Chinese Explorers 'Discovered America'? 822
FLY9999 writes: "According to British historian and map expert Gavin Menzies, Chinese explorers discovered America way before Columbus did. He will disclose his information to the prestigious Royal Geographical Society (RGS) at a conference next week."
Erm, great. (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean. . . (Score:2, Funny)
wouldn't surprise me in the least (Score:2, Funny)
dgd
Its a bit more complex then that. (Score:2)
It was a really quite sad time for chinese history, before the Ming china was a great seafaring nation, hundreds of years before western european expansionism.
What about the Vikings? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:2)
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:2)
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:2)
This is hardly news The idea that the Chinese landed on the Pacific coast of North America is at least a decade or two old.
>Whilst the article ascribes maps to the Chinese in the 15th century this still does not explain charts on Antarctica without ice. The ice has been there a lot longer than 5-6 hundred years.
Lots of folks visited Americas (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the probability of one way trips to the americas, this is not totally outrageous [wfu.edu], but is so far off the map as far as normal high school educations go as to appear bizarre.
While I may quibble on the details and the analysis, the basic concept is reasonable.
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:3, Insightful)
And these were then largely wiped out by a subsequent group of immigrants from Europe.
So the 15th-19th century near-genocide of the Indians is merely the latest iteration, not a slaughter without parallel.
Re:Non-genocide my shiny metal ass! (Score:3, Insightful)
All the intentional wartime/peacetime atrocities committed by Europeans in the Americas put together don't even add up to 1/100th the amount of Native Americans killed by foreign diseases. Not even close. It doesn't excuse them, but the Europeans were no more guilty of genocide than, say, the English in the Hundred Years' War.
unlikely (Score:2)
Re:unlikely (Score:3, Informative)
Unlikely, my rosy red behind! (Score:3, Interesting)
Ever wonder why the names of so many New England towns end in the word "field"? Most of what is now New England (and anywhere else on the continent with good dirt and a decent growth season) was cleared fields long before European settlers showed up. Further, most recent estimates (recent, because previous estimates have been uniformly politically self-serving, but based on the same historical observations) show that aboriginal populations in North America rival europe's population at the time of westward expansion.
The density of population from one place to another was much more consistent than in Europe, so there were no streets being used as open sewers , no Bubonic plague, no resistance to the diseases that appear among densely populated cities.
What you learned in High School about native populations is simply wrong. When the plagues started depopulating native villages (mortality rates were about 95%), the settlers thought that all of this wealth sitting and waiting for them to come along was the will of God and in their prayers thanked God for their good fortune.
To get back to the current topic. Just about everyone has been to the Americas before Columbus. The obsession with his successful trips to enslave a few natives and steal a lot of gold shouldn't be interesting to anyone actually interested in history.
Don't get me wrong. The natives made plenty of mistakes. The Mayans were likely wiped out by an ecological disaster of their own making. Other native tribes made their own mistakes. They were human, but several of my ancestors uniformly and repeatedly screwed them over by breaking treaties and contracts time and time again. Pretending it didn't happen or even outright denying it doesn't change the facts.
Here's another one for you. The sale of Manhattan for a few beads? Two problems: First, the deal was made with a tribe that had no claim to Manhattan at the time (though they said they did) . Second, the treaty as signed was for one season's hunting rights (the natives were very savvy with land contracts and land rights). At the end of the contract, we had to vacate, but we pulled out our guns, enslaved the natives, and shipped them back to Europe (the slave trade went both ways across the Atlantic).
Regards, Ross
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:3, Insightful)
This 'noble savage' theory is as intellectualy bankrupt as social darwanism. Their are no 'good' guys, the vast majority of people throughout history are mean, nasty, and brutish no matter their location or race.
Re:They Lost a War (Score:4, Insightful)
Well said. That's exactly what I've thought for decades but it is obviously entirely non-PC to say (or even think) it.
We also had a land war with Mexico 150 years ago and took close to half of their land. You don't see anyone crying about how we treated the Mexicans.
Oh well, the contradictions of the "politically correct" crowd. :)
Re:They Lost a War (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyway, even if you don't accept that argument, it's not worth being seriously upset about. The fact that they don't have to pay taxes doesn't bother me too much, since it makes their miserable lives at least a bit brighter.
