Who really discovered America?

Probably many groups of nomads thought that they were the first -- until they were attacked and killed by those already here.

 

I think the forebearers of american indians discovered america

 

at that time all cultures were hunters gatherers/nomadic...I can't see conflicts being frequent hunter gatherer cultures aren't typically aggressive...

current DNA research into native americans is suggesting a very small founding population for all of the americas possible as few as 250 individuals, in hunter gatherer societies that normally indicates 5-10 extended families most likely all from the same ethnic group

 

Man is a natural born killer and the greatest predator on earth. It takes systems of laws or moral codes to reign him in -- which is why laws, harsh punishments, and moral codes exist.

 

that's just a hollywood machismo, hunter gatherers are generally non aggressive with each other... laws/moral codes are social constructs not something hunter gatherers had...they had what all animals that live in family groups have, social behaviour, it does not require codified laws it's the natural state...

 

Perhaps with each other, but there's always the we, and there's always the them. It is very easy to kill the them. Especially if game is scarce and your group is hungry -- like lions trying to kill all competing predators so there is plenty of game for the lions.

 

your projecting your tribal nationalism on societies that do not think like you, people are not lions lion social groups do not function like ours...

 

You are completely failing to grasp that we are talking about a nomadic people.

If game is scarce, they move. If there are to many predators, they move. If a neighboring group is hostile, they move.

This is why most tribal groups covered a large range of territory. The Potawatomie were from Michigan, and Indiana. Ohio, and Nebraska. You have Shoshone ranging from Idaho and Utah to Wyoming, but also stretching all the way down into Central California. And the Iroquois (5 Nations) that was based mostly in the NE US - SE Canada had the Cherokee offshoot way down in the Carolinas.

For the most part, the North American Indians were not a horribly "warlike" group in the 15th century. We are not really sure how much their culture changed after the fall off the Mississippian culture, but some remnants show that for most of them, warfare tended to be more ritualistic than real.

This legacy is really seen in the Great Plains tribes. Pretty much all of them had a variation of the "Coup Stick", and "Counting Coup" was a major part of their warrior culture. Going up to an enemy warrior and "striking" them with a stick and then getting away was as much if not more of a victory than actually killing them. And slipping into an enemy camp and stealing their weapons and/or horses was more of a victory than actually killing them in combat.

This makes the combat most tribes engaged in much more of a symbolic battle. Not unlike the European Jousting Tournaments of roughly the same time period. With counting coup not unlike breaking a lance against or unseating a competing knight.

 

yeah I agree, not that hunter gatherers wouldn't have the odd fatal conflict but for small HG groups 25-50 members extended violence could be fatal for the entire group, every member is valuable so they would avoid protracted warfare...need more food, move...

when you get to neolithic settlements/limited movement and population rise, fixed territories that would be protected for feeding that larger population, larger conflicts...

large civilizations/states like the Aztec, Purepecha and Incas had armies in the tens of thousands would have all out wars with neighbouring states

 

You would have thought there was no need for the question seeing he already had the answer. Guess he was just showing off.

 

bet there were some cavemen from a time when the continents were connected...

iow, who gives a damm who stepped foot here first, all that matters is it wasnt columbus like the scholars insisted upon for 100's of years...

 

Agree because the Vikings made round trips to America.
Not just for colonies. At first to harvest lumber for Greenland colonies that needed wood.
The Chinese, maybe one trip.
The natives, as natives do.

Vikings.


Moi

Support The Two Wall Solution.
Across an immense, unguarded, ethereal border, Canadians, cool and unsympathetic,
regard our America with envious eyes and slowly and surely draw their plans against us.​

 

"Who really discovered America?"

We did.

 

This is nothing but dead-white-male bashing from a P.C. thug.

 

Denying that someone else most likely 'discovered' the Americas is bashing by an establishment thug.

 

Multiple people have discovered (or more technically rediscovered) America. (Asian nomads who became the Native Americans, the Norsemen, possibly Chinese, possibly Irish monks). For all practical purposes, Columbus made the Western world aware of the New World, and his rediscovery resulted in the Western colonization of the New World.

 

Damn his eyes!

 

The Correct Answer is:
Solutreans from the Ice Age,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis
following the Ice, Westward
and came upon land that today is
submerged due to rising Sea Levels
since then.


The Clovis Point is an Idea, not a people
and Solutreans brought Clovis technology to
from points most similar found in then, France.


Younger Dryas episode destroyed their genome, maybe
but not their contributions to ancient
Or their genome may persists, hybridized, evidenced in a more
European look to tribes eastward toward the Atlantic.
Y'think?

What part don't YOU get?

 

Not bloody likely!

That would be back when the major land mass was called Gondwana. This ended roughly 180 million years ago, at the start of the Jurassic age. The majority of dinosaurs in this era were aquatic. The land ones were dominated by medium sized Sauropods, and the other main group was the Ornithischia. Which ranged from the Stegosaur and Ankylosaur to the distant ancestor to the T-Rex. Small (1-3 meter long) biped-quadraped armored creatures that were just starting to evolve into true bipedal hunters. It is believed they were most likely scavengers more than hunters.

No, humans would not come along for another 179 million or so years.

 

Do you understand the difference between discovery, and first to arrive? In order to establish discovery, you must share your knowledge with others or make it public. This the Vikings clearly did not do, as the Europeans were ignorant of ability to reach land by sailing west, much less the existence of it. Columbus was the first to make public the ability to reach other lands by sailing west from Europe. Did others arrive first? Sure, but that is not discovery. In the course of human history, many things have been discovered only to be lost and rediscovered again. Do not be bitter and give credit where credit is due.

 

it's like asking who discovered the earth... nonsensical bs because it doesn't matter...

 

Well, yes and no.

For one, the Vikings were rather secretive about areas they discovered. And they frequently used names to purposefully mislead others. Classic examples of this can be seen in "Iceland", which is really not all that ice covered and at the time was actually covered with dense forests. And "Greenland", which WAS ice covered, and not really green at all. They did this on purpose, both to help keep outsiders away who somehow managed to intercept letters that talked about these new lands, and if they got to one and discovered it was the opposite of what it was named they would loose interest in other possible discoveries.

Monks in the 1200s were making maps based on what the Vikings discovered from the tales from their sagas. And those maps included a vague land area depicted as a large island similar to size to Greenland somewhere to the West of Denmark. Not even the Vikings had realized they had discovered another continent. They never traveled far inland, and assumed it was similar in size to Greenland.

So a lot of Europeans knew about Vinland, it is just that none of them realized what it actually was. After Iceland and Greenland were shown to be lies, none were interested in trying to find yet another barren island named for grape vines.

 

With the latest archaeological news from California, finding human carved mammoth bones dated at 130,000 years ago, I guess someone discovered America before any of the above. They may have been Neanderthals or Denisovan.

 

Actually, Columbus did visit Puerto Rico in 1493, which is today a commonwealth of the U.S., and a possible future state.

 

In order to establish discovery, you would need to find some sort of record of the discovery. Without that, the discovery defaults to Columbus who was the first discovery to be documented.