But it is meaningless since they did not write about it nor they stablished commerce. The fact is that before 1492, most civilizations in Africa/Asia/Europe did not know that America existed and that other humans lived there. After 1492, that changed forever.
> But it is meaningless since they did not write about it not they stablished commerce
Depends on what you find meaningful! There was almost certainly exchange of goods between Polynesians and South Americans. The presence of early sweet potato agriculture in Polynesia and genetic admixture in both regions points to non-trivial contact. There are even parallels in terms of folk-tales [0]! (Though these are likely older events, more to do with ancient dispersal).
There are also possibly earlier relationships across the Pacific, but these would have been ancient and interesting largely from historical curiousity [1].
I live in Vanuatu and is it very far to the west side of the Pacific yet the almost southern most island of Vanuatu, Aneityum, has stories of what they called the "Yellow People" that were on the island before they, Melanesians, arrived from northern islands. These people on the island were excellent stone carvers and could make stone walls which the current locals admit they never learned from the "yellow people". Old engravings exist still of these original people that to me sound like those may have come from the east, South America. I don't have photos though, this is a story I just heard recently from family members of that island.
Wow. You should really, really write a blog post about this, and get some of them on the record about it. A Google search for 'Aneityum "yellow people"' returns only 4 results.
>His canoe and his moiety were the first to adopt the chiefly system, and it was brought to Aneityum by natimi-yag (yellow-people), which he now believes to have been Polynesian.
I don't think I've come across anyone on HN from Vanuatu. If you're open to answering, I wonder if you work in tech? What's the tech industry like there?
That is really cool isn't it? I was awestruck when I discovered in the early 90ies that I could converse online with people in locales very, very far from me.
A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/09/25/a-monk-in-14th-century-italy-wrote-about-the-americas
There was an interesting recent Economist story about that. There is a 14th century Italian monk that did write about Newfoundland based on the oral testimony of “sailors who frequent the seas of Denmark and Norway”. It is possible Columbus was aware of this.
"Their task was to explore the country, contact its ruler, and gather information about the Asian emperor described by Marco Polo as the "Great Khan". "
There is a lot of effort put today to downplay the importance of what happened. I understand that it makes sense politically. But the fact remains that what happened in 1492, for good or bad, changed the world forever.
There is a possibility that this was known much earlier than the 14th century. St. Brendan may have been speaking about the americas as early as 500 AD.
> But it is meaningless __to western european cultures__ since they did not write about it __in the dominant languages__ nor they stablished commerce __with europe__
Added the implicit bits. That doesn’t take anything from your point, I just think having the perspective explicited helps grasp it better.
It will also cover the discussions when ancient China will be found to have had extensive links as well, etc.
I hate to say it, but in a sense, they were meaningless because there was no followup. We haven't had a machine that could even get us back there for 50 years now.
One could argue that we are doing the followup even to this day (with the China CLEP programme, India’s Chandrayaan, USA’s ongoing Artemis campaign and others). The deed was done, the minimum bar was set and humanity has been as determined as ever to breach the peak it had achieved back in the sixties even as government funding waxes and wanes. Public interest has not changed in the least.
In a way they're meaningless because they were just a way to extend the "space race" to an arbitrary milestone the US could claim for itself after having lost almost everything else to the reds.
Sadly, while Apollo was important as a proof-of-concept exercise, it was up to future generations of spacefaring explorers to give it meaning by following through on the initial achievement. Unlike the post-Columbian European settlers, we've dropped the ball.
By the time we get back to the Moon, my guess is that over half our population will believe that the Apollo missions never happened at all. There can't be much of a leap from "Bush blew up the WTC" and "Trump won the election" to "The moon landings were faked in Hollywood."
This led to global trade that changed the face of the earth. It opened philosophical debates about human rights, the legality of wars, etc., which are still important today.
Yeah, we had the School of Salamanca, and the state-of-the-art Liberal Constitution from Cadiz, but somehow, we the Spaniards fuck things over spectacularly, as if we had a curse.
Yes, but they continued the Buddhism tradition (orally). The Vikings did not continue commercing and tell other people... hey! there are humans in this place! its a new continent!
> But it is meaningless since they did not write about it
The story of Leifur Eiríksson lived in the oral tradition and was eventually written down in Grænlendinga Saga around 250 years later (which is still another 250 years before Columbus).
I bet that possible Polynesian contact would have lived in the oral tradition in a similar manner. Though way more time passed until the stories Polynesian were written down so I would expect them to be a bit more fantastical with the added time.
This brings up a good point about what does discover mean. People lived in north America but they did not write about it to Europeans so they had to be discovered.
Why does my understanding of history seem to revolve around what Europeans did and did not do/know?