Re:They Lost a War (Score:3, Interesting)
and that would be true if in fact we had actually gone to war or declared war at any point (military exercises are what we would consider the activities today). Dismissing the fact that 'americans' however far in our past lied, cheated, stole, murdered, misrepresented, and raped the 'native' population of the americas allows us the comfort of continuing in the same vein of action without remorse or consideration. If we do not look to our past, we cannot learn from it and grow to be a better people.
Everyone DESERVES respect. Our own constitution is based on 'unalienable' rights afforded to man (all man, mankind). In the government and individual actions in the slaughter of societies, tribes and individuals (something we should very closely equate to the Jewish Holocaust) 'we' denied those people of their 'unalienable' rights.
The sad part is that lets say we "move on", we "move past" what happened and the wrong doings of generations past... what are we doing today to make sure that 1) we preserve what little of that culture is left 2) we ensure that the native american as a bloodline doesn't dissappear entirely. And the answer is 'very little'. I don't believe in 'affirmative action' I believe in 'equality'. 'We' put more effort into building 3rd world countries up than we do in building up the nations that exist within this country. We need to look to the past to see what we can avoid repeating and what we may need to correct so that WE (all of us) have a more prosporous and rich future.
Re:What about the Vikings? (Score:2)
You seriously expect Disney (or for that matter any Hollywood studio) to get History or European geography correct
hmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
It's a bit big to miss, considering the only way around it is a long way South. (To the North is the Arctic ice cap.) Anyone sailing West from Europe and Africa or West from Asia will find it...
Re:hmmm (Score:3, Funny)
Don't be absurd. If they sailed EAST from Asia they'd fall off the edge of the Earth.
Re:hmmm (Score:2)
Along comes Columbus and makes up a story of how much gold there was (actually did happen) and along comes the masses.
People came here for gold, and riches. But then they came and found NADA! Other than some native Americans wearing skins.
You know this could be the worldest biggest CON and the EUROPEANS fell for it hook line and sinker... Hmmm, no wonder we North Americans are so DUMB!
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Vikings touched base 400 years prior to the Chinese. The Arabs had the technology and knowledge to do it. The Romans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians may have done it.
But ultimately, none of those is important as Columbus' "discovery". Why? Because what was the end result of Chinese exploration of the Americas? Or of the Vikings? Or of Saint Brendan? It cannot be denied that Columbus had an effect on the history of the world (for better or for worse). Does this lessen the accomplishment of crossing an ocean? No. But exploration is only one side of the coin. There is also what you do with it. It's the difference between pure science and applied science. You can't have the applied without the pure, but the applied has a hell of a lot more bearing on the world.
That said, I am fascinated by all things to do with geography and history. This is an unquestionably cool discovery. But it's not earth shattering.
Vikings (Score:2, Insightful)
In addition to going to America 500 years before Columbus, they also did trades all the way down in Irak and formed the worlds oldest parliament.
And it seems they did mushrooms [totse.com] to go beserk. Cool guys.
Re:Vikings (Score:2, Funny)
Vikings rule! That's all I can say!
Thor decides he wants some earth loving. So he turns himself into a dashing young human warrior. He picks up this beautiful princess and they have a wild night. The next morning, Thor decides to reveal himself. "I am Thor," he says. "You're thor," the princess replies, "I'm tho thor, I don't think I can pith."
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
So the Vikings might have ranged along the coast, and their fishermen might have landed there to dry cod for some centuries. There are also indications that English fishermen were taking cod from the Grand Banks well before Columbus sailed, and of course they would have noticed the nearby land. But in 1492, Europeans were finally becoming ready to cross an ocean and _stay_. It was no longer possible to loot the middle east under guise of a crusade. Looting each other led to early death far more often than to wealth. But now they had much improved sailing ships so they could go out and loot new lands...
Of course, those Englishmen who landed at Jamestown in the expectation of digging gold up on the beach, or stealing it from the Indians, were sorely disappointed. They had to turn farmers just to survive -- and then farming turned out to be quite lucrative, especially once explorers along the African coast found a solution to the labor problem...
