Who really discovered America?

Discussion in 'History and Culture' started by Jason Bourne, Feb 7, 2018.

  1. robini123

    robini123 Well-Known Member

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    Whoever were the ancestors of Native Americans.
     
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  2. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    Interesting question. I'll bite. The latest discovery of human presence in N America was Mammoth remains showing knife blade cut marks on its bones, dated to 130,000 years ago, found in San Diego County, CA. That would probably have been made by resident or traveling Neanderthals. Until that discovery, no one imagined Neanderthals had ever visited the Americas.
     
  3. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Yes, and no.

    What was known was a series of islands. Cold, frozen places to the West of Greenland. Which was also known, as was Iceland.

    Nobody at the time knew it was a new continent. But the presence was indeed known.

    Heck, even in the late 17th century, many maps still showed California as an island!
     
  4. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Actually, that is an "obsolete" term.

    The concept of Cro-Magnon being a separate group of humans has been destroyed, by more advanced technologies like DNA. Now it is
    "European Early Modern Humans", or EEMH. We even have been able to trace where they came from, and what happened to them (their genome is common to most native European groups even today).
     
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  5. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Ahhh, the Cerutti Mastodon Site.

    And first of all, wrong. There are no "knife blade cut marks" on bones, or anything else. All there are is some really crude rocks, which the researchers pushing the idea claim were fractured as they were used as hammers. Nobody at that tine had evolved tools other than rocks as hammers, let alone something as advanced as a stone knapped knife.

    And that is all there is, stones one side says were used as hammers to break bones, and the other saying the bones were broken naturally, and the stones are nothing but stones. And most of the evidence points against it being an early human site. There is no midden, no evidence of cookfires, and absolutely no other evidence anywhere around of humans at that time period.

    But things like this happen all the time. And as seen here, the actual evidence morphs and changes, highly crude stones claimed to be hammers later transforming to knives on bones.

    https://arstechnica.com/science/201...-130000-year-old-bones-were-broken-by-humans/

    Me, I am betting on not human.
     
  6. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    There are naysayers & detractors for every new discovery. I disagree with you. I think this discovery will go down in archaeological history as a significant one--a game changer. I often wondered how a landmass as large as N America could have possibly been completely avoided by primitive man for hundreds of thousands of years. The Cerutti discovery opened a door for an answer to my question.
     
  7. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Simple, look at the history of human migration.

    For the most part, humans only migrated to follow game, or if they were forced out by another larger group. For most of the history of the planet, the population density was simply to low for that to happen. And prior to Homo Sapiens, no branch of the Hominid family ever rose to enough of a population to migrate any large distance.

    Plus for most of history, North America migration required boats. And that is actually an amazingly recent development. As in maybe 12kya at most. Heck, even with some rather advanced boat building techniques, Hawaii was only colonized by humans around 1,700 years ago.

    So I am not surprised at all. The only way to migrate to North America for most of the history of Hominids was walking. And that was only open for a very brief period of time.

    And no, I do not believe the evidence. As I said, there is nothing else that would be expected at such a site in evidence. No middens (trash heaps), no evidence of fires or encampments, nothing. It takes more than some broken bones to prove they were caused by humans.
     
  8. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    There have been archaeological digs in Pennsylvania dated to before 16,000 years, & in S America to over 24,000 years from man made campfires, so your 12,000 year date is too low.
     
  9. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Yes, and those dates are on question. Most archaeologists reject them because of contamination and the lack of any other evidence to confirm the dating.

    Remember, I only discuss what is actually confirmed and accepted. It may indeed be 16kya, even 25kya. But until enough evidence and proof of this is collected and accepted, I reject them as aberations.

    And much of that is based upon other findings. Like artifacts found in the same layers nearby that give an age much younger than 16kya.
     
  10. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    A linguist at Harvard wrote a couple of books in the 1970's on this; he posits early visits by the ancient Greeks and Phoenicians. Barry Fell. He claims a link between 'native American' languages and several North African and ME dialects.

