Chinese Discover America 80 Years Before Columbus?

Hi guys,

As far as I know the Vikings led by Leif Ericsson (son of Eric the Red) had only a brief stay in North America having travelled from their established settlement in Greenland, reaching Newfoundland around 1000 AD.

Eric the Red had settled in Greenland after he had been banished from Iceland, the Ericssons were Norwegian.

My vote goes to the Dinosaurs, I'm sure they beat the Europeans to the New World. I might be wrong though!! ;-]*

Best Wishes

J

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
A paradise before the arrival of the Spaniards?

Do you really think that the Vikings (brutal savages from the north remember) would have left such a civilisation alone if they could? Plenty of rich farmland for a people who thrived on such conquest, their well oiled military machine would have carved kingdoms out of the tribes they found.

Brutal Savages?

www.pbs.org...
www.the-orb.net...

Couldn't have been here (America) without killing and pillaging?

www.roadsideamerica.com...
www.pitt.edu...
www.mnh.si.edu...

Although they weren't here first, THEY WERE HERE.

Colombus was always convinced he was on the outer islands of either Japan or India.
Most people thought he was a fool to try. The two schools of thought at the time had differences in the circumference of the earth. I think Colombus thought that it was only 12,000 miles around, and thought that there was only about 4k miles of ocean to trek through.

But he had to know that something was out there. There is no doubt in my mind that any king or queen at the time would have given so much (in search of gold) to someone unless they were absolutely convinced. Columbus had to present a firm case. This is one of my conspiracies I have always held, is that Colombus visited Iceland and studied Nordic records (verified by some of his students) and he was a Portugese whale hunting captain. He had to have known about the currents of the Atlantic, no way in hell he just plotted a course for the unknown. He most likely knew about sailors missing the turn around point and heading off course (the winds only blow one way and if you miss the winds when they blow back, tough luck). Some of these crews claimed to have seen islands on their off-course adventures. This is where the legend of Antille arose.

What knowledge did the Chinese have of anything outside what was commonly known in the European/African/Asian/MiddleEastern areas? Why did they not continue to seek out this strange new land, why did they leave no signs behind? After having watched a few documentaries about this subject and from what I can find: I do not believe the Chinese ever discovered what some claim they had.

[edit on 15-1-2006 by Frosty]

Wow!

So before the Chinese / Spanish / Vikings / Templars "discovered" America it was totally empty, with no people there at all?

Gosh i am sure all those native American people groups are so pleased that their country was "discovered", otherwise they would have had to spend eternity alone in this huge empty land, without white people and the west being in the total ignorance of their existance.

BTW do people know that the name "America" actually comes from the name of a spanish teacher of cartography.

Originally posted by Netchicken
Wow!

So before the Chinese / Spanish / Vikings / Templars "discovered" America it was totally empty, with no people there at all?

Gosh i am sure all those native American people groups are so pleased that their country was "discovered", otherwise they would have had to spend eternity alone in this huge empty land, without white people and the west being in the total ignorance of their existance.

BTW do people know that the name "America" actually comes from the name of a spanish teacher of cartography.

If you read the thread, you'd realize most of us realize the facts and thus state so. We're just wondering who got there first BY BOAT. That's all.

I still say the Pheonecians are the best bet.

Originally posted by Netchicken


BTW do people know that the name "America" actually comes from the name of a spanish teacher of cartography.

america was named after the explorer Americo Vespucci, who was italian.

source

[edit on 15-1-2006 by snafu7700]

more on the map in question:



academics outside of china seem to be leaning toward it's being a fake. guess we'll see as further study is done.

Every country has their own version, It changes little to know who arrived first. Remember the japanese claming that Japan was Eden's Garden and the jewish, well you know what were they claiming.

Originally posted by snafu7700

which is why i said "the europeans for falsely claiming to be first"

so if vikings are/were not europeans what would they be in your eyes ?

China owned the probably one of the most formidable fleet of wooden ships ever seen on the seas

link: chinese fleet

interesting book

european ships were in no way a match for china at the time

MOD EDIT: Fixing broken links.

[edit on 1/17/2006 by cmdrkeenkid]

Originally posted by Hvitserk

China owned the probably one of the most formidable fleet of wooden ships ever seen on the seas

link[/url]chinese fleet

[url=http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195112075/104-6562702-7573502?v=glance&n=283155]interesting book

european ships were in no way a match for china at the time

Holy crap, that thing was huge...and with a shallow draft (like the vikings! I wonder if the Chinese had the shallow drafts 800-1000 years perviously, like the vikings). I'm pretty sure they intermingled and traded over siberia anyway. That's why a lot of Finns have slanty eyes...I guess.

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
A paradise before the arrival of the Spaniards?

Do you really think that the Vikings (brutal savages from the north remember) would have left such a civilisation alone if they could? Plenty of rich farmland for a people who thrived on such conquest, their well oiled military machine would have carved kingdoms out of the tribes they found.

Every country in western Europe seems to have a legend that they found the US first, part of the posturing that made up 16thC politics.

The Chinese have a reasonable claim to going there first, but this map does not look the real deal to me, India is out of proportion to what the Chinese knew and Australia is too small. A fake.

looks like the good old catholic church propaganda still does a good job

Who did the vikings steal the most from ? From the people who actually owned something at the time , gold was easy to find , you just had to ask for the next church.
Now to another point, who wrote down history and kept records at the time ?
Members of the clergy .
Most monarchs didn't know how to read or write, and this applied for the rest of the ruling class at the time. The clergy was omnipotent, and the clergy definitely did not like the fact that a bunch of pagans raided their abbeys and churches and threatened their rule.