Re:So? (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally, Cook, Magellan, de Gama and Columbus all had accurate maps of the world. Mr. Menzies says: "What nobody has explained is why the European explorers had maps. Who drew the maps? There are millions of square miles of ocean. It required huge fleets to chart them. If you say it wasn't the Chinese, with the biggest fleets and ships in the world, then who was it?"
Also, apparently the Chinese ships dwarfed european ships of the 15th and 16th centuries, and only about 5% of the Chinese explorers survived to return to China; But by the time Zheng He returned to China, the government was in chaos and the fleets were mothballed.
A small number of records and charts survived to be passed to Western explorers.
There is a more complete article about this in the London Daily Telegraph [telegraph.co.uk].
Re:So? (Score:2)
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
And 80% of the Native American mortality wasn't due to slavery, or genocide, or the use of biological weapons. It was due to the fact that Native Americans had no resistance to common, resistable diseases among Europeans, like the flu. By the time Lewis and Clark reached the Willamette Valley - the first white guys to see alot of America - almost 90% of the valley population had been killed by diseases spread from Native American population to Native American population across the continent. Not smallpox, which never reached the Willamette valley, but primarily the flu.
The Native Americans were no more peaceful than any other people on earth. In fact, a half-dozen or so various confederations were bloodily at war when the Europeans arrived. The Incans and Aztects brutally enslaved and murdered hundreds of thousands of people, allowing the Spaniards to pick up huge armies of allies when they marched upon these empires - because the Native Americans hated each other so much.
They were not peaceful or noble or any different than any other human population you care to look at. The only difference between them and, say, all the native peoples the Assyrians wiped out is that some subset of Americans has decided to engage in self-flagellation over the issue.
Max
Re:Some facts on what happened to native Americans (Score:3, Interesting)
There were no concentration camps, no ovens, no Gestapo. The number of people actually killed - as in, murdered - by Europeans can be measured in the tens of thousands. This isn't insignificant but it's by no means unique in history. As I said before the Assyrians did much, much worse and with more brutality than even the Spaniards were capable of. Hell, the Incans and the Aztecs *both* committed atrocities far beyond anything than Cortez and company envisioned, and these boys were complete lunatics.
This pathetic attempt at revisionist history isn't appreciated.
And please note: accepting historical fact by no means exempts people from moral action *today*. Passing laws to protect Native Americans and provide them with equal opportunity are a sign of ethical behavior; indulging in blame-fests is a way of avoiding concrete action which might affect one's pocketbook. Blaming ourselves for what thousands of peoples have done during the entirety of human history is a great way to 'accept responsility' without having to take corrective action to make the lives of Native Americans *alive now, today* more equitable - especially when self-blame is free and money is not.
I do not hold myself responsible for what my ancestors did to Native Americans, intentionally or unintentionally. Life isn't fair, and such is the lot of the conquered. I do, however, blame myself if I don't act to improve the lives of Native Americans in our nation today. So lets stop whining and start doing something constructive, eh?
Max
Lots of people beat Columbus (Score:3, Interesting)
Search internet for lots of sources: One with a short description here [millersville.edu]
Re:Lots of people beat Columbus (Score:2, Funny)
All of history is biased (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a great bit of news. We have know for a long time that the history of a war is written by those winning the war. This simply extends this theory a bit.
It is very interesting that the history of the world is written by the dominant group of the time. All the European discoveries are posed as someone discovering something new. The ver fact that there were people in the USA when Columbous landed proves that he did not "discover" it at all - he simply opened the minds of the dominant group of people of the time (The Europeans)
South African history is an example of this. Up till about 15 years ago, the only known history of South Africa was that it was discovered by Europeans, liberated from the savages and made a civilised country. REcent events have shown the barbarism of the European nations in the colonisation of the country, and has started to show the positive side of the indigenous people.
I think it is great that something like this will shake some of the beliefs of the American people. It is nice to see that places outside the European nations actually did some discovery prior to the Europeans.
On a final note - it is interesting that all the histories of the oriental races I have come across, everytime there is a meeting between the europeans (or other leaders of the known world) the Chinese are seen as very shrewd, civilised people - very few of the other cultured have had this benefit. Does it really surprise me (against this background) that the chinese charted Australia and the Americas before the Europeans? No...