For better or for worse, different civilizations took different approaches to keeping written records. The Chinese, many European people, the Arabs, the Persians, the Indians, the Mayans, the Aztecs, many African people all had detailed written records. So we tend to tell history from their point of view, since this is the info we have.
Do we have written info from the Native Americans who met the Vikings or from the Caribbean peoples about Columbus? Not that I know of. We have the Vikings view of things and Columbus' view, so we tend to rely on them.
I find it highly likely that crucial bronze age inventions like smelting, Eridu/Elamite 'pyramids' and writing were introduced to America in one way trips between 4000 and 0BC, however until we find artifacts or mummy DNA it's pure speculation.
Civilizations around the world definitely acquired similar technology with suspicious timing, but the common factor doesn't need to be humans. One theory I'm fond of is river deltas. The major ones all formed around 7,000 years ago (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A47ythEcz74) as a geological result of the end of the ice age. After humanity spread to the Americas during the ice age, the end of the ice age seems to have created the conditions necessary for agriculture to flourish. Once you have agriculture you get cities, writing to track harvest numbers, pyramids from laborers working in the off season, and metalworking from craftspeople .
Suspicious timing is a good term. As far as I know the 4000 years of development which preceded the Eurasian bronze age are absent in america (tokens, cold hammering, accounting, step by step increases in architectural complexity), even though agriculture must have been part of a much earlier package or human condition as you said. Wooden idols and totems go back to ice age times, I give you that.
I don't doubt there were "rafting" events, like that which brought over the new world monkeys, but I don't think isolated individuals can transmit culture like that.
"Connecticut Yankee" type stories underestimate how diffuse culture is, and overestimate the prevelence and prowess of "polymaths" in the weakest sense.
Rafting is not the term I'd use for post Ubaid sailing and rowing explorations. Look at the rock art of that time, especially in egypt and slightly later scandinavia. If you believe the essence of Gilgamesh, some of these expeditions to far countries might have even made it back (though unlikely from America).
I think there's also a point everyone who talks about other "discoveries" of America purposely ignores. This is about the discovery of it not for Europe the continent. This is about its discovery for what was the civilized nations in Europe. So if we look at Iceland - a place that's essentially a standalone island already half way to America - where a bunch of vikings lived who at the time weren't hanging out with people from places like Spain or Italy or France - it's an apples to oranges comparison.
First Iceland is only half way to North America if you consider Greenland (which is kind of weird since both Iceland and Greenland are islands between the two continents). The distance between Iceland and Labrador is twice as long as the distance between Iceland and Norway. And the double distance is on top of much much rougher seas of the Labrador sea then the North Atlantic. So for small sailboats Europe is definitely close while North America isn’t.
Second, people traveled a lot both to Iceland and from Iceland in the centuries after the voyages mentioned in Grænlendinga Saga. Ships went to Iceland to trait, or fish and people went from Iceland to continental Europe for pilgrimage, trade, etc. These people definitely talked to each other and told each other stories of their ancestors. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Portuguese fishermen were told Grænlendinga Saga while wintering in Iceland sometime in the 14th century after their trip home was delayed for some reason. Or that a pilgrim from Iceland told a fellow Spanish Christion in broken latin about Leifur Eiríksson on their way to Rome.
Third. Flateyarbók (which contains written stories about the norse settlements in North America) was written down in the mid 13th century. The Icelandic sagas were coveted by Scandinavian royalty and I bet royalty in both Norway and Denmark knew about it’s existence, and might even have heard Grænlendinga Saga recited.
Now it probably wasn’t common knowledge that there were lands west of the Atlantic which people once tried to settle, but it probably wasn’t unknown either.
It is not hard to imagine an alternative scenario where by some freak luck Christopher Columbus happens to talk to a person who’s great grandfather told a story about an Icelander they walked part of the way to Rome with. “Curious folks those Icelanders”, they say, “in the old times they used to sail all around the world. Even going West of Greenland”.
“Greenland? You mean the icy land way north in the Atlantic where they get those Walrus husks?” Columbus replies.
“Yes, there! Apparently there are some much more favorable lands south west of there. I wonder how much further south it reaches, maybe as far south as Africa?”
Or maybe a scenario where a common crewman on Columbus’ voyage knew about these stories from a Basque fisherman who in turn heard them while on a fishing trip to Iceland. “This isn’t Japan”, he claims. “An old friend of mine heard stories about lands as far west as this—albeit further north as well. Maybe these islands are of the same island chain which lie between Europe and Asia”. This crewman is promptly laughed at. “Off course this is Japan, our captain says so.” They say, and the crewman never mentions it again.
But it is meaningless since they did not write about it nor they stablished commerce. The fact is that before 1492, most civilizations in Africa/Asia/Europe did not know that America existed and that other humans lived there. After 1492, that changed forever.