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Talk:Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories/Archive 1

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Latest comment: 17 years ago by Tmangray in topic olmec language
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 → Archive 5

When did the Vinland contacts become mainstream

200.149.94.243, I can see that you are putting a great deal or work into this page, but I have trouble taking it seriously at the moment, as I don't understand why you are claiming that no-one believes in pre-columbian Atlantic voyages. In 1930 that may well have been true - I'm not sure when knowledge of the Norse voyages became public, but it certainly hasn't been true for many years. Hey - I'm 43 now and I was taught about Erik the Red and the Viking voyages in primary school - that must have been in the 1960s, and I have no reason to think it was in any way unusual. While I've not taken any especial interest in this subject in the years since then, off the top of my head I could probably find three or four books I've read in the last year or two that mention the Norse settlements in Greenland and eastern America in passing, all solid mainstream stuff, nothing outlandish. Tim Flannery's The Eternal Frontier: An ecological history of North America and its peoples comes immediately to mind: he is possibly Australia's leading palentologist and holds positions at the South Australian Museum, the University of Sydney, and at Harvard. I don't see how you can get much more mainstream than that. Tannin

The page is looking much better now. I am tempted to clean it up a little further, make it clearer that no-one seriously disputes the Viking contacts these days, but before I do that, I should check: is there anyone of any stature who still disputes it? Tannin 12:34 Dec 21, 2002 (UTC)

Final call? Tannin 00:55 Dec 28, 2002 (UTC)

Pruning and POV

I am very reluctant to delete anything that may be useful. It seems that no-one has paid any attention to this page (despite my prodding) in almost a month. I make no claim to any expertise in this field, but my reading of the situation is that this article was originally placed here by a highly POV writer who was determined to (a) construct a conspiratorial straw-man myth about biased historians willfully ignoring evidence of pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic voyages, and (b) demonstrate that these historians have it all wrong.

I know enough about relatively modern history to correct this first part of the article (at least in its broad thrust) and this I did a month ago. However, I know little about the events claimed to have taken place in the following two sections (both now deleted). I left it go a month in the hope that someone with the appropriate background would come along and then (a) say "this is good stuff, leave it alone", or (b) "this is worth editing into shape, I'll take care of it, or (c) "this is the exact same sort of biased nonsense that the first part was".

But no-one has. It seems, then, that it's up to me to make a decision as best I can. Based on the clear evidence that the first section was 80% biased nonsense and 20% historical fact, on the balance of probabilities I have decided to be bold and remove the remainder. (If in doubt, it's better to say nothing than to get things wrong.)

For the record, the text from the original author's final draft follows. (Note that this is taken from his last edit, and is from before other Wikipedians began to prune it - so if you plan a restore, use the page history rather than this older copy.) - Tannin

It had long been qualified that the transatlantic or transpacific voyages belong to the dream world and they are all unscientific theories. On the other hand, it is widely accepted in linguistics that the main language of Madagascar was imported there from Indonesia. It is hard to accept that if the Malay-Polynesian navigators more than a millenium ago were able to cross the vast Indian Ocean, why would similar or shorter crossings of the other two oceans remain taboo issues. Whatever is the case, these conflicting theories exist, and they are waiting for final solutions.
In the 20th century, several attempt have been made to prove the possibility of long survival on oceans, like that of Alain Bombard. The Norwegian scholar Thor Heyerdahl have used light boats (named Rá and Kon-Tiki)of reed that was used by peoples of North Africa and Bolivia. He was able to cross oceans by his fragile but resistent boats successfully. These were the first scholarly proofs for the possibility of crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, many conservative scholars seemed to be unimpressed by his scientific conclusions and achievements, and the reluctance in dealing with the historicity of early records of such crossings is still around. The best example is the question of the Viking discoveries. There is a growing number of scientific proofs for the historical truth for America's discovery by the Vikings. Most of the modern handbooks, encyclopaedias and encyclopedic dictionaries discredit those discoveries, at least by a silence. Practically all of them claim that America was discovered by Christopher Columbus. The archaeological excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows at the northern tip of Newfoundland have proved that the ramains of a real Viking settlement have been unearthed. Helge Ingstad, Westward to Vinland (New York: St. Martins, 1969) is the best source for the conclusions. In reality, most teachers and professors have heard something about these, and believe their historicity at home. However, they have to forget their knowledge on their cathedras, and teach the students that Columbus had been the first European to cross the Atlantic. Many progressive scholars claim that they are innocent about the strange attitude taken by the editors of most encyclopaedias and the compilers of the curriculum in the educational institutions of the world.
=== Possible Irish crossings of the Atlantic ===
One of the earliest travel records of the Irish relates the navigation of Saint Brendan or Brandan to several islands in the north and the west. In Italy, in the 1970s, it has been published also in an original Old Italian dialect. The story reports a huge column of glass standing out from the sea (that was interpreted as an iceberg), also an event of landing on a small "island" and making a fire on it. After which, the island disappeared, for it turned out to be a sleeping whale. A beautifully illustrated early medieval map depicts this whale with the event, and St. Brendan's Isle to the northwest of Africa, west of Spain and northeast of the Insulae Fortunatae. See Z. Simon's book mentioned above (1984: 149). Based on its position and particular outline, the author identifies it with Great Inagua Island of the Bahamas.
Z.A. Simon (1984: 9-31) offers a new solution to the Mexican calendar and concludes that its starting point was October 23, 4004 BCE. He observes that the Aztec calendar and the Irish records give exactly the same date, probably for the latest creation of Man. This matching could easily be explained by the transatlantic voyage of St. Brendan. He and his companions, all priests, may have heard and recorded the number of of days elapsed since the calendar's beginning, which data ended up in the parish of Armagh, founded by Saint Patrick. Glyn Daniel, 150 years of Archaeology (1975: 27) his Man discovers his past (1968: 20), John Philip Cohane, Paradox: The Case for the Extraterrestrial Origin of Man (New York: Crown Publishers, 1977: 43), and the Archaeoastronomy magazine (1982: pp. 20-21) mention that according to James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh, the world had been created in 4004 BC. In 1701 an unknown authority inserted his dates into the margins of the King James Version of the Bible. Bishop John Lightfoot, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, declared, "Man was created by the Trinity on Sunday, October 23, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning." There is no explanation for the unparalled matching of these revered dates, except the possibility of an information received from the ancestors of the Aztecs passed to the Irish priests. (Since any theory supposing the common origin of the Irish and the Mexicans, or the existence of a common cladle, is considered as unscientific.) According the earliest Mexican records, as reported by Fray Diego Durán, the Aztec tradition located their old country, the flooded Aztlan, with its seven towns, at an island near Florida. He recorded its name as Aztlan, Lugar de la Blancura o de las garzas (That means 'Place of the Whiteness and the herons.') It may refer to the Mexican population dressed in white, the thousands of white herons of the bahamas, or, to the cradle of the white race. The latter also exists in the Scandinavian traditions as Hvitra-mannar-land that is, 'White men's Land.'
=== Possible Phoenician crossings of the Atlantic ===
The Phoenicians were the first users of the color called purple. Pliny recorded that once Uba Numidian king intended to establish a stock farm of purple Murex in the west, 12,000 kilometres distant from Cadiz, apparently in Central America.
There are very colourful Maya paintings that depict naked men belonging to a different race, with the drawings of Murex shells on the coast. They are all captives with reddish hair, quite white-skinned and circumcised. The latter detail must have referred to the members of a Semitic expedition, because Indians did not practice the circumcision. Almost identical statues have been found in Mexico, Sardinia and Susa (Iran). All the three of them represent the same naked woman with the same hairstyle, wearing a similarly braided veil, all lifting up her breasts: they must have belonged to the Phoenician goddess Ishtar. The first one can be seen in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Cagliari, or in the book of Parrot-Chehab-Moscati, Die Phönizier (1977), originally taken from Photothek (Univers des Formes). The second one is a wooden figure in the Museo Nacional, Mexico, see the book of Z.A. Simon (1984: 95), as a courtesy of Irmgard Groth-Kimball. (Taken from The Art of Ancient mexico by Thames and Hudson. Another tiny jade statuatte was part of the great Maya Exhibition that had visited Toronto (Royal Ontario Museum) and other cities. It has a greenish or turquise color, depicting a man holding a lion-cub, in the style of the oriental statues depicting Gilgamesh.
We have a similar situation regarding the the early mentioning of the potato's name in the Near East. The Treasure Trove, or the Origin of the Tribes, a very ancient Syriac text translated by Carl Bezold, mentions an edible root called khamotz. This word seems to be the equivalent of the Mexican (Nahuatl) word kamotl or camote. The Spaniards may have borrowed it as camote, similarly to the words coyotl, ocelotl or chocol-atl, now coyote, ocelot and chocolate. These "coincidences" and "out-of-place" findings can be explained easily by the travels of the Phoenician mariners. There are many authorities now who have admit these possibilities of pre-Columbian transatlantic contacts in their scholarly publications. However, others have still consider all evidence as mere coincidence.