It's not a big deal (Score:4, Interesting)
When explorer Christopher Columbus landed in America in 1492, he was 72 years behind a Chinese expeditionary force, which had already made its way to the area.
And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier.
Sailing in 1,000-foot-long ships with nine massive junk-style sails, the Chinese also circumnavigated the world a century before explorer Ferdinand Magellan's epic journey, and reached South America.
The reason why Columbus, Cook and Magellan get the credit is because they were Europeans. And, in those days, Europe was the center of the world. Western civilization sprung from Europe so to speak. Think about it: most (both north and south) American citizens have ancestors in Europe, so do the citizens in Australia.
For Europeans, America and Australia didn't exist until Columbus and Cook hit their shores (the Vikings did it before Columbus ofcourse but that was forgotten). After that, lots and lots of Europeans emigrated to America and Australia (most of them for economic reasons ofcourse). Contact between them and the homefront was never lost and therefore Columbus, Cook and Magellan deserve some credit. Maybe not for first discovering the continents but for putting them on the map.
Re:It's not a big deal (Score:2, Interesting)
Kewl (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Kewl (Score:2)
Re:Kewl (Score:2)
What was done with Kennewick man isn't even remotly funny though. (Other than the obvious irony of being discovered on the "Columbia River".) About the only thing we can be sure of is that he was Neolithic.Which is thousands of years before any Vikings, Chinese or Hispanic sponsored Italians came anywhere near America.
Sure, but... (Score:2)
What everyone else has been trying to say, but stumbling across is that, "When Columbus discovered America, it stayed discovered."
How... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How... (Score:4, Insightful)
How could Biham and Shamir 'discover' differential cryptoanalis when the NSA already knew about it?
How could my cat 'discover' that the computer was warm when I already knew about it?
How can I discover the joy of using Python when lots of other people already experience it?
Maybe it's time to crack open a dictionary, and 'discover' what 'discover' really means!
Re:How... (Score:2)
"*You* discovered *us*?"
"We discover you on beach here. Is all how you look at it."
"Oh yeah, never thought of that..."
Chris Mattern
The key is ABC (Score:2)
How do you discover a country when there are already people living there?
<bias class="eurocentric">
whatever...You "discover" a country when you are the first to bring alphabetic writing there. The Native Americans didn't discover the New World; most of them had no writing (save the Maya nation). The Chinese didn't discover the New World; they wrote with ideograms. The Vikings can lay a claim because at least they had a runic alphabet. We believe the claims of Columbus, Vespucci, and others for discovering different parts of the New World because they were able to write home using a small number of distinct symbols that somewhat closely correspond to the sound of the language.
</bias>
"Too US-centric" (Score:5, Insightful)
I dislike cries of "too US-centric" as much as the next Yankee, but come on, the story here isn't that they discovered the American continent first. The wow-that's-incredible part of the story is the idea that Chinese explorers circumnavigated the globe 100 years before Magellan's voyage.
As it has been pointed out, lots of people beat Columbus to the New World, (Vikings and Native Americans to name a couple.) but going all the way around the world is something of an accomplishment. Incidentally, when you sail around the world you're bound to bump into the American continent anyways.
Strange Media Coverage (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Strange Media Coverage (Score:2, Interesting)
You really think the Chinese emperors were such good, moral people? No, their interests were just as strongly economic, but America simply contained nothing China needed or wanted. While Spaniards and Portuguese were scouring the Americas in search of silver and gold (not by coincidence, Columbus' journey was inspired by Marco Polo's tale of imperial China), the Chinese were bullying smaller states around the Indian Ocean rim into paying tribute. America, lacking in precious minerals and fragrant herbs, simply was of no interest to the Chinese. It was of interest, though, to a growing European population that demanded space and raw materials.
We remember Columbus better than any Chinese explorer for the same reason that we remember Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the telephone, though Elisha Gray had build one earlier (but missed Bell's patent by a few hours).
geee (Score:4, Interesting)
And I thought the Native Americans, aka Indians would have discovered it since they lived there, silly me!
The chinese couldn't have discovered it first, per our definition Discovering means "found and claimed by a white person with european descent".
