Who was explore America first?

Well I started this poll when I read some negative replies in threat of scenario about Chinese explores. So who was first?

Native Americans. Or Siberian hunter-gathers that boat to Alaska to trade with the hunter-gatherers there if it has to be non-Native American. Or Viking if it can't be hunter-gatherers.

I heard the Basque went near the coast, but certainly the vikings did attempt to create a colony in NA.

Erik the Red and Leif Erikson.

Why isn't Native Americans on the list? They did get there first...

Asians at the time when Siberia and Alaska were stuck together because water levels were below their current level. I imagine... between 15,000 and 10,000 years ago.

According to knowledge, that's the current theory about it. Though it dates back to High School and as it was nearly 10 years ago, it's probable that this theory has a flawed which has been discovered.

Personally, I always wondered how Asians could go in Alaska during the peek of the Ice Age. Indeed, we could keep dry in crossing the Bering strait. But I guess the region was freakin'cold then !

The first humans to enter the Americas...

Marla_Singer said:

Personally, I always wondered how Asians could go in Alaska during the peek of the Ice Age. Indeed, we could keep dry in crossing the Bering strait. But I guess the region was freakin'cold then !

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IMO, they probably went by boat, following the coastline. Same way as they got to Australia etc.

Being in a boat doesn't make it any less cold.

Left said:

Being in a boat doesn't make it any less cold.

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No, but it does mean it is less cold if you are on water.

Cold isn't really a problem for man's dispersion anyway, it's just a problem if you want to live there (and even that is possible, though probably beyond the technology of that period - man never really settled the Arctic until about 3000 BC). The problem with the idea of crossing the Bering land bridge is that it would have been covered with glaciers, which are impossible to traverse. Going by boat in the spring, they could probably get south of the glaciers before winter came - and the summer along the coast wouldn't have been too bad, there would have been food, and space for shelter on rocky beaches, and it probably wouldn't have been too cold. Greenland today is covered with glaciers, but it certainly isn't instant death by freezing along the coasts during summer. It's above freezing for most of the summer, up to and beyond the summer limits of the pack ice in the water - in some spots it gets up to 50 degrees Celsius even quite far north. The Arctic does have a summer, something most people are unaware of it seems. Even in the Ice Age, its likely conditions would be more or less the same, they would just extend further south, so Alaska in that time was probably alot like Greenland or Baffin Island, if not even less inhospitable. But it would be impossible, imo, to traverse it on foot, because of the glaciers - in the summer this would be even more dangerous.

The first humans discovering America were most likely Aboriginals from Australia about 30000 years ago. They were nearly anhiliated by the incoming Asians. Genetical studies prove that theory. The Fireland Indians were/ are the last American Aboriginals.
But if that doesn´t count, there must have been contact between Europe and America in the Ancient. Phoenician coins were found in South America as well as Koka plants in Egyptian graves. So some trade must have been existed. Also some Indian fisher came to Europe in Ancient times. I know a case where two of them were alive and rescued but both were sold in Roman province Gallia as slaves.
There are rumors about Basques and Irish to go to America in the year until 1000. However the next and first really proven case is Leif Erikson about 1000. Vikings came to a coast they called Vinland, land of the WIne. There they tried to built settlements but because of the Indians even the tough Normans had to retreat.
Muslim sailors might have had also contact, since Admiral Bey´s map shows parts of South America not discovered yet. But these infos could also come from the Chinese who are likely to have visited America since ancient times.
The Christian Europe however discovered America in 1492, when a Genuese sailor in Spanish service named Christophero Colombo found the island of Guanahani...

Adler

Adler17 said:

Koka plants in Egyptian graves.

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LoL Coca in Egypt I didn't know that...