I'm not trying to play down anything, but things have to be put back in context. These times were hard and violent and the average lifespan was most likely less then in Rome a few hundred years earlier, but to call vikings brutal savages nowadays ? No , not more and not less than any other at the time, on the other hand .....inquisition ..... but that is for another thread

True, in the first wave of Viking invasions thats how things had been. But by 877 the Vikings were no longer raiders but conquerors, not interested in gold as there was none left that they could reach.

Three of the four Kingdoms of England were crushed and settled by the Vikings for the quality of the farmland. After their eviction from England by Wessex in the 920's the Vikings went away, retrained, rearmed and returned as unstoppable conqerours.

These are the Vikings of Leif Ericsons time, and they would have taken the land of the Indians given half a chance!

Originally posted by Uncle Joe
True, in the first wave of Viking invasions thats how things had been. But by 877 the Vikings were no longer raiders but conquerors, not interested in gold as there was none left that they could reach.

These are the Vikings of Leif Ericsons time, and they would have taken the land of the Indians given half a chance!

The Vikings were more interested in Silver than gold and initially plundered Monasteries, the first being at Lindisfarne (Holy Island) of the coast of NE England in 875. After plundering the east coast of England they moved onto mainland Europe via the river systems, again silver was the Vikings treasure of choice. The Vikings currency was hack-silver.

www.bbc.co.uk...

You are spot on in that the Vikings then became settlers and traders and have left there mark throuhgout Europe as a result. But as far as I'm aware they at no point colonized North America and only had a brief stay on or around Newfoundland.

en.wikipedia.org...

Hope this helps.

Best Wishes

J

That map is a proven fake. Antartica is on it and it was discovered till the 1800's

I agree, its a fake, but not because Antarctica is there, if the Chinese could map S. America then its only a short hop to Antarctica. Its a fake because the Chinese had higher standards.

And thanks for the links Gingerlad.

Originally posted by gingerlad
as far as I'm aware they at no point colonized North America and only had a brief stay on or around Newfoundland.

Here's an interesting story which discusses the early travels to N. America by the Norse...

source

Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service © National Post 2006

A scientist who found deep grooves chiselled into the teeth of dozens of 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons unearthed in Sweden believes the strange custom might have been learned from aboriginal tribes during ancient Norse voyages to North America -- a finding that would represent an unprecedented case of transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange during the age of Leif Ericsson.

*snip*

Tales of Viking visits to North America held a largely mythical status among scholars until the 1960s, when archeologists discovered and excavated the remains of a 1,000-year-old Norse encampment at the northern tip of Newfoundland. Today, the Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is a UNESCO World Heritage Site commemorating voyages by Norse explorers from Greenland and Iceland some 500 years before Christopher Columbus reached the New World.

This story indicates that there was a cultural exchange between the indigenous people and the Vikings. Whether the time frame was short or long for the contact period, you can be assured they were there for the fishing, more than any plundering. Since the Anishinabeg were proficient fishermen, no doubt there was good reason for friendly trade.
.

Thanks for that masqua, that certainly seems to confirm that the Vikings were a trading nation at that particular point in time and not the marauders they were in the late 9th century. It appears that the Vikings settled over winter and from what you have provided offers proof that they opened trade links with the Native North Americans.

Best Wishes

J

Yup, thanks Masqua, and gingerlad for the links.

Had more Viking's been aware of Newfoundland and the potential it offered i still think we would have seen Viking armies before too long. A shame that we will never know.

Originally posted by Valhall
It should be noted the vikings discovered America about 400 to 500 years before either one of these groups, which places arguing over second place kind of in a trivial light.

It should also be noted that North America was discovered by native North Americans 10,000 years before the Vikings.

IMO...this entire debate is about how the 'discovery' of the continent is related to 'ownership' and the right to colonise it, as if the people who actually lived here for those millenia are somehow insignificant. Otherwise, why would it matter? You certainly don't hear much about the Kon-Tiki expedition Thor Heyerdahl made to prove that S. America was settled from peoples across the Pacific. But one can read plenty about the Spanish conquest, as if it was their 'God- given' right to occupation.

The same can be said about the Columbus expedition. The indigenous people were berated as pagan savages, having no common language nor system of governance nor even a civil society which traded across the entire continent. All of these damnations were a lie and an excuse to dominate. Even a cursory glance at the true pre-colonial history of the indigenous peoples will show evidence of that.

The Chinese map in question is just another tactic by a people who are interested in gaining a historically provable right to populate the Americas. China has already stated that, because of the supposed migration across the 'land bridge' from eastern Asia, the indigenous people are of Chinese/Asian descent. The Chinese are in an expansionistic mode right now and this map is being presented, imo, as some 'deed' to prove their right to the land.

While that may be true for tribes in the Arctic, I still hold onto the idea that there is also a European source for original migrations. Genetic mapping will be the testament to that eventually.

However, a 10,000 year old genetic connection is no proof of land ownership.
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Originally posted by Hvitserk

so if vikings are/were not europeans what would they be in your eyes ?

youre right that they are techniquely europeans, but i think that most people look at the vikings of the time and call them exactly that....vikings or norseman.