Looking at this vivid carving of a Phoenician war galley - the individual faces, one maybe northern European, another clearly an African ... more than 700 years BC ....
"Phoenician war galley with two rows of oarsmen, as illustrated in depictions of the Assyrian campaign to the Mediterranean coast in 701 BC under Sennacherib (704-681 BC). Detail from the wall decoration of the South West Palace (Room VIII (...S), slab 11) at Nineveh. British Museum"
where were these men from