Finally, I should mention that this same writer contributed a number of other tracts in a similar vein. These too need a careful look. Tannin 11:20 Jan 20, 2003 (UTC)

I'm not convinced of the accuracy of the statement that historians dismissed any asias-mesoamerican by the start of the 19th century. I've seen a number of papers in reputable journals from after this period that claim a link. I mention a number of them on my own website at http://bits.bris.ac.uk/imran/games/pachisi-patolli.html. --Imran 20:22 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Merged pages

I merged into this page the Ancient visitors to the Americas page. Please find below the corresponding discussion.
Jorge Stolfi 03:56, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Begin merged contents from Talk:Ancient visitors to the Americas

What's the name of the Irish saint that's supposed to have gone to America? St Brendan? Tuf-Kat 02:34 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Was it Saint Gildas? Supposedly the Welsh colonized Mobile, Alabama ... -- Zoe

Brendan I think - according to list of explorers anyway. :-) Stan 03:45 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah, it was Prince Madog I was thinking of. According to http://www.welshdragon.net/resources/Historical/wales_timeline.shtml: "Prince Madog of Gwynedd, accompanied by a group of followers, made landfall on what is now Mobile Bay, Alabama some time in 1169. The explorers then traveled up the Missouri, where a remnant inter-married with the Mandans and left behind some of their customs and their language." -- Zoe

St Brendan or Brandan is the Irish monk. I don't know about Welsh princes -- Error

Someone (maybe me) needs to expand the list of cultures whose representatives are claimed to have visited North or South America before 1492 (with a brief summary of evidence): Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arab, Turkish, Chinese, sub-Saharan African, Irish, English, Welsh, Portuguese, and post-Leif Norwegian, among undoubtedly others.

Also, about 1960, Charles Boland (author of They All Discovered America) coined the term NEBC Principle as a description of the unbending attitude of most historians: the "No Europeans Before Columbus" Principle. ---Michael K. Smith 19:48, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

End merged contents from Talk:Ancient visitors to the Americas

How can this fit in the page?

many historicians points the similritudes between egyptian and aztec cultures. Sun gods, pyramidsall that to prove that tehy have influenced and contacted one another. How can this fit in the page? --Alexandre Van de Sande 00:53, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The tone of the text

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Reading this text, I got the impression that the idea of transatlantic voyages before Columbus (except for the Vikings) was ridiculous. However, the scientific paper on the roman head was much more positive in tone, than this article is. Is that on purpose? I believe this text could be given a more positive tone for the sake of NPOV. In my mind accidental voyages were not only possible they are likely to have happened even though no one returned.--Wiglaf 22:42, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

i agree with wiglaf...there are numerous academic references to earlier voyages and some accounts that are not fully documented...cant we take this article out of neverneverland and get it better referenced and on a higher plain? Anlace 07:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Native Americans in Europe

I remember reading a book called 'De ontdekking van Amerika voor Columbus' (The discovey of America before Columbus) by Pieter Verhoog when I was at the secondary school. I rember he wrote that at least two times a Native American accidently reached the Roman Empire. He based it on writings of Roman authors, unfortunatly I forget which. Does someone have more info about this? --Mixcoatl 15:49, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

From Lies My Teacher Told Me: Once from Canada to Scandanavia or Scotland, "millennia ago". Two Indians washed ashore in "Holland" (Netherlands or the region of Holland, I'm not sure) in 60 BC (p 46). The footnote gives Forbes, Black Africans and Native Americans, 7-14; Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus, chapter 12. It also recommends checking Alice B. Kehoe, "Small Boats upon the North Atlantic", in Riley, et al., Man Across the Sea, p 276. Jason 22:08, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The first Romans entered what is now the Netherlands in the 6th decade BC. So it would be extremely coincidental if excactly then Native Americans would have visited the Netherlands. --Mixcoatl 23:36, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Large chunk of irrelevant material removed

While this page seems to be a happy hunting ground for all sorts of crackpot ideas, and to be tolerated as such, the addition of the following large chunk of junk seems to be going too far. I have dropped it in here in case it has just got misplaced from some article in which it really does belong, but it certainly has no place here. seglea 00:20, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, but you belong tending animals, not dictating things like this. Version restored. 24.255.40.174 15:00, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Seglea is right - the article is about preColumbian trans-Oceanic contact. Whatever this is about, it isn't that. I'll go back to tending my sheep now, and refrain from personal abuse. Redlentil 15:28, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No, see, he is primarily interested in animals-Just check his page! He obviously doesn't know Southron American myths at all to any degree. I certainly added depth to the myths in order to put them into perspective. You shouldn't judge before you know what you're talking about. 24.255.40.174 15:34, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The User:24.255.40.174 is the banned User:Kenneth Alan, and as such all additions by 24.255.40.174 may be legitimately removed - MPF 17:19, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