America doesn't even exist. (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sure some people will disagree with me. Well, I ask you this - Have you been there? Have you actually seen this place? Why did nobody ever mention it until really quite recently? And I mean the past 100 years or so. I challenge anyone to find a resource more recent than 1900 that indicates that the place exists.
It was clearly an invention of European governments to use as an excuse to devalue their currencies in the 1920's. They didn't want to blame themselves, so they invented another country to blame.
Face it. America is a ridiculous liberal myth.
Yes, and ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only thing that makes Columbus different is that by the time he got there the mechanisms and motivation to publicise the discovery and start the process of conquest and colonisation were in place.
and ... today the Chinese desire conquest (Score:3)
Propaganda like this is part of any empire's claim on the world. We found it, we own it, right? Oh yeah, the party invented the helocopter. There is a reason communist countries try to claim all ideas and discoveries. It is to legitimize their ownership of all things. Even if true exploratory rants should cause apprehension. I expect the Chinese government to pick this up and produce, "evidence" that they knew it all along.
Who shall stop the Chinese if they do want to conquer? No one bothered as they crushed Tibet. China is one of the largest best armed countries in the world, and it's under horrific central control. Make no mistake few are willing to stand in their way.
Thank you very much Stright Times for presenting this information as you did. I imagine your Royal Navy sources are not pleased. No thank you, for the offer of an active X advert.
Interesting ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Waiting for americans (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Waiting for americans (Score:2, Insightful)
We can't blame the Chinese for the bastardisation of European Culture that happened in America, we CAN blame Columbus. So give him the credit. (Flame me if you like, Americans).
We can't blame whoever it was who cultivated tobacco since time immemorial, we can blame Walter Raleigh for bringing it back to Elizabeth I and making it trendy. Did he "discover" tobacco? NO. But in British history, he gets a lot of credit for bringing stuff back, when all he was doing was trying to impress the queen.
We could go on and on.
Re:Waiting for americans (Score:3, Insightful)
This map [survive2012.com] was drawn by consulting much more ancient sources, rather than being drawn by Reis himself. Apparently it accurately mapped the coastline of Antarctica which has been completely covered in ice since before the Egyptian Pyramids were built. We know that the mapping of Antarctica's coastline is accurate thanks to seismic surveys that were carried out last century. Spooky eh?
Umm...what about the Native Americans (Score:2, Insightful)
Moreover, they also peacefully inhabited the land and had a continental population that was close to that of Europe around 19th century. But we killed most of them, so they don't count right? At least they can live in slums and on their native casinos now.
Why do white people always think they come first?
Re:Umm...what about the Native Americans (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you should base your ideas about Native Americans on more than Disney's Pocohontas.
I'll give you a hint. There were a lot of different tribes. Some farmed, some hunted, some made human sacrifices, some raided other tribes, murdering, raping, etc. Just like most humans.
I am not arguing that what happened to the Native Americans was not tragic. But to claim that the Native Americans were pacifists to make your point is sheer idiocy.
A good book exploring some of the reasons the Europeans annihilated the Native Americans is, "Guns, Germs, and Steel", by Jared Diamond. It contains some very interesting theories about the availability of domesticable animals and crops and what a profound influence it had on the development of societies.
Re:Umm...what about the Native Americans (Score:2)
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/atrox.htm
Excerpt:
"That's why I was so startled to discover that there is absolutely no pattern to the chart. If I had simply picked 25 countries out of a hat, I could not have gotten a more diverse spread than we've got here. We've got rich countries and poor countries; industrial and agrarian; big and small. We've got people of all colors -- white, black, yellow and brown -- widely represented among both the slaughterers and the slaughterees. We've got Christians, Moslems, Buddhists and Atheists all butchering one another in the name of their various gods or lack thereof. Among the perpetrators, we've got political leanings of the left, right and middle; some are monarchies; some are dictatorships and some are even democracies. We've got innocent victims invaded by big, bad neighbors, and we've got plenty of countries who brought it on themselves, sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. Go on -- take a third look. Find any type of country that is not represented among the agents of a major blooding, and probably the only reason for that is that there aren't that many countries in that category to begin with (There are no Hindu or Jewish countries on the chart, but then, there's only one of each on the whole planet, and they're both waiting in the wings among the next 25.).
