmy hippos known to have existed on the island.

As with so many archaeological finds, the discovery was made by chance. A visiting American archaeologist, Albert J. Ammerman, of Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, was with his children on Nissi Beach and spotted the flint implements, Mr Flourentzos said.

Mr Ammerman, who found similar fragments at the Aspros site, presented preliminary analysis of the finds at a conference in Philadelphia this month. The two sites provided "good evidence for the earliest voyaging in the Mediterranean and for the increased mobility of people at the end of the Ice Age and the beginning of agriculture in the Middle East", he said.

Further excavations next year will focus on finding charcoal and bone for radiocarbon dating tests. By 8250BC, when it is thought that people first put down roots in Cyprus, there is evidence that open sea voyages had taken place, including finds of imported obsidian, probably from what is now Turkey.

It is believed that for safety, most early mariners hugged the coastline, and most ancient shipwrecks have been found in shallow waters. But the theory that prehistoric man could sail vast distances was first proved by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who sailed from South America to Polynesia on his Kon-Tiki balsa raft in 1947. In 1970 he crossed the Atlantic from Morocco to the West Indies on a reed boat.

In 1999 an ancient shipwreck was found nearly two miles beneath the surface of the Mediterranean which appeared to confirm that Hellenic mariners were capable of undertaking the epic journeys of Odysseus, with no land on the horizon.