1421

[Huayna Capac357]

EDIT: This whole thread has stupid postings by me.

 

[1889]

Admittedly some of that evidence was interesting, but I bet it is far less convincing to people who really understand those fields as none of them have stood up to support his conjecture. In the end it could simply show how much more we need to understand about pre-Columbian America.

Menzies claims that evidence suggested wide settlement by Chinese all over North America, but couldn't it also reflect migration patterns within North America, all ultimately Asian descendents any way.

I thought the artifacts he mentioned were very unconvincing. They could just as easily be the remnants of unusual natural processes or an indication that native American technology has been slightly underestimated.

 

[Mirc]

 

[cybrxkhan]

To add, althuogh I do believe something like the 1421 hypothesis happened, albeit at a lesser degree, upon analysis, Menzies' book is more "entertaining" than "persuasive", I have to say unfortunately, althuogh for many entertaining = persuasive. But I do firmly believe that althuogh China probably didn't have colonies all round the world, they very well could have explored more of the world than is known, althuogh they probably didn't send out a huge-*** expedition.

 

[Pangur Bán]

There is massive DNA, linguistic, cartographical, material (junks, beads, stones, lacquer, etc.), and nautical evidence for his theory. Zhu Di's golden age died out shortly after, and his son destroyed all the treasure ships and records of them, as he was a xenophobe, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

No there isn't. Menzies was a successful submariner, but an amateur at history, who has little grasp of even the basics of historical methodology. The number of professional historians who support Menzies can be counted on my third hand. Congrats to him for making so much money though.

His theorising could easily be debunked by any freshman history student, but here are some things you might wanna read before buying into it:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/15.2/finlay.html
http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/arb/article.php?article=201

 

[ohcrapitsnico]

I don't believe it and I haven't read it. It sounds a bit far fetched, though I do think it is highly probable that Islamic merchants/explorers rounded the cape of good hope and "found" australia by the 14th century though not explicitly documented. Archaeologists recently found an Islamic settlement in Chibuene near Maputo.

 

[Tee Kay]

I don't believe it and I haven't read it. It sounds a bit far fetched, though I do think it is highly probable that Islamic merchants/explorers rounded the cape of good hope and "found" australia by the 14th century though not explicitly documented. Archaeologists recently found an Islamic settlement in Chibuene near Maputo.

I'm not surprised. The first person to round the Cape of Good Hope (discounting probable voyages by the ancient Phoenicians) was after all a Muslim Gujarati captain, almost a century before da Gama.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Do you believe China discovered America and circumnavigated the world in 1421-1423, like in the book, 1421? I do. Post please!

Yeah. Right. So you suppose all that evidence was jsut made up?

No there isn't. Menzies was a successful submariner, but an amateur at history, who has little grasp of even the basics of historical methodology. The number of professional historians who support Menzies can be counted on my third hand. Congrats to him for making so much money though.

His theorising could easily be debunked by any freshman history student, but here are some things you might wanna read before buying into it:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/jwh/15.2/finlay.html
http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/arb/article.php?article=201

Menzies is all about selling books and not about history. His evidence is mostly bogus, twisted or wishful thinking. There have been other thrreads on this. If you search back a couple of years you will find them. In some of them you will find lots of reasons to ignore Menzies. As stated by Calgacus, he has zero standing among real historians.

1421 is fun fiction and tells a nice tale, but it is crap history.

 

[North King]

There is evidence of population die offs possibly due to disease
before 1492 in the Yucatan peninsular and Mississippi valley.

How so? The collapse of the mound builders? That was environmental catastrophe, centered around Cahokia. As for the Yucatan Peninsula, they were in the middle of a centuries long decline.

Or did they?

The period between 1420 - 1492 was one of great change in Mesoamerica. The Aztecs and Incas rise from obscurity to become the dominant power, while the powerful Mayan state of Mayapan collapses, and the culture of the Anasazi and the Missisippi valley both disappears around this time. It's too much of a coincidence imho.

Then I guess we'll have to conclude that the 7-800s, with the collapse of the Maya heartland, and the rise of Tiwanku and Wari, were a result of diseases brought over by Brendan? And then in the 1000s, the Vikings' diseases were able to mysteriously jump over a continent to collapse the Wari and Tiwanku, while also ruining the Toltecs, while boosting up the Anasazi?

