Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Next week it's the Tibetans, and the week after that it's the Bedouin! Hurray for nonsense!
Polynesians to New World first?
- Thread starter tozgood
- Start date
Kahran Ramsus
Warlord
Except the Polynesians getting there is actually feasible. They had to get the sweet potato (a New World plant) from somewhere and they certainly had the seafaring technology and skills capable of reaching South America. Easter Island is much closer to South America than it is to Asia.
Granted if they had reached the Americas they had no lasting significance, but neither did the Scandinavians and we know that they were here.
Actually, it would probably be much easier to reach thr New World from Asia than from Easter Island, even though it is farther - just because a great deal of technology is required, and that sort of technology is very difficult to create and maintain on an isolated little rock like Easter Island. (Okay, I exaggerate a little.)
sydhe
King of Kongs
The technology existed in places like Tahiti and Hawaii, so it's really not necessary to go all the way back to Asia.
TheLastOne36
Deity
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2007
- Messages
- 14,045
Yes but first non european to get there. (excluding the NA's. )
Well, why should we exclude them? They didn't spring fully formed from the ground after all, we all came out of Eastern Africa, it's just that some of us got to some parts before others . . .
oh non European! that changes everything...
Kahran Ramsus
Warlord
The dates are always going to be a big question mark. Even with the Scandinavians they aren't very precise, only that it was around the year 1000.
The big issue that we should be looking at is not whether the Polynesians beat the Vikings to the Americas, but whether they reached there at all in pre-Columbian times.