In a way, it's rather disheartening to realize that we can't smugly blame the brutality of the century on the Communists, or the imperialists, or the Moslem fundamentalists, or the godless. Every major category of human has done it's share to boost the body count, so replacing, say, Moslem rulers with Christian rulers, or white rulers with black rulers, is not going to change it at all."
Read and weep.
Peacefully ? (Score:2)
Err you are kidding right ? Most Native American tribes would be classified as nomadic warriors. Sure they didn't have guns or heavy artillery but these were not zen buddist style people just looking for enlightenment.
History with Rose tinted glasses, the world where no "primitive" culture ever had a problem with war, murder, rape, incest. All of those problems are a result of the modern world.
And anyway... the Chinese are "White", Phonecians' were "white" ? Native Americans' are probably Russians anyway... damn commies
Yeah, but.... (Score:2)
I have the same problem ... (Score:3, Funny)
Description of Zheng He's fleet from book (Score:4, Informative)
old slashdot archive (Score:5, Funny)
by Leif Ericson in 1001 (http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/07343. html [encyclopedia.com])
All your women and chattels are belong to us!
yesssss (Score: 0)
by Zheng He in 1420 (http://members.tripod.com/khleo/chengho.ht m [tripod.com])
too slow to catch me, bitches!
Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?
Frosty Piss! (Score: -1, overrated)
by Christopher Columbus in 1492 (http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/ modeng/public/BroTrue.html [virginia.edu])
I claim this first post in the name of exploring trolls everywhere!
First (Score: -1, redundant)
by Amerigo Vespucci in 1497 (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15384b.htm [newadvent.org])
suck my cock, Columbus. you're mother goes down on me reel good!
graspee
Ironic (Score:2)
circumnavigated the world (Score:3, Funny)
We all know the chinese are real good at that... Why else do they have their own DVD zone?
That's okay (Score:2, Funny)
Extraordinary claims (Score:2)
Apparantly the world is still waiting on the extraordinary evidence (and that would be why 85 percent of those Royal Geographic Society people are planning to show up).
This guy is talking about THOUSAND FOOT WOODEN SHIPS. This would have to be a first, and beat the largest known rival [schoonerman.com] almost 3fold. That alone is making me think "this guy is 3 weeks early."
The ancient Egyptians discovered Australia (Score:2, Informative)
And although Captain James Cook was credited with discovering Australia for the British Empire in 1770, the Chinese had mapped the island continent 337 years earlier.
Actually, the Egyptians discovered [crystalinks.com] New South Wales between 1779 and 2748 BC. Hieroglyphic carvings in Hunter Valley, 100 km north of Sydney, relate how Djes-eb, one of the sons of the Pharaoh Ra Djedef, died from a snake bite.
Australia also appears on the map of Eratosthenes [henry-davis.com], compiled in 194 BC. This Erasthosthenes was the same person who devised the famous method of calculating prime numbers, still used as a benchmark today.
Re:The ancient Egyptians discovered Australia (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The ancient Egyptians discovered Australia (Score:3, Interesting)
A common picture in tombs have a picture of the deceased holding a knife to the neck of an Indian or Ethiopian. There are reports that they knew of at least four other races 3000 years ago. There are almost no detailed drawings of ships or maps. There are also reports that the Egypteans didn't go far in their ships but hired crews from other areas. Maybe they had some superstition about going too far from home.
Some of the survey maps from 3000 to 5000 years ago have areas that are very accurate. As in better than the ones done in the 1800's by the French and require round earth calculations. There is an map of the entire coast of Africa in the British Museum so someone was going long distances in boats and getting back. I'm not sure the ones that got to Australia ever got back since a long boat at that time had a high risk of being a one way trip to fish food.
Uhhh....... (Score:2, Interesting)
...all those formerly pristine frontiers just quietly awaiting their future deforestation, mass flora/fauna species extinction, genocide, colonialism, and natural disaster events.
Whew -- on second thought, I guess "America" is lucky all those folks were "racing" to discover it. Those natives sure weren't doing much with it. If not for that race, it would still be an unspoiled, underpopulated, wild, undeveloped, unpolluted, useless area. Only lately has it begun to realize it's full potential!