British colonization of the Americas

The Commonwealth of Nations was the British Empire, yet British North America had been the first colonial empire, starting at least with the interest of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch who paved the way for the Renaissance in the British Isles. Australia and New Zealand were settled as a direct result of American independence, although those folks were originally destined for North America. There is some scanty and fringe contention on whether some places in this former British Empire, were there from old times before John Cabot. An argument for this conjecture, is the sheer prosperity of the United States of America, which would not have survived otherwise. That, and the fact that the colonies had extensive knowledge and leverage on their Indian frontier("Indiana"), yet no settlement in that area until the Revolution gave them full power to do what they desired and with little problem enacting Manifest Destiny. America is often considered an amateur yet more advanced British Empire(although founded on Puritan lines, as opposed to Anglican), with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 defining just how powerful the colonies were and the attempt of the King to limit their hungry expansion. This would mean, that they had been there for an inordinate amount of time, discounting French furtrapping aid along the Ohio River and Mississippi River. In expansive and timely dynastic succession from the Northern Maritime Provinces(which is connected to Vinland/Newfoundland-see Saint Brendan, the Norse settlement explored by Cabot) to the Southern 13 colonies, apparently blocked in 3 sections of colonies each(that assimilated large groups of other European peoples), divided by the length of each dynasty by amount of throne holders and including Bermuda:

So-called "Early proponents"

I have moved the following utterly unsupported text here: "In the 18th century and early 19th century many writers and antiquitarians believed that various Old World cultures were responsible for the ancient monuments found in the New World. Part of this was due to ethnocentrism, for they did not believe that Native Americans — generally portrayed as uncivilized savages — could be capable of such feats." Any published speculations on the origins of Mesoamerican culture by Spanish ecclesiastics etc might be quoted here. As it stands this is non-historical "wanna-were." --Wetman 01:40, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Initial Parapraphs

The initial paragraphs state "professional archaelogists have demonstrated" and "the sole exception" which are absolutes.

Acutally, the whole thing is fluid with new information being uncovered all the time. In fact, the other day I saw something where a group of archaelogists definitely attached the Colvis culture to Europeans. I think. Maybe.

Anyway, shouldn't the article say something like "arch. currently think" In other words, the absolute seems, well, too absolute.Johnwhunt 00:08, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)


Perspective

This article seems, for like of a better word, off-kilter. I posted a comment (directly above) twelve days ago and have had found no response. I wonder why. I'm going to try to make the article more balanced. How about some discussion?"Johnwhunt 16:09, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Vikings in America

Some webpages I dug up concerning the Vikings in America.

Sources:

http://library.thinkquest.org/C001692/english/index.php3?subject=explorers/database/show&id=5

http://www.athenapub.com/vinland1.htm

http://www.viking.no/e/info-sheets/canada/canada.htm

http://www.ewetel.net/~norbert.fiks/columbus/seiten/chrono2.htm

http://www.biztravel.com/Articles/20000327.html

Content removed

The following was added by an anonymous user after the reference to Hey:

This is debatable, however, as the prevailing scientific view prevented, until recently, serious research on possible pre-Clovis settlements ("you don't dig deeper than Clovis"), whereas Hey's samples and conclusions are limited to Amerind peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to trans-Bering Landbridge immigrants (excluding Eskimo-Aleut, Na-Dene and 'unusual' Amerind tribes).

This is too detailed for an intro paragraph, and anyway has a strong whiff of trying to make a case - Wikipedia is not a soapbox. However it could possibly go back in later in the article, if anyone can see a suitable place, and can clean up the style. seglea 11:32, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Eskimo/Inuit-Yupik

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

In the section discussing ice-age era contact the term used is 'Eskimo', since both the Yupik - aboriginal Alaskans & Siberians - and the Inuit - aboriginal Canadians & the ones who probably would have done what is described - do not like this word used to described them, it has been removed.

As regards the Yupik, this is evidently not true:
Eskimo is a term used for a group of people who inhabit the circumpolar region (excluding circumpolar Scandinavia and all but the easternmost portions of Russia). There are two main groups of Eskimos: the Inuit of northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland and the Yupik of western Alaska and the Russian Far East (the latter group is known as Siberian Yupik or Yuit). ... The term "eskimo" is still used in Alaska to refer to the state's Arctic peoples in general, whether or not they are Eskimos culturally or linguistically. For example, while some Yupik people prefer to be called "Yup'ik", they do not generally object to being called "Eskimo", but they do not consider themselves "Inuit". [1]
However, in this case, the more-specific term Inuit seems correct.
—wwoods 17:27, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

To Wiglaf, re: Sinclair's purported voyage

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

The story of Henry Sinclair's alleged voyage to America is actually rather well-known, although it is not generally accepted that the voyage actually took place. Our articles on Henry Sinclair, Westford Knight, La Merika and Rosslyn Chapel list a number of references and external links that discuss the theory from various different viewpoints, and I don't think it is necessary to duplicate all these references here. I have, however, changed the wording from "legendary voyage" to "purported voyage" to make it more clear that the Sinclair episode is not exactly uncontroversial. -- Ferkelparade π 10:36, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! In Scandinavia, where I live, this voyage is pretty much unknown.--Wiglaf 10:40, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Native American trans-oceanic voyages

Latest comment: 17 years ago8 comments3 people in discussion

Does this section really belong here? The only reason "Indians" are equated with Native Americans is an error made by Columbus. This section suggests the ancient Romans made the same mistake! What a coincidence! And this mistake presented as the only proof too!--Countakeshi 12:41, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, we would expect the Romans to assume that exotic looking people had come from very far away.--Wiglaf 13:13, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
"It is unclear whether these castaways may have been people from India or Eastern Asia, or possibly Native Americans. Edward Herbert Bunbury suggested they were Finns. This account is open to some question, since Metellus Celer died just after his consulship, before he ever got to Gaul."
The point is that it is so open to speculation, they could have been from Atlantis or Mu!--Countakeshi 04:35, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
Well, Atlantis and Mu are out of the question. Then remain, Sami or Amerindians. I think it is perfectly within the limits of possibility that these exotic looking people were from America.--Wiglaf 06:36, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
The problem is what are the limits of possibility? "Exotic" to the Romans is very arguable as it was an empire that at its height held a fourth of the world's population stretching from Britain to Egypt. Merchants, slaves, and travellers from all around the known world converged in Rome. "...he learnt that they were caught in a storm away from India" seems pretty clear where they are from. "Then remain, Sami or Amerindians" (you havent actually narrowed anyone down, they could be Chinese, Indonesian, or Indians from India!)--Countakeshi 12:12, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
I think that the idea that a storm could take people half-way across the globe, through either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, is much less realistic than a transatlantic crossing.--Wiglaf 13:08, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
The theory Pomponius Mela is arguing for is that they were carried around Siberia, which seemed much more plausible o him than it does to us. Septentrionalis 21:10, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm still very skeptical about this section, India and its people have been known in the West since Alexander the Great's contact with them. Hellenized kingdoms established by the Diadochi linked Greece to India. Classical writers described the history of Sandrocottus (Chandragupta Maurya) and their kings. They directly traded with one another. I doubt they can fail to distinguish an Indian when they see one. --Countakeshi 03:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Lost tribes of Israel

