Voyages to the Americas

Originally posted by punkinworks
Its all very fascinating stuff, I'm laying odd's that the vikings made it up the st lawrence and into the great lakes and surrounding territory.

It is fascinating.


I wonder, is there any record in their homelands of North American goods?
Wearing Beaver into battle, or Elk antler helmets?

Originally posted by ANNED
I believe wreaked Chinese and Japanese ships with crew drifted across the pacific in the The North Pacific Current (sometimes referred to as the North Pacific Drift and landed on the west coast of Canada and the US.

en.wikipedia.org...

These ships would have been small and few would have survived the trip.
most that did would have repaired there ships and tried to return and even fewer would have survived.

With out a doubt it happened and I also suspect that surving a trip home would a near miracle.


Every few years a story comes up of mexican/honduran/costa rican, et al, fishermen being blown across the pacific.
In one case a trio of fishermen set out from honduras, and got caugth in a storm.
When the storm subsided they werent in sight of the familiar islands they fished off of.
They motored east till they ran out of gas, still not in sight of land.
For almost 90 days they drifted with the currents and winds.
They had rigged up a rudimentary sail and were working the winds and currents as best they could.

They survived from fishing and collecting rainwater.
They had such an aversion to eating raw fish they burned everything available on the boat, including the boats cabin, to cook the fish.
When they were finally picked up of off the coast of japan, they had resorted to heat thin strips of fish with a bic lighter.

There is a program on the History channel called "The Holy Grail in America", it's all about the Kensington stone. It was made by Knights Templar in 1362 in Minnesota. It shows a lot of groups were here down through history that weren't previously known. I brought this subject up on the thread about Egyptian/Buddhist temples found in the Grand Canyon. I think it's more likely to be a Chinese, Japanese or Tibetan Buddhist temple than Egyptian. There are examples of Chinese temples etc on the sides of cliffs. How and why they put them on the sides of cliffs God only knows. Of course the orthodox guys blow it all off as a hoax. I can't say it's been proven because what's left of the evidence is anecdotal. All the treasure has been removed and the sites are off limits.

[edit on 24-9-2009 by Sargoth]

Originally posted by punkinworks

Originally posted by ANNED
I believe wreaked Chinese and Japanese ships with crew drifted across the pacific in the The North Pacific Current (sometimes referred to as the North Pacific Drift and landed on the west coast of Canada and the US.

en.wikipedia.org...

These ships would have been small and few would have survived the trip.
most that did would have repaired there ships and tried to return and even fewer would have survived.

With out a doubt it happened ...

You'd be much better off saying "Without a doubt it could have happened. Your statement requires proof.

So far, there ain't any.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


Could and did in historic times the problem is did it happen in the times before? It may have and depending on where they landed it would have meant death or acceptance. As far as we know no one made it back before historic times.

You might find this Smithsonian article of interest.


Story

The story has some unproven items stated as fact but the information on the drifters is generally correct AFAIK



[edit on 29/9/09 by Hanslune]

Ok Ill stir the pot a little with this,,

The Calixtlahuaca Head,

In 1933, archaeologist José García Payón discovered a small head with "foreign" features in a burial at Calixtlahuaca, in the Toluca Valley about 60 km. west of Mexico City. The burial was under two undisturbed cemented floors that antedated the destruction of Calixtlahuaca by the Aztecs in AD 1510. Numerous cultural pieces found with the head were identified by García Payón as belonging to the Azteco-Matlatzinca period of 1476-1510. Cortez did not land at Veracruz until 1519, and did not conquer the Aztecs until 1521, so that central Mexico was still pre-Hispanic in 1510.

www.econ.ohio-state.edu...



and more

To this time, the lack of a trustworthy date of the finding has not permitted the establishment of a correct hypothesis about the head's chronology and origin. In a letter dated March 17, 1993, Dr. R. E. M. Hedges of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and History of Art at Oxford University informed me that, if we would send him the piece to take a sample, we would have the dating in about six months, either by thermoluminescence or C 14 in a mass accelerator. Some administrative problems have delayed this matter longer than we expected and we do not know when it will take place. Nevertheless, without trying to impose a definitive opinion, we would like to point out that with its relative chronology and some stylistic features, the little head could be related to a very probable arrival of Vikings to Mesoamerica, not to that of the Chinese or Hindus. It is well known that in this area very significant political-cultural perturbations occurred among the autochthonous civilizations between the 10th and 13th centuries AD. These were produced by a small group of white immigrants with beards who came from the Atlantic Ocean and whose leader the natives called by different names: Ce Acatl, Topiltzin, Papa, etc.Or at least such happenings are suggested through several native Indian legends and myths from the area included between the Central Mexican Plateau and the Yucatan Peninsula. (See, for example, Duran, 1984:9-15; Las Casas, 1967: 644-645 and 648-649; Torquemada, 1943:254-256, among others.) As indirect testimony to the historicity of these legends, we can also point to certain Mayan ceramic pieces from the same period (10th-13th centuries AD) that bear representations of characters with European features and beards. Fray Juan de Torquemada (1943:243) was the first to suppose that the immigrants were Vikings. Furthermore, according to data offered by mediaeval sagas from Iceland and Greenland, the voyage of Leif Eiriksson to Newfoundland was not the only visit the Vikings made to America. Between the 10th and 13th centuries AD several similar voyages were made, some to the south of the American continent's Atlantic coast (Ingstad, H., 1968:91-95). These historical testimonies are supported by a series of findings of Viking origin (axes, spades, arrow heads, among others), coming from the East and Midwest of the United States. (A summary about these findings can be found in Godfrey, 1955. )