    As for trying to use DNA, since many tribes usually practiced genocide against enemies and competitors, the only traces left of many of the smaller tribes would be from the rapes of slaves, which would be rare, since they were usually worked to death or tortured for sport. Contrary to popular belief, wars were not that rare; the Sioux busied themselves building a massive empire across the Plains, along with the Comanche and other plains tribes, and they doubtless exterminated possibly hundreds of small tribes in their conquests. The Osage and others survived because the U.S. government offered them protection and only exist today because of that. The Osage for instance were so desperate to escape being wiped out by the Sioux they resorted to firing arrows at steamboats in order to attract the U.S. Army. Before that there were the wars between the various northern tribal confederations over hunting grounds and then for the domination of the European fur trade. 'Total war' wasn't a strange concept to American natives, and neither was greed and cruelty and murder.

    http://www.tolatsga.org/hur.html

    Forget the Hollywood versions and the 1960's rubbish of the native being some grand collection of proto-hippies and environmentalists n stuff.
     
  11. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Not sure where you are getting this information, but it is very wrong.

    "Slavery" as most know the word did not exist in the Indian tribes. Their population densities and production were so low that other than the Aztecs they could not support the institution as most Americans think of it. Especially for nomadic tribes.

    "Genocide" did not exist as in "killing everybody". But in a major tribal war they would indeed "destroy" a tribe. By the means of forcing the tribe to be absorbed into their own. This can even be seen in the "bride kidnapping" and forced marriage. We even know of that institution continuing into the 19th century with captured women and children of European settlers into various tribes.

    Yes, wars were very common. But because of the population densities involved and the nomadic nature of most tribes it is not the kind of "warfare" that Europeans recognized. It was much more "symbolic" in nature, and many times even bloodless. More akin to a formal tournament deciding a conflict as opposed to a massed meeting of armies. A handful of warriors meeting off to fight as opposed to every male in the tribe. This can even be seen in the tradition of "counting coup". Literally riding in, striking an enemy with a stick then riding away. Nobody dies.

    And the Lakota did not build an "empire". In fact, they are not even native to the Great Plains! They are from the Lower Mississippi River area, and migrated first to the Ohio region after the breakup of the Mississippian Culture, then were pushed further and further west by other tribes. In fact, for well over 100 years they were trapped in a region on the Minnesota-Dakota border by the Mandan, with the Cheyanne and Crow trying to press them West, and the Mandan stopping them. It was in around 1770 when they were finally able to break through and settle in the Black Hills region.

    And most of their conflicts with other tribes were after settling in the Dakotas for a while they tried to return to Missouri and to Nebraska, and were frequently repulsed in this by the locals.

    And an example of the "absorption" I mentioned earlier is the Hidatsa. They are part of the Lakota peoples, but linguistically and culturally they have much more in common with the Crow. It is believed this is a remnant of this practice, but if it was Lakota adopted into the Crow or the reverse that is not known.

    But in most ways your claims are almost completely false. As was seen 2,000+ years earlier in Asia and Europe, there were no large "wars of genocide", it was mostly one group forcing out another in the 500 years after the fall of the Mississippian Culture in around 1450 CE. Just as the Mongols and Huns pushed tribe after tribe out of Asia into Europe, the same thing happened in the Americas. Where one tribe pushed another out, and were then pushed out by yet another. Very few "tribes" as we know of them today actually existed prior to around 1450. Primarily only those on the West Coast, and the North East actually are known to predate the Mississippian Culture.

    Even the "savage Apache" appear to be such a case. Linguistically, they (and the Navajo) are connected to groups in Canada. Then it appears they moved South in the 13th century, settling on the fringes of the Mississippian Culture (just West of the Mississippi River) in the early 15th century. Then in the break-up they got pushed further and further West, until they finally ended up in the Arizona-New Mexico region where when the Spanish arrived they were a widely dispersed nomadic tribe in the 16th century.
     
  12. Farnsworth

    Farnsworth Well-Known Member

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    Slavery did indeed exist, and not just among the Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs, but also in the southeastern tribes throughout the southeastern states. We know this from the writings of the early settlers in Louisiana, for one, along with the Spanish and English traders who did business with them. It also existed in the plains tribes, as several source will prove. They were usually worked to death and didn't survive for long after capture, as torturing war captives was a major fun entertainment for most tribes, also well attested to.

    A late practice in some tribes, due to needing new blood to replace those lost in the numerous wars and epidemics. Not a normal practice, since they usually just massacred farm families and where possible whites would kill their wives and children rather than let them be captured by the animals.