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

This speculation appears in the Religious dogma section. As anonymous speculation, it probably shouldn't be included. But can anyone expand on it? Is it just a variation on the lost tribe in Asia? Is there a protestant "founding-fathers" element to it?--shtove 00:27, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Isn't that part of the Mormon religion? And I recall reading in my high school American history textbook that early explorers thought that the Native Americna monuments in the central US were built by the lost tribes of Israel - not to mention the Hebrew stone in Mexico, mentioned in the article, that also makes the claim. Kuralyov 00:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Misc changes...

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I've made a number of changes, including:

  1. Removed the 2nd paragraph; it's an imprecise summary and not particularly helpful: "This article summarizes the main claims that have been made for Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic content." The article includes the Bering-Strait migration, which is not exactly trans-oceanic. "Some of these claims are no longer seriously defended, and none is widely supported": The Bering-Strait migration and Viking settlement are widely supported. "Nonetheless, archaeology is always changing as new discoveries, techniques, and technology add new evidence and engender new theories. While the land bridge theory of America's settlement has dominated archeological thinking for years, like any scientific theory, it is open to challenge": uninformative, and not necessary after the 1st two sentences are removed.
  2. Unified fragmented references to Viking voyages (confusing to have them cited in the "consensus finding" category and again later as a "possibility").
  3. Removed the "religious accounts" references to the Book of Mormon as uninformative and nonevidentiary.

The article still needs a LOT of reworking, for grammar and organization in particular.Ex0pos 03:34, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

More overhaul

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Reorganized and rewrote many parts. I've tried to neutralize the POV, and I've removed some parts that seem rather pseudohistorical (such as the Farley Mowat novel, and bit about Gaoussou Diawara, which, as far as I can tell, is based largely on oral storytelling of an ancient African king who said west and was never heard from again).

I'm inclined to remove the bit about Didrik Pining because of lack of information, but I'll leave it for now.

I've left the wildest stuff (lost continents and flying saucers). Not because it's credible but because it's at least noteworthy crackpottery. o.O Ex0pos 03:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Note on '1421'

Latest comment: 18 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I've been reading Gavin Menzie's '1421: The Year China Discovered America'. Once I finish the book, I'm going to try and do a good write up article about the book. In the mean time, I think the section on his ideas should be expanded by anyone who is familiar with his book? "Menzies' effort at historical revisionism, or at least his presentation of the idea, has been found unconvincing by most historians, but it is intriguing enough that it has led to proposals of other Chinese-American contacts, e.g. by off-course Ming Dynasty ships. The possibility of Muslim trips from Asia (see Sung Document) has also been discussed." It may be found unconvincing by most historians, but perhaps it should also be noted just how much evidence he has to corroborate his theory? I won't make the edit unless I think someone else also feels this should be mentioned, at least as much for balance as for information. Word up. Zanturaeon 06:47, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

In that case, Zanturaeon, you might like to take a look at the article 1421 hypothesis, which discusses this idea of Gavin Menzies. If you're familiar with his work, by all means give it a go to summarise his hypothesis, its supporting arguments, and its critiques. For overall arcticle balance, there's probably only need to mention the most central of these.--cjllw | TALK 07:33, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


olmec language

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I saw a tv documentary once which said that they had used the language of West Africa to decipher the language of the Olmecs, i.e. proof that the Olmecs had come from West Africa. Also here: "The Olmecs spoke and aspect of the Manding (Malinke-Bambara) language spoken in West Africa." [2] and here "Studies done by Clyde Winters show that the Olmecs used the Mende script, a writing system used among the Mandinkas and other Africans in West Africa. When the writings on Olmec monuments were translated, it was found that the language spoken by the Olmecs was Mende." [3] Astrokey44 12:41, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but the sources you cite here are not encyclopedic in the slightest. You would need a nice scholarly reference to go on, not a new age site and a black power site. What professional linguist has published something saying the two languages are related? If you find one, then rewrite what you had to say that So and So With Real Credentials Claims/Asserts/Says That...' instead of stating if it were an actual facts. Odds are good that even if you turn up someone with real credentials that the vast majority of scholars would dispute it, assuming they even heard of the idea. TV documentaries and random websites are not encyclopedic sources. DreamGuy 15:50, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
In fact, there was no "Mende script" until one was invented in the 1940s. Tmangray 01:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

New section on Mormon beliefs of contact?

It appears as though the Mormon issue has been addressed before, in a possibly biased way, and was removed. I believe their theories on how Native Americans are really from another continent are important enough to include in this article. I'd like to see some kind of addition of this. UtmostCathode 17, November 2005

Major overhaul in progress

Latest comment: 18 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I have started a major cleanup and reordering of this article. Please wait a couple of hours before pitching in. Note also that

Once a belief, claim or theory has been widely circulated, it becomes significant cultural/historical fact by itself; and, as such, it deserves to be described in detail — no matter how absurd or patently false it seems.
It is not necessary to precede every questionable word in a sentence by warnings such as "contested", "controversial", "alleged", etc.. Placing such warnings to a separate sentence at the end of the offending paragraph, or even to a separate paragraph, is often cleaner and just as effective.
Controversies about the original settlement of the Americas do not belong here, but to the Models of migration to the New World, Arcaheology of the Americas, etc.

Jorge Stolfi 20:54, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good, but I do think we should include info on the "original" settlements, as archaeologists now think there were several waves occuring at different times. It should be a short overview, however, and have links to the articles you mention above.--Cuchullain 23:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

You are right, the Bering Land Bridge (BLB) model must be discussed, since it provided the main argument for the isolationist view. Is the new text OK? Jorge Stolfi 04:27, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

The second half of the article still needs cleanup, but I must go home now. Back tomorrow... Jorge Stolfi 05:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

POV or NPOV?

Latest comment: 18 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

Dear all, "NPOV" does not mean "supress any arguments for the side that I am sure is wrong", but rather "present all the arguments for both sides of the issue, in the best possible terms, and let the reader decide".

I think that most of the article is already as NPOV as it could be. Disputed evidence is said to be disputed, pro and con arguments are given, etc.. In particular, two years ago I have heard a famous American archeologist, who used to be a stern defender of the BLB model, say that the issue is again wide open, and propose coastal navigation as an alternative route.

