Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: SunkenCiv

Tying together these peoples as in an icy Mediterranean. That’s an amazing thesis. But why not?


6 posted on 02/10/2010 4:20:39 PM PST by decimon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies ]


To: decimon; blam; SunkenCiv
Just a few weeks ago I noticed in a video about reindeer that they can run steadily at 35 MPH and in lengthy bursts of 50 MPH.

That's why the wolves can't eat them all.

Now, consider, reindeer herders can usually always catch and kill a reindeer. Not that it's all that easy, but some of these guys can just walk up to a herd eating peacefully, grab a reindeer, kill it and drag off the carcase without disturbing the others. Or, they send in a "pet reindeer" who brings back a friend who is then slaughtered.

Sometimes they have to chase them down from skis.

Obvious reindeer herders can travel immense distances quite rapidly.

So, what about Eskimos? Well, given their linguistic and genetic relationship to the Yakuts/Sakha people back in NE Siberia, I'd suspect they followed the same lifestyle some time in the distant past ~ and that would have been as reindeer herders and hunters.

These people also had domesticated dogs to assist them.

The question is really how fast could a bunch of Inuit Eskimos make it from roughly Bethel Alaska to just across from Baffin Island at York Greenland.

Taking 14 days to go 1000 miles, it seems to me a bunch of Eskimos could probably get there in under 2 months, and probably faster (using the Iditorod as a rough guide, but noting the Eskimos were probably much tougher than today's race entrants).

The Sa'ami and Norse were using skis in the 1200s (with the Sa'ami using them for thousands of years by that time). It's conceivable that the Alaskan Eskimos traveling to Greenland to get iron ALSO knew about skis.

With skis it's likely the Eskimo made it from Alaska to Greenland in just a few weeks ~ not several seasons.

9 posted on 02/10/2010 4:46:34 PM PST by muawiyah ("Git Out The Way")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson