ancient peoples discovered america?
- Thread starter Vietcong
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Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Seems unlikely. There's a big gap between Greenland and the main body of North America- the Labrador Sea- so I'm sure that he would've recorded crossing it as he did the rest of his expedition.
Verbose
Deity
The way I see this it actually brings up an interesting question about what it means to "know" something, and probabaly indirectly is about why it matters who knows something.
I think we can take it as evident that various individuals or even groups of people have been cast adrift on the Atlantic ending up on the "wrong" side at infrequent intervalls for a very long time, as long as there have been attempts to seriously sail the Atlantic at least.
That however doesn't constitute discovery in the sense of a transfer, record and continued transmission of these experience in anything like a consistent form.
The Icelanders through the Icelandic Saga-literature did manage it for a while, but retrospectively they were the "wrong" people doing the recording; too suspect from a Christian pov, at the time their records didn't spread outside of their limited area of cultural influence, and when eventually they did, in the 17th c., the Americas had already been "properly" discovered.
That is to say, it matter that Columbus went a-exploring with a royal charter from the Spanish Crown, and with the top information-brokers of the day in the form of the church, the pilots and the cartographers on standbay to try to make sense of all this novelty.
I think we can take it as evident that various individuals or even groups of people have been cast adrift on the Atlantic ending up on the "wrong" side at infrequent intervalls for a very long time, as long as there have been attempts to seriously sail the Atlantic at least.
That however doesn't constitute discovery in the sense of a transfer, record and continued transmission of these experience in anything like a consistent form.
The Icelanders through the Icelandic Saga-literature did manage it for a while, but retrospectively they were the "wrong" people doing the recording; too suspect from a Christian pov, at the time their records didn't spread outside of their limited area of cultural influence, and when eventually they did, in the 17th c., the Americas had already been "properly" discovered.
That is to say, it matter that Columbus went a-exploring with a royal charter from the Spanish Crown, and with the top information-brokers of the day in the form of the church, the pilots and the cartographers on standbay to try to make sense of all this novelty.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Good point. It's debatable what really constitutes a "discovery".
Bugfatty300
Buddha Squirrel
I read about all these pre-viking Roman coins and stuff all the time, but generally its all just repeated stories from one long lost source or another. So far the vast majority of these mystery coins, sunken junks, galleys ect aren't on display in some smithsonian, nor are there photographs of them, not even for sale on ebay, nor does anyone seem to know exactly where they are. So I find such things to be highly suspect.
The artifacts that are proven to exist have been proven to be something else or still have yet to be acknowleged by a reputable scientific research.
The artifacts that are proven to exist have been proven to be something else or still have yet to be acknowleged by a reputable scientific research.
North King
blech
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I've never heard of this. The Triple Alliance, meanwhile, was over a thousand years removed from Nero. If they did somehow get there, it would either be chance exchanges or misidentification by overexcited kids.
I've also never heard of this.
Found to be extremely suspect.
Those have been consistently disproved.
Which is a bunch of pseudohistorical nonsense. The Chinese did nothing of the kind. They had plenty of treasure ship voyages, none of them went to America. The other ones are well-documented. It's an extraordinary leap of faith to think they somehow managed to suppress every single bit of evidence for a trans-Pacific voyage and yet left the other voyages in plain view, especially since they were more important. Chinese voyages of the time, moreover, were trading convoys, not exploratory missions.
They are incredibly suspect. The Vinland "colony" at L'Anse Aux Meadows was simply a winter camp so that the Vikings could do some more exploring for resources. They were trying to bolster the stores in the desperately poor Greenland colony, and there are essentially no records of any Norse staying in the area. They managed to piss off the Native Americans, and had to turn tail and run.
Which is probably just happenstance or convergent design. Take your pick.
Could have been a single shipwreck. Not well documented anyway.
All pretty much disproven.
Try settlement singular, and try camp instead of settlement.
Given the utter lack of Indian seafaring civilizations that would have ranged that far, I'm going to say this is nonsense. The writing on Easter Island has been shown to postdate the Spanish contact; it was inspired by Europeans.
I have never heard of this, and it seems quite unlikely. Source?
...Right then. Look, it's very romantic and all to believe that there's some great mystery that's being covered up by historians everywhere, but it's simply never come close to being proven.
This is possible.
These were dated to after European contact.
Basques were known to be fishing in the Newfoundland Banks, and may well have put camps there. It is highly unlikely that they did serious exploring, however. They just followed the fish.
The first Eurasian people to have discovered the Americas - ie, the ancestors of the Native Americans - far predate the Polynesians anyways.
West 36
Can count up to 4
The Basques got up to Newfoundland?
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
The jade cold have just washed up, and the designs could be coincidental. I'm listing possible signs of contact, nothing more or less.
Where there's one, there's likely to be more. I have no idea as to its authenticity though. As I and others have said, very little research has been done into pre-Columbian New World contacts, and most of that is in the realm of Von Danikenesque bullplop.
My information on this is outdated, so I won't argue. But see my comments on the Roman ship above.
Ummm, what the hell does the fact it was only a camp have to with anything? Unless you think the Vikings established it without actually making it to North America? We're talking about pre-Columbian contacts, not some vast Norse empire in the Americas, which we all know didn't happen.
It's theorised to postdate Spanish contact, it hasn't been shown to. Can't find the book I got it from, but suffice it to say that I have a chart placing Rongorongo - the Easter Island alphabet - next to the Harappan - an Indus valley civilisation - script, and they're virtually identical. Obviously I couldn't show you that even if I could find the damn book, so you'll just have to take my word on that.
Same book as the Rapanui alphabet chart I mentioned. Not claiming it actually happened, just stating that this is the only example of alleged pre-Columbian contact I can find - the only example of any contact I can find, period - where Native Americans came to the Old World.
Please point out to me where I said there was some great mystery being covered up by historians everywhere. One of my two majors is history, so I'd be breaking the code and the Historian Illuminati would kill me if there was such a conspiracy. I'm merely stating that this sort of information is intriguing, and as such invites study, but much like parapsychology, it's derided and no one actually does said research.
The Trajan story, for example, would be incredibly easy to disprove, but it's so little known that no one even tries to disprove it. It would take someone authenticating or pronouncing fake whatever text was used as a source in that book. But so far as I know, at least when that book was written - sometime in the late '80s, I think - no one had ever bothered to do it.
Really? Could you provide a source for that please? I was under the impression that they predated human contact with Hawaii. Not to mention the peculiarity of the name.
As for this, you have got to be sh*tting us. Basques in North America? I've got to ask for a source again, just to make sure you're not joking.
I'm with you on that one.
Here is one source that offers an explanation...
My African scenario featured the Malian claim. This is the pedia entry:
Spoiler :
As mentioned there, Gaoussou Diawara is the main proponent of this theory.
No - where there's two, there's likely to be more. Two is a pattern, one is an anomaly. You might as well say that because one Corsican became the emperor of France, others probably did.
Ha ha, I was wondering when someone was going to mention that . . .
(The reason that I didn't is because I don't think it happened in a way that would leave much evidence, and of course saying "God did it" doesn't do much for historians.)
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
No, they are not.
Rongorongo:
Spoiler :
Indus script:
Spoiler :
No more similar to each other than they are to any other hieroglyphic script.
bob bobato
L'imparfait
@Sharwood: would the book you're talking about happen to be written by Charles Berlitz? 'Mysteries of Forgotten Worlds'(?), mid 1970s? Because that book mentions everything you've talked about.
About the Phoenician tablets: apparently, one of the tablets with writing had Phoenician letters that hadn't been discovered yet...
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Okay, so some of the glyphs are similar, I'll give you that (although not all, some of those. However, both languages were hieroglyphic in nature, containing hundreds of glyphs, of which these represent a fraction. What's more, both remain undeciphered, so the similarities cannot be said to be anything more than superficial.
And, of course, the fact that the scripts are separate by 12,000 miles and 4,000 years- the Indus script having gone extinct with the fall of the Harappan civilisation- does lead one to question whether or not there's any real connection.
Besides, this theory is not only 70 years old, it's 70 years out of date. I fail to see why we should resurrect the debate here...