    Definitely rubbish here.

    Wrong again. They controlled an area reaching from Canada nearly to Oklahoma, stopped only by another tribal empire. Their major weapon of expansion was the horse.The rest is more of the same sort of historical handwaves. No need for some Pity Party for them, they were always available for hire to anybody with a few kegs of booze and some crappy trade rifles to murder anybody else, hardly 'victims', except in the movies, of course.
     
    Last edited: Apr 4, 2020
  13. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Ahhh, got it. To you they were nothing but savage drunken Injuns, and that is all you ever expect.

    Got it.

    And no, they did not "control" a large area. And they were never numerous. In 1805 when Europeans first started making extensive contact with them, they only numbered around 8,000. And by 1880, this had doubled to just over 16,000.

    And that "empire" was almost entirely empty land, which would switch back and forth as one tribe left and another arrived. Or are you really trying to claim that a handfull of scattered clans that number les than 20,000 was able to "rule" an area covering 3 states.

    Oh, and they were not even always nomads. Descendants of the Lower Mississippi Culture, they were actually farmers until they were forced off of their land over and over again by other tribes. And like the Apache, they actually arrived rather late at rediscovering a nomadic way of life. The Cheyanne only introduced the horse to them in the mid-18th century, mostly as a way to keep them moving West because they did not want them lingering in their area after they were kicked out of the Ohio Valley.

    Hell, I live in a tiny podunk town in California that if you blink you miss it as you drive through, and we have as many people living here as the Lakota had at their height of power. But yea, I can see what you are trying to do. But nope, no "Pity Party" here, no more than I would have one for the Huns, the GOths, the Visigoths, the Franks, or any of the countless numbers of "Barbarians" that went through similar things in Asia and Europe. That is the general rule of thumb in most of the world until fairly recently. "Nation" was a concept that none of those people had, just "Us" and "Them". And all too often, "Them" were the ones that came in and pushed you off of your land, so you went and did the same thing to another group of "Them".

    Until a few thousand years ago, that was the rule in Human history. Bigger people push smaller people, smaller people move. And if they like a place and somebody else is there, they try to push them off of it. Either that, or they just keep moving.
     
  14. XploreR

    XploreR Well-Known Member

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    How about the new discovery announced last year in San Diego, where mammoth bones with man made cut groves were dated to 130,000 years ago? And it's been confirmed by subsequent follow up studies.
     
  15. David Landbrecht

    David Landbrecht Well-Known Member

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    Clearly, it is impossible to know where the very first human came from to set foot on North America.
    The thought that knowing would somehow give an upper hand to someone or some group today is ridiculously childish.
     
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  16. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    Dismissed. That claim only comes from a single individual, everybody else is saying those are the usual abrasions found on fossils.

    Once again, I do not take the word of a single individual, that is the way of being a David Wolf minion.
     
  17. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    True, Many came before him but he was the first that charted the course, over on the the Cananies Current and back on the Westerlies.

    Before Columbus North America was very much like a ghost to the European mind. Many people had seen or heard of it, like the Basque Fishermen who kept the Grand Banks as their private grounds or the Portugeuse who were secretly trading with Brazil and a squadron of whom shadowed him on the leg out; but it was a Sailor's Tale until Columbus mapped the way.

    One thing to consider, Columbus was in a distinct minority in following Ptolemy's geography which said the Earth was only 18,000 miles around. Most educated opinion followed Aristarchus, whose accurate figure of 25,000 miles was far greater. They knew that that the Earth was spherical and that you could get to China by sailing West, they just thought it was a voyage over 9,000 miles of open Ocean not the comparatively short hop of 3,000 which Columbus took.

    If North and South America didn't exist they would only very rarely take Christopher's route to China even today since it wouldn't be an easy voyage even now.


    https://www.canadiangeographic.ca/article/reverse-colonialism-how-inuit-conquered-vikings
     
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  18. Aleksander Ulyanov

    Aleksander Ulyanov Well-Known Member

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    Possibly, the legend I've heard is that Columbus found some sea debris which had a corpse in it and it was fairly fresh, not the the sun bleached skeleton you would expect from a 9000 mile trip. This made him think China was just over the horizon.