Moreover, this article is not about "history of the Americas", it is about "pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contacts"; therefore, it should ideally list any theory or claim about such contacts that has been widely aired, whether it is "fringe" or "bogus" or whatever.

Finally, the pro and con arguments do not have to be intertwined on the word basis! (As some mathematician once said, the two key rules for good writing are: #1 if you don't have anything to say, don't write it; and #2 if you happen to have two things to say, first write thing 1, then write thing 2.) Jorge Stolfi 05:08, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Dear you, "NPOV" absolutely does not mean "present all the arguments for both sides of the issue, in the best possible terms, and let the reader decide" -- and if it did, this article is severely lacking the side of the vast majority of experts and scholars. NPOV means to cover the topic objectively and not to make something seem more likely than it is by having most of the text discuss only one side. NPOV does not mean advocating one side or another, it means covering it per the standard views of those who know the topic best and mentioning, but not spending inordinate amount of time on, the fringe theories. As it stands, currently this article basically ridicules the opinions of the vast majority oif scholars out there by calling their side "dogma" and so forth and so on. Frankly, if this article is "as NPOV as it could be" by your view, you clearly either don't understand at all what NPOV means or are so strongly supportive of the fringe theories that you can;t look at the situation at all objectively. DreamGuy 05:48, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry for my bad choice of words, I did not intend to turn this into a flame war. However, I think those criticisma are unwarranted.

  • The head of the article already says clearly that few if any of these theories are accepted by mainstream scientists; and this said again and again in the other sections.
  • Given the title of this article, yes, one expects that most of the text must be devoted to the various claims of pre-Columbian contacts, and that these claims are described in detail. The Siberian migrations have their own articles, and there indeed one should barely mention the other theories.
  • Please note that accepting the possibility of other contacts (before or after the Ice age) does not imply denying the migrations from Siberia and other "mainstream" theories! In fact, this subject is so problematic because it is almost "non-falsifiable" --- there is no way to prove that there were NO such contacts.
  • For that reason, there are no experts on this subject --- just as there are no experts on extraterrestrial civilizations, or on the culture of Atlantis, or on Yeti anatomy.
  • Calling all these theories "fringe", or saying that all serious scholars dismiss them, is definitely POV. Some of those theories are in fact held by professional archaeologists and anthropologists.
  • The use of "dogma" is not pejorative but factual. By the 1980s, any claims of pre- or post-Ice Age contacts were indeed assumed to be bogus a priori, only because they contradicted the isolationist theory. This was the case with Monte Verde, for instance --- the claimed dates were assumed to be wrong, not because of conflicting measurements, or because the methodology had known problems, but simply because they did not fit in the standard model. Same for the Viking visits. Now, rejecting data because it does not fit the established theory is a natural reaction, and even excusable by Bayes's theorem; but one should be careful not to overdo it.

I know enough of this subject to know that the BLB model is a very plausible theory, but (like most pre-historical theories) it relies on lots of suppositions to bridge over the many gaps in the data. It is still possible that it will be proved wrong or incomplete. If that happens, it would hardly be the first time that a "mainstream dogma" -- that experts in the field believed proved beyond doubt -- had to be adjusted to accomodate a so-called "fringe" theory. See for example the prion story, or the decipherment of the Mayan script. (BTW, in reports of the prion story, the word "dogma" is often used in a non-pejorative sense to describe the belief that all heredirary information is carried by DNA/RNA; a belief that used to be so strong that it led most scientists to reject Prusiner's claims a priori, without even checking his data). And, by the way, I would NOT bet on most of the claims listed in this article.

In any case, once again, the BLB model is not incompatible with other contacts, or even with other migrations before or after the last Ice Age, and vice versa. Jorge Stolfi 13:55, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

If you don't understand how portraying the expert view of things as "dogmatic" is blatanly biased, then I'm afraid it's going to be difficult to try to make things even more clear to you. It is 'not factual, that's an opinion you happen to hold, but that doesn;t make it so. It's an extremely loaded word, and one that, by being mentioned multiple times in headers no less, unfairly tears down honest scholarship on the issues.
We can certainly describe the claims in detail, but we can't leave out the very important mainstream scholarly response to these claims. NPOV is all about showing the collected knowledge on the issue, not just deciding to pick one side and promote it just because the article title is about the topic.
"For that reason, there are no experts on this subject --- just as there are no experts on extraterrestrial civilizations, or on the culture of Atlantis, or on Yeti anatomy." -- Give me a break... There are experts in history, archeology, etc. who have sufficient background and knowledge to be the experts on whether any of those things really exist. You are trying to set up a peculiar argument where you make the claims sound sufficiently fringe and whacko and then decide nobody can give an expert opinion on their worth or not. That's nonsense. Mainstream scholars can and do call a lot of the things mentioned in this article bunk, and it's not because of "dogma" it's because of actually having the knowledge on the issues involved.
This article needs a pretty thorough rewrite, removing the claims of dogma, and balancing all claims of contact with the informed expert opinion on whether each is a good argument or not. To do otherwise is to unfairly give readers of this article the idea that these things are considered credible arguments by the professionals in the field. This is just like when people in favor of Creationism tried to use that article to advance all their claims while removing mainstream criticism. IT simply will not fly here. DreamGuy 18:43, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Er, um, sorry, I am a bit upset at the moment; I just noticed that my article on the "american Aborigines" theory, which I wrote last year, has been completely erased, and the history has been moved to god-knows-where. Now, even if that is nowhere near "mainstream" (yet), it is a bona-fide scientific theory, supported by several unquestionable finds and by several scientists with full credentials. So you tell me about POV...

Anyway:

  • Feel free to replace the word "dogma", if you can find another word that means "belief so strong that it leads to evidence being rejected on the sole grounds that it does not fit the theory". Which defintely was the case in the 80s, and — as I take pains to say — is no longer the case now. "Problematic" finds like Monte Verde and Lagoa Santa are defintely being treated with more respect now. Ditto for the possibility of Polynesian contacts.
  • Please note that I have carefully retained the "mainstream view" criticisms on each claim (apart from rearrangements and removing duplication); and I have even added some of my own. The more arguments the better — but flatly saying "all experts say this is bunk" is redundant, and it does smell of dogma.
  • One should not confuse a general claim with specific scenarios or specific evidence for it. For example, proving that the Kensington Stone is a fraud does not imply that the general idea of Viking contacts is bunk. Unfortunately the old text of this artice had many instances of this faulty logic.
  • Again, I cannot imagine what scientific evidence could be used to prove that contacts with X or Y or Z did NOT happen. The Viking example shows that even long-term settlements may leave hardly any trace, material or cultural. Until someone finds a scientific way of confirming the isolationist view, it is not correct to say that Mainstream scholars can and do call [these things] bunk, ... because of actually having the knowledge on the issues involved. No matter how much they know, they have no way of knowing that.