And, of course, the fact that the scripts are separate by 12,000 miles and 4,000 years- the Indus script having gone extinct with the fall of the Harappan civilisation- does lead one to question whether or not there's any real connection.
Besides, this theory is not only 70 years old, it's 70 years out of date. I fail to see why we should resurrect the debate here...
According to "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" by Mark Kurlansky they did. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=cod&x=0&y=0
Nice little book, btw
But I can't find my copy right now. 
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
Yes! I have several books on similar subjects, so I couldn't remember if it was his or not. Can't find it at the moment anyway. Interesting book, even if Berlitz argues things horribly..
@Sharwood: would the book you're talking about happen to be written by Charles Berlitz? 'Mysteries of Forgotten Worlds'(?), mid 1970s? Because that book mentions everything you've talked about.
About the Phoenician tablets: apparently, one of the tablets with writing had Phoenician letters that hadn't been discovered yet...
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
I'm still not entirely sure what that's meant to prove. That Easter Island was settled by remnants of the Indus Valley civilisation? Who somehow completely altered their ethnicity and culture while retaining a complex hieroglyphic script intact for four thousand years?
North King
blech
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Yes. Kurlansky is admittedly my main source on this point, but it's been mentioned briefly in other places that they were fishing off the Grand Banks. They probably never actually made land -- they were cod fishermen, not interested in settlement.
Fair enough; I just don't like this fashion trend where people claim the Vikings settled North America. The closest settlement would be those in Greenland.
From the pictures in this thread, yes, they look moderately similar. I found several of those symbols to closely resemble Egyptian hieroglyphics, too. The point is that the Harappans existed in a completely different time frame than the Islanders, in a different part of the world, and most definitely did not range that far in their ships (while they were fairly impressive seafarers for their day, this simply means that they reached places like Sumeria from the Indus).
Never directly stated, no, but the implication seemed to be there that the historical establishment actively prevented research in that field. Forgive me if that was not your intent.
Collapse, which I am currently reading, mentions it as though it were common knowledge. I admittedly am not an expert on Pacific Islander sweet potato cultivation.
See above. The Basques were fairly adventurous seafarers.
Sharwood
Rich, doctor nephew
It could possibly indicate that the Rapanui found those glyphs there when they first landed on Easter Island, and took it as their own. Bear in mind that Rongorongo seems to have been used as artwork more than as writing; indicating that the Rapanui didn't have a damn clue what it actually was.
If the glyphs were already there, it could be a sign that the Harappans had landed there, possibly after being swept (far) off course while trading with the Far East. It's completely conjecture, it's merely a very intriguing coincidence. If the Rapanui came up with Rongorongo entirely on their own, it would be one of less than half a dozen completely isolated writing systems on Earth. That's almost as difficult to believe as the idea that the Harappans ended up there themselves.
Fair enough. I wouldn't be surprised if the Vikings did establish a few more camps here and there, and maybe a settlement or two, that simply haven't been found, but I agree with you that it's very annoying when people seem to think that the Vikings had some thriving civilisation in North America like they had in Greenland.
They don't actively prevent it, but I can't think of a single legitimate scientist - excepting Thor Heyerdahl, who's theories were pretty damn controversial anyway - who's actually done a decent amount of research in these areas. It's like the proctology of the historical world. People could research it if they wanted to, but historians are incredibly reluctant to give up assumptions, so it would be pretty difficult to get any sort of grant to do so. Private investment would probably be avalable though.
I'm sure that book has far more info than the one I'm currently reading; Star Trek: The Classic Episodes; Season 1. But I'm damn near certain sweet potatoes were cultivated in Hawaii - and other Pacific Islands - prior to European contact. It's possible that seeds could simply have blown across the ocean, but even as far back as Charles Darwin this was recognised as unlikely. Of course, the name could be a coincidence, there are many like it - the Berbers and Mayas share the same word for water, atl, leading some to scream "ATL COMES FROM ATLANTIS" at the top of their lungs - but it's one hell of a coincidence, especially given other linguistic similarities between some Polynesian and Native American groups.
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