[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Olog-hai.

America B.C.
by Barry Fell
(1976)
find it in a nearby library

A fascinating letter I received from a Shoshone Indian who had been traveling in the Basque country of Spain tells of his recognition of Shoshone words over there, including his own name, whose Shoshone meaning proved to match the meaning attached to a similar word by the modern Basques. Unfortunately I mislaid this interesting letter. If the Shoshone scholar who wrote to me should chance to see these words I hope he will forgive me and contact me again. The modern Basque settlers of Idaho may perhaps bring forth a linguist to investigate matters raised in this chapter. [p 173]

There has never been any credible question about transoceanic voyages before Columbus, but there certainly has been a massive bias against the recognition of that fact. Humans, wherever they've lived, however they've looked, have always been willing and able to live somewhere else.

And duh! -- that's how they got anywhere to begin with.

[morphing libertarian]

Then were was the 16th century rail road?

[Grimmy]

I tend to view the long standing bias to be a mix of the usual intellectual inbreeding of professional academia as well as a large dose of “presentism”.

The way I see it, a voyage of the sort under discussion here would be nearly impossible, as well as intolerably uncomfortable for grad students and their professors, therefore it could never have been done by anyone.

[Pelham]

I was greatly impressed with Barry Fell’s America BC.

The Basque were big time cod fishermen well before Columbus’ time and they kept their fishing grounds secret- and some of the biggest cod grounds are off New England. They likely knew North America and kept it secret just like they did their cod grounds.