All the best, Jorge Stolfi 22:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Greenland

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Greenland was a part of Danish-Norwegian kingdom from 12th century.--Nixer 14:59, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

  • side note, there are reccords complaining about taxes and tithes not being paid, the folk idea the Greenland still had people living there was so strong, that in the 1500's Danes went to Greenland, expecting to find Norse still living there: 4 Jan 2006


The Inuits had been there from the beginning and weren't going anywhere.

Arrival of Polynesians in Mexico and South America millenia ago?

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

"Over the last 20 years, the dates and anatomical features of human remains found in Mexico and South America have led some archaeologists to propose that those regions were first populated by Polynesians, several millennia before the Ice Age migrations.".

I have a hard time seeing how Polynesians should have been able to reach the Americans "several millenia before the Ice Age migrations", as is proposed in the article (I am not sure as to when the "Ice Age migrations" are to have taken place, but I assume it to be several thousand years back). This would add up to that Polynesians might have arrived "several millenia before several millenia ago". My suggestion is that if in fact they did reach the Americas, it can not have been more than approximately 2000 years ago. I base this on readings I have done on the settling of the Pacific Islands. It seems to be suggested that the Society Islands and the Marquesas Islands of today's French Polynesia were settled only around 200BC, and from there, a last expansion took place in which for example the Hawai'ian islands and Easter Island were settled. My suggestion is that if the Americas were reached by Polynesians, it must have been from these easternmost cornerns of the Pacific that I just mentioned - those that are not thought to have been settled "several millennia before the Ice Age migrations".

AFAIK, this Pre-Siberian American Aborigines theory is being put forward to explan sites in South America that are claimed to be way too old (11,000 years or more) to fit the standard model; and on skeeltons found at one of those sites (Lagoa Santa) that seem to be morphologically different from the Siberian type and close to the Pacific/Australia type. This last claim is also being made of a now-extinct tribe in the Baja California. Now, Australia was settled some 50,000-60,000 years ago. A migration from the ancestral area of the Polynesians (West Pacific?) to America, perhaps at an earlier Ice Age — possibly by follwing the coast — does not seem completely impossible. Jorge Stolfi 21:43, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I, too, take issue with the wording of this passage. How could Polynesians have arrived in the Americas several millenia before the ice age immigrations, which ocurred around 11,000 years ago, when Polynesian culture itself is not nearly that old? True, Australia was setttled by an early human migration 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, but the Australian Aborigines there are not related to the Polynesian, Melanesian (perhaps some ties here?), and Micronesian peoples of the South Pacific. My understanding is that these groups' origin is traced to the Lapita culture that dates to around 1350 BC, which itself is linked to Taiwan and Southern China. However, there does seem to be genetic evidence, thanks to the genographic research of Spencer Wells and others, of coastal migrations to North America that may have pre-dated and/or overlapped with the migrations of the Siberians across the Berring Strait land bridge. Do these migrants share common ancestors with the Lapita people? Could we be so bold as to include the Taiwanese aborigines and the Ainu, or at least the Jomon people of Japan?

Maybe the term used in this passage should be "Proto-Polynesian", though I'm pretty sure there is a more accurate term than this. The fact that someone as casually interested as me can spot this error means it is pretty glaring. Can someone with some authority please fix it?User: Jesse Saba 1/13/06

The problem with this passage, as with many others in the present article, is that the claim is not matched up with any specific source which is making it, attributing it instead to some nameless archaeologists. This makes it nigh on impossible to determine whether the claim is captured accurately, and whether it was made notably or indeed at all — let alone to round up any counter, more orthodox views on the subject. Sure, there's an extensive bibliography attached, but it is not at all clear which, if any, of these references were used in documenting the assorted claims. Each really needs to have a source identified for it, and footnoted for verifiability purposes.
As for the term "Proto-Polynesian", that's usually reserved for the reconstructed Proto-language of the Polynesian languages (although by extension a proto-polynesian population is implied- location uncertain, however. AFAIK, no archaeological evidence exists for human settlement anywhere in Greater Oceania eastwards of the Solomon Is which is dated to earlier about 3,000 years ago, so as per above the terms "Polynesian" or even "proto-Polynesian" would seem to be problematic in this context, at best. If the original source(s) making the claim could be identified, it'd be much easier to see just what relationship is claimed to exist between (proto)-Polynesians and the Americas; without it we're just guessing. --cjllw | TALK 08:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
Polynesian was changed to Proto-Polynesian. I've now changed it to "people who crossed the Pacific". They may have come from or through present-day Polynesia but they weren't Polynesian or Proto-Polynesian because those people simply didn't exist several millennia before the Ice Age. Nurg 07:03, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Didrik Pining German

Comment on text; Didrik Pining was German and not Dutch

On Ocean Voyages

Recall the time scale we are discussing, from maybe 500BC to almost 1500AD. It would be difficult do believe that in 2000 years, some coastal hugging voyages (near Europe) would not have been storm-swept across the Atlantic. Similar statements can be made for any ocean.

If these crossing had any impact on the local culture is the real question.

As for coastal voyaging, in the last few years there was some archaeological dredging along the BC and Alaska coasts, at about the level that would have been beach during the last ice-age. Charcoal was found, if that was from a natural or man-made fire would be the question

Ralph 4 Jan 2006
Mention might also be made of recent theories (see the TV special, among others) that there were cross-ice/ocean travels between France and North America during the most recent Ice Age. This is based on similarities between the Aurignacian culture of Europe and the Ice Age Native culture of North America. Of course this could also be caused by the two cultures living under similar conditions, forcing similar solutions.
Ralph 5 Jan 2006

Logically colonisation of an unoccupied area would either need a minimum group of several thousand people or frequent access to the homeland to be genetically stable. This implies a large and well organised expedition ( ie to have enough food to feed all those people ). Any ship wrecked or off course sailors landing in an uninhabited area would simply disappear from history with no trace. David J James 6 September 2006

China map lays claim to Americas

Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Okay, I didn't know this stuff was controversial. I just landed here after seeing this link and it ended up being a fun read. Would be fun to reverse history by the way. [4]

lol, I also just read that article and went here. Intresting stuff.. I definetly think someone has been to america between indians 9000 BC and CC 1592 AD. Vikings, accidents, whatever. We don´t know , of course, and we never will, but it is an exciting and possible thought. Btw. would be nice with some article on old maps from different cultures, I find old maps intresting for some reason.
Me too. It's all very intriguing and fascinating and perfect material for fictional boys' books (such as the adventures of Jules Verne). And since there is no hard evidence to most of these speculations, we will probably never know. In any case, the vast distances mean that any trans-Oceanic contacts between the Americas and the rest of the world (other than hunting parties across the Bering Strait) would have been sporadic and not been permanent routes for trade or systematic colonization prior to the Norse expeditions, which did evolve into deliberate and systematic voyages. Other peoples renowned for their seafaring skills (such as the Malays, Phoenecians, Polynesians, Haida and later Basque fishermen and Irish monks) are not likely to have left any substantial impact on the societies they may or may not have encountered. But contact is feasible; in fact, odds are that a few of the countless ancient vessels would have accidentally landed on distant shores with surviving crew. And the many clues given in the article may or may not be mere coincidence or myths. But perhaps the text should be more explicit about the speculative nature of all these hypotheses? =J //Big Adamsky 05:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps on the section about Native Americans who crossed over to the Old World, it should be included that several 17th Century natives, frustrated with the Virginian middlemen who extorted their furs, attempted and failed to cross the Atlantic in canoes, hoping to sell their product directly.