Adler17 said:

The Christian Europe however discovered America in 1492, when a Genuese sailor in Spanish service named Christophero Colombo found the island of Guanahani...
Adler

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In addition to the possible Basque and Irish discoveries you mentioned, there is a very good chance Portuguese discovered the New World before 1492... consider that the Azores were colonized in the early 1400's and a mythical "Terra do Bacalhau" ie. Land of Codfish, which would correspond to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, was known before 1492 to the Basques and Portuguese...

jonatas said:

In addition to the possible Basque and Irish discoveries you mentioned, there is a very good chance Portuguese discovered the New World before 1492... consider that the Azores were colonized in the early 1400's and a mythical "Terra do Bacalhau" ie. Land of Codfish, which would correspond to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, was known before 1492 to the Basques and Portuguese...

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Personally I don't subscribe to any of the "regular Chinese contact" or Phoenician voyages or any of that. To me, there's just no good evidence - finding a coin hardly means anything, it could have been brought over much later. This sort of thinking has been around for a long time, pretty much ever since things like the Mayan ruins and the Mississipi mounds were discovered, because people simply refused to credit the natives with the ability to create any of this by themselves, so they invented a number of explanations over the years (lost tribes of Israel, Atlanteans, space aliens, you name it). This is just another manifestation of the same phenomena of racial disbelief in the human potential of native Americans.


But there is a very good chance that the fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland were known prior to 1492. If so, they were kept a secret by fishing cartels of the Basques and Portuguese and definately *not* public knowledge. There is some serious speculation that John Cabot's discovery of Newfoundland and the Maritimes in 1497 was not only a *second* voyage, but that the first, secret voyage (probably 1495) had been financed and launched by a Bristol fishing cartel who had somehow got wind of the Basque/Portuguese discovery (perhaps an early example of commercial espionage) and wished to exploit it as well - primarily because the English cod fishery was near collapse, after having been banned from Iceland's waters and facing stiff competition from Spain and Portugal. If so, then the Basques must have been fishing there earlier than 1492.

That's the only non-Viking, non-Columbian theory I endorse.

The radioactive monkey

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Yeah, it's my personal beleif that Vikings were probably the first europeans to make it across, at least by the evidence that we have.

A funny side note: An amateur Nova Scotian historian named Paul Chiasson has claimed to have found a Chinese settlement on Cape Breton Island (the northern section of NS), dating back to the 1300s. Apparently, the road width and structure platform measurements are consistent with ancient settlements in China, and some stone platforms that resemble those found in the Forbidden Palace. He contends that an large armada of chinese ships sailed through the indian ocean, past the atlantic, and decided to set up an outpost on the eastern side of the windy little island. Local historians have largely dismissed his claims, claiming that the site is probably an abondonned loyalist farm, and Chiasson has refused to release the location until it is designated a protected provincial historical site. Provincial officials and member of the Nova Scotia Musem have declined offers to visit the site. This hasn't deterred Chiasson, however, who stated in a press conference:

"I understand the reticence on the part of the government and the museum because it is world changing and they missed it....t's either a grand hoax or a great discovery because it's nothing in between"

The last word I have heardon the matter is that Mr Chiasson has teamed up with Gavin Menzies (1421: The Year China Discovered America) to write a book on the topic. I'm very interested to see what he has for evidence..!

I remember reading, that there were Chinese pottery found in some excavations...

It's hard to say. Perhaps some people came over by boat, or maybe it was the boring old Siberians.

Of course, if you mean "Old Worlders", then the first documented are the Vikings. I have the suspicion that the Chinese were there before them. Other than the Vikings, the Chinese, and any other pre 15th century explorers, it was the Basques, then Columbus and/or the Portugese, then the English, and then it's well documented.

I support two theroies. One is that it was early irish (which is how the vikings found out about it)

OR...
That it is Phenocians that who made contact with America the Maya in particular. I think this is how that Atlantis Legend might have been started. The People that come from the ocean, Chiken Itza, etc.

Phoenician ships were good enough to hug the Atlantic coast of Africa, perhaps, but certainly not good enough to make an Atlantic crossing.