    The thing to remember is that they did not know the Western Hemisphere was here, they thought China was a very long way away and they were right, and it was China they wanted to go to.

    The old maps make it clear, they didn't know the full extent of the Western Hemisphere until the seventeenth century. Europeans had explored far out into the Atlantic well before Columbus, the Portuguese had found the Azores (and they may have bumped into Brazil but were keeping it a secret) but it seemed that the real prize, the fabled and wealthy Cathay, was still a very long way off by sea.
     
  19. Dayton3

    Dayton3 Well-Known Member

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    Depends what you mean by "discovered". Traditionally we think of discovery or invention as "being the first one there or the first one to create something.".

    Historically though that has never been true. Historically "discovering" or "inventing" something has included documenting and publicizing your discovery or invention. That is why I still consider Columbus the man who "discovered" America.

    Columbus
    1) Thoroughly documented his trip (mainly because he wanted to profit from it).
    2) Publicized his voyages (same reason as above)
    3) Repeated his historic first voyage three more times. Classic "leave no doubt" actions.
     
  20. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Edison made it stick. Columbus surely was not the first, but Columbus made it stick.

    And a 12-year-old Comanche brave could fire a dozen arrows quite accurately while taking cover behind his stallion's neck before a cavalryman could reload.
     
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  21. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    What really matters is who colonized it and who founded the United States of America; They ain't speaking German I can tell you that much and Canada nor Mexico are hardily any seats of power, don't get me started on Latin America. (Dictatorships).

    History, was written by the winners.
     
  22. Mushroom

    Mushroom Well-Known Member

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    What is almost always forgotten is that Columbus was also looking for a mythical king.

    The "Prester John" legend is almost completely forgotten today, but in the 15th century it was widely believed. In short, it is of a fabulously wealthy "Eastern Christian Kingdom", with wealth, technology, and philosophy far beyond that of anywhere else in the world. It and it's legendary king according to legend told the great Genghis Khan to take a hike (and made it stick), propelled the Orient into it's legendary status of power, and was seen as the new hope if he got involved in fighting off the "Mohammedians" in the "Holy Land".

    It is never really talked about, but much of the obsession of Columbus and the Spanish Monarchs was in trying to get this legendary Asian Christian Monarch involved in fighting against the Muslims in the West. Crusades were still going on in the Middle East, and Spain had just thrown off hundreds of years of Islamic rule. The Inquisition was still turning Muslims and Jews into candles all over the Spanish countryside, and many contemporaries believed that the legendary king could help the Christians win the wars.

    Of course, the Spanish and most Europeans thought this kingdom was somewhere around India. And there was plentiful evidence in the literature of the time to support this belief. Marco Polo, Odoric of Pordenone, and Jean de Joinville, even wrote about him, a "Christian King" who stood up against the great Genghis Khan, but was ultimately destroyed instead of destroying the Khans. But the legend lived on, and many in Europe were awaiting the return of "Prester John", to wipe out the Tartars, Khanate, Muslims, and anybody else that was threatening the "Christian Nations".

    Of course, most in Europe believed that this King resided somewhere near India. The Portuguese however believed he lived somewhere near Ethiopia, and was convinced that the people living in that region were his descendants.

    And heck, even the great Stan Lee used him in Marvel comics! One of their least remembered anti-heroes/enemies, Prester John was used many times in the 1960s. Lee was always pulling out legends and myths, and trying to give them a "human" appearance to make them real. Prester John was no exception, and had fought for/against such luminaries as Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, even Deadpool!

    And in the Marvel universe, the legend of Prester John and his kingdom is often tied directly into Wakanda.

    http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/presterjohn.htm

    I always find it fascinating that this "Legendary King" is almost never mentioned in modern writings, but at the time of Columbus there was almost a cult built up around him and his exploits.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prester_John
     
  23. Liberty Monkey

    Liberty Monkey Well-Known Member

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    There's a reason they call it English.

    Canadians don't count never trust someone that speaks French.
     
  24. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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    Columbus being a mariner of long experience he was surely looking for the unexpected, whatever might hit him or help him, whatever might make him rich or make him penniless or make him dead.
     
  25. Pycckia

    Pycckia Well-Known Member

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    I'll stick with Colombus. He wasn't the first human to set foot there, but his discovery was the first to make it in recorded history.
     
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