New England Antiquities Research Association

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Another user recently posted a stub article on the New England Antiquities Research Association. Their website reveals upon inspection, and I've found elsewhere a quote, that "NEARA is also a hotbed of 'Diffusionist' thought, the belief that the Americas were widely visited by European and Asiatic cultures before Columbus." Anyone who knows this topic well enough to look at that organization and comment on notability, or to improve that article, is more than welcome. GRBerry 02:00, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Hmm, at first blush it appears to be a bit of a clearinghouse for some diffusionist monographs and books which otherwise would not get a guernsey in more established archaeological circles; but there's probably more to the society than that. Personally, I'd be cautious about relying on at least some of the materials there as wholly authorative (there's no mention of any formal archaeological qualifications, perhaps more of an enthusiast rather than professional/academic outfit). I suppose however that that does not automatically disbar the article from a claim of sufficient notability (they seem to be referenced by a few similarly-minded sites). I think the present rewrite gives a fair enough account.--cjllw | TALK 07:11, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm the one who created the NEARA stub, and the assumption that the group consists mostly of amateurs is a correct one to the best of my knowledge. That's not to say all of their work is worthless, but their general adherence to pseudohistorical theory makes it somewhat difficult to take them seriously. However, as a group spreading interest about pre-Columbian history in New England, their existence has inherent worth.--Caliga10 22:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

What about inuit?

They lived both in America (Alaska, Canada and Greenland) and Siberia. Is this distribution very recent or is previous to Columbus voyages?

I can't recall right now when the Inuitt culture replaced the older Dorset (sp?) culture in easter North America and Greenland. Circa 1000AD it was Dorest, circa 1500 it was Inuitt. But (working from fuzzy memories) the Dorest culture was pan-arctic also Ralph 2 August 2006

Icelandic!

Latest comment: 17 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

So typical somebody has taken it upon himself to revert my edits. What is this talk about Viking and Norse??? Leifur Eiríksson was an Icelander and it was Icelanders that found America not people from NOrge.

Please stop vandalizing this page, it was not people from Noryeah that discoverd America it was Icelanders and what is this reference to Norse sagas? Will the people of Norway next claim Björk as one of their own? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.114.172.43 (talk • contribs)

You are making links to nonexistant articles ("Icelandic colonization of the Americas"?). If you do not believe the Icelanders were Norsemen, you clearly do not know much about Icelandic history. The word Norse does not equal Norwegian. The sagas in question are the Vinland sagas, Grœnlendinga saga the Saga of Eric the Red. They do originate in Iceland.--Cúchullain t/c 22:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I made the following edits

I renamed the section the vikings in newfoundland to the Icelanders in newfoundland which describes the people who visited newfoundland better. Calling this only a viking trip is not as accurate and it's sorta similar to calling the italian victory in the worldcup of 2006 the Latin victory of the worldcup.

The Vinland sagas are commonly called Íslendingasögur og Icelandic sagas and using the term norse is simply not apropriate, furthermore having a link to a page about norway behind it is not apropriate.

I changed out the Norweigan version of the name Leifr Eiríksson (Leif Eriksson) to the english version of the name Leifr Eiríksson (Leif Ericson), it has been discussed thouroghly what this man should be called under the article Leif Ericson and I think that it's only apropriate that the same name is used here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.114.172.43 (talk • contribs)

This vandalism must end. I have made good arguements for my edits to this article and been as diplomatic about them as I possibly could have been but yet you keep on reverting my edits. This is totally unaccaptable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.114.172.43 (talk • contribs)

Technically, the above un-named editor is -almost- correct. It is improper to call the Norse "Viking", in this context, since they were settlers, traders, etc and not raiders. Look up the definition of Viking in most dictionary's. As a good friend's T-Shirt states "Viking is a Verb".
It would be better to call them Norse, since Norse includes all of the Scandinavian (based) cultures, including Greenland and Iceland. It would be improper to refer to them as Icelanders, since the very Saga they reference show that some of the came from Greenland. Unless you were to insist that any settler should be refered to by the country his ancestors came from. In which case... you can't call the Icelanders, Icelanders.
I suggest that it would be "more" correct to call them Norse, as that would cover all the places they came from. I suggest that calling them "Viking" is improper, since they were not raiders/pirates. Ralph--N7bsn 21:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Maybe you're right. But it is still referred to as the "Viking exploration of America", and Leif is still referred to as a Viking. I've changed it nevertheless, since "Norse" is by no means less correct.--Cúchullain t/c 22:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Further about farther

Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Not to be too picky about it, but "farther" and "further" are typically used interchangeably - however, most useage guides (e.g., Strunk and White, "The Elements of Style") do recommend that "farther" be used when speaking (as here) of distances. I'd suggest reverting to the generally more accepted "farther" in this context. NorCalHistory 06:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Additions to the Africans section

Latest comment: 17 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion

The information that 67.164.8.213 keeps adding is interesting, but it's about 90% too long for the section and has numerous style issues. 67.164.8.213, why don't you make this MUCH more concise, add Wikipedia links and scholarly documentation, spell-check, tighten up the style etc.? As it stands, it's written like a typical Pseudoarchaeology tract. And why the repetitive references to the "Mali Empire – Exploration and Relations Navy" and "Spanish Admiral Cristobal Colon"? I think you do have something to add, particularly with the various Spanish reports of Blacks in the New World, but you would do well to cite verifiable academic sources for these passages. This doesn't have to become a revert war. Twalls 23:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I also share the comment w/ you. I've also checked if there was any copyvio concerns but i found it clean. I've just tagged it (wikify) for now to see if i could do something later on. -- Szvest 23:32, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. It seems like 67.164.8.213 copied and pasted snippets from a handful of other sites:

"Michael Coe even reported that Alonzo Ponce spoke of a boatload of "Moors" who landed off what is now the Republic of Mexico – Campeche and terrorized the natives."