Thousand foot long ships? (Score:5, Interesting)
On nine sails?
The freakin' Titanic was only 900 feet long and needed 31,000 steam-driven shaft horsepower just to get halfway across.
Thousand foot wooden ships with a single sail every hundred feet or so were either a remarkable engineering accomplishment or a mariner's nightmare.
Chinese nautical technology (Score:5, Informative)
Here is one quote relevant to your question:
Even 163 metres is only 530 feet, of course, but it shows that 1000 feet isn't that unbelieveable.Danny.
Re:Chinese nautical technology (Score:5, Informative)
people form Oceania got there first (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:people form Oceania got there first (Score:3, Informative)
Take a look at the homepage of the Kon-Tiki museum in Oslo [kon-tiki.no].
Heyerdahl (who btw. now in his eigthies are still active digging up a historic settlement in Russia I believe, and overseeing excavations of pyramids on Sicily, the Canary islands and South America), sailed from Peru in 1947 to Raroia in Polynesia to prove that settlements in the South Pacific could have originated with explorers from South America.
Btw. The movie about Kon-Tiki won an Oscar for best documentary in 1950 I believe.
What you might be thinking about was Ra I and Ra II from 1969, where he tried to prove that South America may have been populated by boat from Africa, since South America is within reach of Morocco by Papyrus boats built after ancient Egyptian design. Ra I almost reached Barbados, and Ra II succeeded.
He also did a fourth voyage on Tigris, a boat built to show that there could have been cultural exchange historically between the old cultures of Mesopotamia, the Indus valley and Egypt via the see. The voyage wasn't completed because of the Iran/Iraq war.
You're right in linking Heyerdahl to the Easter Island, though, as he did lead an expedition there as well, trying among other things to link his theories of expeditions from South America closer to findings on Easter Island.
Central for Heyerdahl is that he believes that there has been much wider cultural exchanges between ancient cultures than what are known today, and that many cultures had much more extensive sea faring experience than many believe.
Guns, Germs, and Steel (Score:4, Insightful)
is here [garretwilson.com]
This whole thing is hilarious... (Score:2)
Re:This whole thing is hilarious... (Score:2)
I know who 'disovered' America! (Score:2)
Yeah, but.. (Score:2)
Nothing new, there. (Score:2)
Gautama Buddha, for one, after some other chinese explorers went down the western American coast, and settled (in Guatemala) for a little while, at least 500 years before Christofo Colombari.
Admiral Zheng He Day? (Score:2)
That would explain... (Score:2)
Chinese yes, (Score:5, Insightful)
1st, it is well known that multiple cultures "discovered" what has come to be known as America before Columbus did in 1492. First and foremost by far, of course, were the ancestors of the native peoples of America, who appear to have arrived in several waves of migration via the Alaskan land bridge and possibly via maritime travel from Polynesia. There are arguments about exactly how old the earliest sites (including Monte Verdi in South America, and Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania) are, but most scholars accept them as being at least 10,000 years old and perhaps as old as 25,000 years. This beats anyone else by a long shot.
After this migration, however, the ONLY incontrovertible archaeological evidence we have for precolumbian contact comes from Viking Sites of around 1000 AD, including L'Anse Aux Meadows, which I believe is in Newfoundland.
The only other group that has any kind of solid archaeological claim to precolumbian discovery is the Chinese. Their presence seems to be attested by anchor stones found off the coast of California which closely match those from Chinese ship types which existed before the era of Columbus. There is, however, NO secure precolumbian artifactual evidence from the Chinese. This one's really a tossup, so I'd like to see what Menzies has to say.
Now when it comes to all of these other claims - Egyptians, Subsaharan Africans, Phonecians, Welsh, etc. etc., what we're seeing is a lot of bad scholarship. Most of this can be traced to 19th century racist hyperdiffusional accounts which attempted to explain how monumental architecture and such could have been produced by such "primitive" (or in some accounts sub-human) people as the Native Americans. Most of these centered around the Egyptians, mainly due to superficial similarities between Egyptian Pyramids and Mesoamerican "pyramid" platforms, which in actuality are designed and built in entirely different ways. Furthermore, neither the Egyptians, nor even the Phonecians, who are often supposed to have ferried the Egyptians across the Atlantic, possessed the kind of ship technology which would make regular oceanic voyaging possible. These were unreinforced, open-decked, square-rigged boats with no navigational instruments. We're not talking Spanish Naos or Chinese Junks (or even Viking boats) here.