No, this doesn't work. No one has found evidence of anything near the 95% death rates in the 1500s. Sure, people died at points, in large numbers. Sure, some civilizations were boosted up and down at points in history. But the 1500s onwards were something utterly unprecedented.

We're not talking about some little Black Death. We're not even talking about something doubly as virulent as the Black Death. We're talking about diseases that left anywhere from one in twenty to one in fifty alive. We're talking about one hundred million dead. We're talking about the Eastern Seaboard going from a densely populated area to an area entirely deserted.

The plagues that devastated the Americas in real history were truly immense. So many people died off that we saw the populations of wild animals that the Natives hunted shoot up. It's no coincidence that there were so many bison thundering across the plains, or passenger pigeons in the air. These were species that thrived when the Native American populations imploded.

If anything like this occurred in 1421, we would see real evidence for it -- widespread evidence. What we would not see is empires springing up (I'd challenge you to find a nation that suddenly rises after at least 95% of their population falls), and we would not see Mesoamerica with a population of 30 million people, which was the estimated level in the 1490s.

Nor would we see a complete and utter lack of immunity to European diseases that was actually observed in later centuries. If people were to have survived a hypothetical mass death in 1420, they would have to be immune to smallpox, at least. And yet we saw a 95-98% fatality rate for that same disease.

It's nearly impossible to reconcile this theory of 1421 with real history.

 

[Antilogic]

Nor would we see a complete and utter lack of immunity to European diseases that was actually observed in later centuries. If people were to have survived a hypothetical mass death in 1420, they would have to be immune to smallpox, at least. And yet we saw a 95-98% fatality rate for that same disease.

Although I agree with the vast majority of what you have posted, this raises significant questions for me. If we do not know which disease caused the mass deaths, then we cannot be certain they would have immunity to smallpox. Surviving a mass death does not immediately confer resistance to smallpox unless that disease was caused by a biologically similar disease (i.e. similar antigens).

 

[North King]

Although I agree with the vast majority of what you have posted, this raises significant questions for me. If we do not know which disease caused the mass deaths, then we cannot be certain they would have immunity to smallpox. Surviving a mass death does not immediately confer resistance to smallpox unless that disease was caused by a biologically similar disease (i.e. similar antigens).

Smallpox was virulent enough and widespread enough that it would be one of the first diseases to be spread by any Old World fleet arriving in the New World.

 

[Antilogic]

Smallpox was virulent enough and widespread enough that it would be one of the first diseases to be spread by any Old World fleet arriving in the New World.

That little detail makes your above post make more sense.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Smallpox was virulent enough and widespread enough that it would be one of the first diseases to be spread by any Old World fleet arriving in the New World.

And there is this too:

http://discovermagazine.com/2006/fe...earchterm=mexican disease of the 16th century

 

[warpus]

This reminds me of an article I once read detailing how a Polish ship discovered America before Columbus did. My parents were all over it.

It's all, most likely, wishful thinking.

 

[Birdjaguar]

This reminds me of an article I once read detailing how a Polish ship discovered America before Columbus did. My parents were all over it.

It's all, most likely, wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking that it was more than just smallpox and typhus that killed off the natives of Mexico?

What about his "evidence" is so obviously wrong?

 

[warpus]

Wishful thinking that it was more than just smallpox and typhus that killed off the natives of Mexico?

What about his "evidence" is so obviously wrong?

I don't know.. but hey.. maybe the Lithuanians discovered America.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I don't know.. but hey.. maybe the Lithuanians discovered America.

The comparisons you use are not really valid and your lack of support for denying this assertion makes me think that you have some agenda for defending the status quo thinking on disease and the conquest. It is not like you.

 

[luiz]

Theories about China circumnavigating the world are preciesly part of the reason why I named China the most overrated civilization in terms of influence.

The chinese achieved much, but probably not even 1/3rd of what some people claim they achieved.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah. Right. So you suppose all that evidence was jsut made up?

Wait, wait, wait. Did you start this thread to snap at people who disagree with you? Jesus, grow up...

Personally, I think that the idea of China reaching America is plausible, but unlikely.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Here's an idea to shoot out!

What if instead of the Chinese, it was Polynesians? maybe those disease outbreaks you guys are discussing is from the polynesians and not the chinese? The polynesians are alot more likely to have reached the americas before europeans then the Chinese. There are fruits only known to the polynesians and the pacific islands that was found growing and harvested in the west coast of North America. Polynesian Pottery and Arrows and even there canoes have been used by the natives of the west coast of North America.