This is taken from http://members.aol.com/carltred/AfricanPresence.htm

Note there is no prior reference in what 67.164.8.213 posted to Michael Coe, but there is on that AOL member page. I tried to change it a bit, but it's really a struggle to try and clean this up. I tend to think we should revert to 11:13, 29 September 2006 RussBot -or- 14:04, 29 September 2006 Cuchullain Twalls 07:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, there don't appear to be any references to any of this in any of the Mali-related articles. Perhaps someone should post inquiries on those pages to ask them to double-check this.
Some Wikipedia articles mention it, some don't. There are articles on Mansa Musa, Abubakari II and Al-Umari. There is a page for Ivan van Sertima, but no page for Gaoussou Diawara, one of the contemporary proponents of this thesis. The information that 67.164.8.213 posted doesn't even reference these authors. It seems to be merely a hodgepodge of word-for-word factoids from Afrocentric sites - hardly a basis for beefing up this section or starting a new article. Twalls 21:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've found out that the early European accounts in what 67.164.8.213 posted is directly (or indirectly, via the Afrocentrist sites) from pp. 30-31 of Ivan van Sertima's _African Presence in Early America_. This can be viewed on http://books.google.com. Most of the mistakes were perpetuated from what was taken from those sites, not the original. Twalls 05:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Major deletions in "Africans" section

Latest comment: 17 years ago8 comments4 people in discussion

User:Twalls edited the section on Africans, deleting much of the material. [5] There might be something in the old version worth saving, or better yet, moved to its own article. -- Petri Krohn 15:58, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Much of what I deleted were needless, awkward repetitions of the same language (see references above)such as the line "[As related to Al-Umars by Mali Empire - Emperor Mansa Kankan Musa I on his way to DAR UMMA – Mecca 1324]" or "Mali Empire – Exploration and Relations Navy". Why are these repeated several times?
If you compare the two versions, you'll find I really didn't delete much of the volume (about 25%). Nonetheless, I feel it's still way too long and should be pared down significantly. I think another article separate article might be a good idea, but please, not the exact same one.
Regarding your comment on marking a major edit as a minor one, I think what happened was I may have made the larger edit, and then made a minor edit, then reverted to the previous version, marking the reversion as such. You then thought I was marking a major edit as a minor one. Or I may have made some sort of mistake. You must grant me, though, that that was _nothing_ compared to all the mistakes in the original article! Twalls 16:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I am not criticising your edits, the section on Africans was far too extensive for this list-like article. What I am saying is that we might have a separate article on the supposed African contacts. If someone wants to create this, the deleted material could serve as the basis. Threfore I wanted to create a link to the material before deletions. (I was however a bit annoyed by you marking your deletions as a minor edit.) -- Petri Krohn 19:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
No reason to be annoyed, as I thought I explained the mistake about it being marked as a minor edit - I am fully aware of the difference. I am all for creating a separate article. Are there suggestions for a title? Twalls 19:41, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
I also support the creation of a fork article due to the lenght of the section. My prefered title would be Pre-Columbian contacts between Africa and the Americas. I also suggest discussing this issue at Africa-related regional notice board. -- Szvest 00:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the Africans reached the Americas. Think about remote islands in the Atlantic such as Ascension Island, Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha! When they where found by Europeans they where compleatly uninhabited. If Africans crossed the Atlantic why did they not settle on those islands? Sub-Saharan Africans could not had reached the Americas because they lacked the economical resoursers for doing so. (An explaination for this can be found in Guns, Germs, and Steel.) This seams to be typical for legends: to attribute deeds to people who – in the real world – lacked the nessesairy means!

2006-11-17 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

Hi Lena. Well, those islands are virtually barren. There are also many islands in the Pacific that the Polynesians reached, but didn't settle, such as many small islands around Australia as well as ones farther south, such as the Antipodes Islands. I'm not arguing for or against pre-Columbian African contact, I'm just pointing out that those particular islands didn't have much to offer settlers. In the case of the Mali Empire, I don't think they lacked "economic resources" - of that they had plenty. Twalls 03:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If I an not completely wrong Sub-Saharan civilisations was not nearly as wealthy as contemporary Eurasian (or North African). However, the kind of wealth I thought about may not be crucial. After all, the Vikings crossed the Atlantic when their civilisation was still in it’s infancy. For a culture to cross an ocean it have to develop widespread sea travel first. Did the Mali empire really have that?

Of the three islands I mentioned only Ascension is quite barren. When first found by Europeans Saint Helena must have been quite lush. The environment was later largely destroyed by irresponsible use of resources. In the early 19the century a group of Britons settled on Tristan da Cunha. By farming potatoes and having livestock they managed to live well on their own for generations. However, the island’s climate may be too cold for African crops. In that case it would have remained uninhabited anyway. But if Africans crossed the Atlantic by themselves at least Saint Helena ought to have become inhabited. That is the very opposite of what we find!

2006-12-31 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden.

I'm removing the suggestion that the African stuff be given its own article. It has one: African exploration of the Americas. -- BrianSmithson 01:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the latest info posted by the IP address that had copied info from other sites (such as http://members.aol.com/carltred/AfricanPresence.htm), and re-added the last two edits of P4k and BrianSmithson. Twalls 03:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Christopher Columbus, Orientalism

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Hello Fayssal - I am unsure if Columbus' use of the term "Mohammedans" to describe natives in the West Indies can be described accurately as "orientalist." The fact that "Mohammedans" was the historical (or archaic) term used is conveyed by the quotation marks. I think Orientalism is a very specific assessment of Western perceptions of Eastern cultures, and while it may be able to explain the use of that term in some contexts, it may not be fitting in this article. Columbus' use of the term is not at issue, but the tendency of European explorers to assume New World cultures were somehow derived from known Old World cultures is. Thanks Twalls 21:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Twalls for this late reply. I've just seen it now. Yes i totally agree with the above. My point was about the usage of the term in a modern encyclopaedia. I mean we relate stories based on sources of that time. Yes true but we got modern terms that we use unless it has historical connotation which is not the case here. Britannica 1911 used for instance the term Mohammedan but it uses Muslim at its current edition. In our case, it sounds just like if we had edited this article in 1681.
Another point is that "Mohammedan" was in use by 1681, replacing the older term "Mahometan" that dates back to 1529. Columbus' journeys occured in 1490's. -- Szvest → Wiki Me Up ® 17:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Viking grave at Lake Nipigon

Latest comment: 17 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

I found references to claims by Hjalmar R. Holand that a viking grave was found near Beardmore at Lake Nipigon.

What is the modern view on this?
Where are the artifacts discovered?
  • Westward from Vinland: An Account of Norse Discoveries and Explorations in America 982-1362 by Hjalmar R. Holand Duell, Sloan & Pearce, New York 1940 [6]
  • Viking Weapons found near Beardmore, Ontario Canadian Hist. Rev., Vol. 20, 1939, pp. 4-7.

-- Petri Krohn 01:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Some more links:

--Petri Krohn 02:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

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