The rest of the so-called evidence rests on overinterpretation of existing evidence (Olmec heads as evidence of African Contact, St. Brendan's Chronicles as an actual account - yeah, they just ran into Judas Iscariot in Massachussetts), proven hoaxes (Cuneiform tablets in Tennessee), or the psychotic ramblings of UFO cultists like Zecharia Sitchin.
Anyway, despite my little tirade, I don't want to rule out that other civilizations couldhave made it to the Americas. There is just no evidence. So here is how it stands on Precolumbian contact:
North Asians : Yes Vikings : Yes Chinese : Chances are pretty good Egyptians, Phonecians, Africans, Welsh : Highly Doubtful Everyone Else : Who the hell knows?
Re:Chinese yes, (Score:3, Interesting)
What you do have to keep in mind, though, is that Monte Verde is in Chile. If the Americas were populated solely via the Bering land bridge, then these people most likely would have taken many generations to not only travel all across two continents, but also to adapt lifeways suited to the new environments which they were encountering. The same goes for Meadowcraft, at least to a lesser extent. Even assuming an incredibly swift migration, you have to go back several centuries from even the latest dates to get to the date of the actual crossing into North America
Unfortunately, if the earliest migrations southward took place along the pacific coast, any habitation sites have likely been submerged with the rise in sealevels following the alst ice age. Robert Ballard and his bunch have recently had a lot of success identifying submerged sites in the Black Sea, so it is conceivable that some of the earliest sites might be found, but as of yet, we still know next to nothing about them.
Re:Eric the Red (Score:2)
Re:Eric the Red (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC, Eric discovered Greenland and Iceland. His son Leif made the jump to somewhere between Newfoundland and Virginia.
Of course, there is some evidence that Columbus wasn't even the first Catholic western European to settle North America. Some have speculated that the Knights Templar fled France in 1307 and landed in Massachusetts/Rhode Island.
It's the what-ifs like this that make history so great.
Rosslyn Chapel (Score:2)
Well there's certainly a Scottish connection with this, not sure where France comes into it. It is said that Sir William St Clair (the then Prince of Orkney) was the first to America and the historic Rosslyn Chappel near Edinburgh is given as evidence - carvings of Maize and the like... An interesting place to visit! I'm sure their website [rosslynchapel.org.uk] has more 'facts'!
Actually giving a brief glace they seem to steer away from the 'Americas' and 'Holy Grail' aspects... A websearch will find you lots of interesting stuff however.
Re:Rosslyn Chapel (Score:2)
Like:
The last is actually quite interesting and highlights a book written about this topic.
Re:Eric the Red (Score:2, Informative)
Here's details (with maps) [enchantedlearning.com] of some of the early explorations.
Nope (Score:2)
(small historical rant follows)
His father, Eíríkur the Red left Iceland because of some disputes with his neighbours. He moved to the west coast of Greenland and actually named the land Greenland so people would be more likely to move there. (This is probably the first marketing campaign in history). Leifur saild west and discovered Vínland. Leifur was actually christian, AFAIK. (Not quite sure, getting rusty in my high-school studies)
BTW: the vikings did too (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ja ! (Score:2)
http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.
No, i don't want to say that Marco polo "discovered" china but that China/Mongolia and Europe had loose contact with each other for quite some time before Zheng He or Columbus have placed their feet on American soil.
Marco Polo wasn't the first (Score:2)
Re:My experiences in China (Score:4, Funny)
Re:*Everybody* discovered America befoer Columbus. (Score:2, Redundant)
Basically, Columbus wasn't the first, but he had the biggest impact on history.
Re:But the Vikings were there 500 years earlier (Score:2)
Re:Native Americans Have Feelings Too (Score:2)
The "don't count" comment is unlikely to be reflect the editors meaning, and more likely to point out that there is a good reason why "discovered America" was put in quotes: America had already been discovered and settled.