Considering the stylistic aspects of the little head, I would like to point out that the cap worn by the character can hardly be described as "Roman." In my opinion, such a cap looks more like a certain type represented in several Viking art works: for example, bas-reliefs on the monumental stone of Stora Hammar, Labro (Gotland) (1lth century AD), with scenes of the heroic poem known as the Icelandic skald Bragai's Regnarsdrapa.

In summary, I would like to remind you again that the piece in question is the only archaeological find of nonAmerindian origin discovered in Mesoamerica today, by a professional archaeologist and in a non-altered context of the pre-Hispanic era. Consequently, I believe that a detailed and critical study, based on the precise dating of the little head (which I hope will be available before too long) will give us new relevant data in research of transatlantic contacts before 1492.

The last paragraph says a lot.

Originally posted by Hanslune
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

Could and did in historic times the problem is did it happen in the times before? It may have and depending on where they landed it would have meant death or acceptance. As far as we know no one made it back before historic times.

The story has some unproven items stated as fact but the information on the drifters is generally correct AFAIK

Yes, I'm aware of the modern cases, my point to punkinworks was that we can only offer conjecture as to ancient 'drifters'...and not confuse the inherent possibilities with proof.

...and I'll check that link, thanks.

reply to post by punkinworks


The key question is whether it was found amongst pre-columbian or columbian items. The item is dated by association with those items - basically the option of an expert and the dating is very close to the dividing line between those two eras.

I would suspect that the material was of the period the main investigator believed but buried after that period along with the item that came along with Cortez.

However one cannot completely rule out a Roman wine ship making it to the Carribean and the artifact being traded across and arriving in a pre-Aztec Mexico.

Here is question to the smart people here on this board-why do I say a wine ship? (a ships whose cargo was wine)

reply to post by Hanslune


hey hans,
the piece was found under 2 undisturbed cemented floors that predate the aztec conquest of Calixtlahuaca in 1510.

It was in found among items that belonged to the Azteco-Matlatzinca period of 1476-1510.

So it was there before the spanish conquest.

The article goes on to say,

Considering the stylistic aspects of the little head, I would like to point out that the cap worn by the character can hardly be described as "Roman." In my opinion, such a cap looks more like a certain type represented in several Viking art works: for example, bas-reliefs on the monumental stone of Stora Hammar, Labro (Gotland) (1lth century AD), with scenes of the heroic poem known as the Icelandic skald Bragai's Regnarsdrapa.

,

Theres those pesky gotlanders again.


As to the wine ships, its because wine was easily one of the most shiped goods in the roman economy.

Sorry I got to ask .....
How can anyone"discover" a place that is already inhabited?
Yes I understand that you mean, who migrated here 1st....
If you look at this with modern standards, it is nothing more than a hostile take over!

Ships in the med and coastal European trade usually only carried a few days or a week or two of water. A ship carrying wine would have had the ability to keep the crew alive until they drifted the many weeks/months to the carribean and allowed the crew to remove the salt from their salted rations. Of course a dead crew would have drifted along none the less.

Howdy Punkinwork

As noted the Spanish were in the Carribean prior to 1510. The Caribe and Arawak Indians traded with the Maya. As noted below it is possible that the head was obtained in that way. Spanish ships used to use river stones as ballast. A small ceramic head may have made its way into ballast, or someone simply traded it to the natives. The dates you mention are still open to debate.

There a number of ways the head could have gotten there besides Vikings or more probably Romans getting their. If they did they left no traceable influence.

That and deliberate hoax or joke is a possibilty too.

But as I noted before it could be valid too

These sources were written to refute Histrov

Schaaf, P., and Wagner, G. A., 2001, Comments on
"Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic
Contacts" by Hristov and Genovés. Ancient
Mesoamerica.vol. 12, pp. 79-82.

Hristov, R. H., and Santiago, G. T., 2001, Reply to
Peter Schaaf and Günther A. Wagner's "Comments on
'Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic
Contacts'". Ancient Mesoamerica.vol. 12, pp. 83-86.

A related web page is "Classic-Period Ceramics
from Calixtlahuaca" by Dr. Michael E. Smith
(Professor of Anthropology, University at Albany,
State University of New York)

From a thread at the Hall of Maat

I'll see if I can find a web friendly source for these




[edit on 30/9/09 by Hanslune]