America Prediscovered

The Times (UK) ^ | 11-21-2005 | Norman Hammond

[blam]

America prediscovered

By Norman Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent

THE VEXED question of American independence has arisen once again: not, in this case, in 1776, but before Columbus came to the New World.

It is generally accepted that the Amerindian population originated in Asia, probably more than 15,000 years ago, but whether there were subsequent transoceanic contacts and influences remains a matter of hot debate. Vikings from Maine to Minnesota, Romans crossing from Africa to Brazil, and Chinese and Japanese voyagers hitting the Pacific coastline have all been proposed. Now a new candidate for transpacific contact has reached a major academic journal.

Language and technology, specifically in canoe construction, indicate Polynesian impacts on southern California some 1,500 years ago, according to American Antiquity. Terry Jones and Kathryn Klar point out that “three words used to refer to boats, including the distinctive sewn-plank canoe used by Chumashan and Gabrielino speakers, appear to correlate with East Polynesian terms associated with woodworking and canoe construction”. These were adopted between AD400 and 800.

This is just the period, Jones and Klar say, when ocean exploration by Polynesians led to the discovery and settlement of Hawaii. They add that the Polynesians “had the capabilities of navigation, boat construction and sailing, as well as the cultural incentives to complete a one-way passage from Hawaii to the mainland.” But such passages may not all have been one-way: 15 years ago the presence of prehistoric sweet potatoes was confirmed on Mangaia in central Polynesia.

The sweet potato is a New World species: the new evidence suggests that Polynesians may have reached the Americas on several occasions, sometimes taking back useful resources, sometimes leaving good ideas, but in neither case having a major impact on the evolution of pre-Columbian civilisation.

American Antiquity Vol. 70: 457-484

[blam]

GGG Ping.

I think we've posted on this subject previously.

[Alter Kaker]

I think a larger point can be made. While the vikings certainly landed in Canada, and while it is conceivable that others from the Old World encountered the New World at various times, they changed nothing. Columbus changed everything.

[rellimpank]

--Columbus changed everything.--

--truly the most important man of the millenium--

[Coyoteman]

--Columbus changed everything.--

--truly the most important man of the millenium--

Columbus was a latecomer--everyone beat him to the New World. He just had a better press agent.

[Inyokern]

I have read that there are people in Siberia whose DNA indicates that they are descended from people who had once lived in North America and came back to Asia. They are haplotype Q3, which is distinctively American Indian.

[commonasdirt]

"Columbus changed everything"

For some that is apparently reason enough to try to diminish his contribution.

[Heyworth]

Columbus was a latecomer--everyone beat him to the New World. He just had a better press agent.

What he had was an expansionist empire behind him with its own version of manifest destiny.

[Alter Kaker]

For some that is apparently reason enough to try to diminish his contribution.

Well, I think it's reasonable to say that Columbus wasn't a very nice guy (among other things, a pathological liar, a murderer and an incompetent administrator), but it is not reasonable to diminish the profound importance of his discovery. It is difficult to overemphasize how monumentally important the 1492 discovery was.

[Alter Kaker]

What he had was an expansionist empire behind him with its own version of manifest destiny.

I'm not really sure you can see the conquest of the New World as just a continuation of the Reconquista. They were distinctly separate events.

[Christopher Lincoln]

Oscar Wilde said something to the effect that America was discovered many times before Columbus, but it was always hushed up.

[kingu]

Bah, I hate bad science. There isn't a single speaker of the original language among the Tongva (Gabralieno) people, and every word currently known comes from a pamphlet book sold on Catalina Island. No one knows if these words are original or not, it is hotly debated as to if these words were simply made up by someone who wanted to sell the culture to tourists.

As to the Chumash, again, most have adapted words from that same 'Coastal Indian Language' pamphlet, with only a single inlander knowing any of the original language and none of it has to do with the ocean.

And what likely sparked the interest in these vaunted linguists was the recreation of the ocean going canoes that the Chumash supposedly used to populate the Channel Islands (as well as the endearing memories of folks who loved the book, Island of the Blue Dolphins.) That recreation was done in cooperation with Achimen (Juaneno) Indians from the Dana Point area who are the last known ocean going tribal people in the greater Southern California region... Their design, however, might have been borrowed from a person who married into the family from ... Polynesia.

Finally, if there was such a link between Southern California and Polynesia, the likely link would be local indians here traveling to Polynesia, not the other way around. Ocean and wind currents wouldn't lend it to happening in any other fashion.

The only reason why junk like this continues to be spewed into the journals is that no one wants to bother to counter it.

[Coyoteman]

Try again, this time with reference to the fact that there are a lot of Chumash words recorded in the anthropological literature.

[Heyworth]

I'm not really sure you can see the conquest of the New World as just a continuation of the Reconquista. They were distinctly separate events.

Sure, but I think that the Reconquista did create the mindset that enabled the conquest of the New World. That certitude that "God is On Our Side", and the missionary sense that drove them to bring Indian souls to the church (even if it killed them) I would argue can be seen as a direct legacy of the recent success of the Reconquista. Here's one website that makes the same point in a discussion of Columbus' first letter back to Ferdinand and Isabella:

"The conjunction of Verardus's panegyric with Columbus's first letter can perhaps be explained by reference to the epigram added at the end of the letter in its Latin translation by the bishop of Monte Peloso (at left). The crisis facing the Spanish monarchy was evident. The reconquista was over. Spanish society, which had evolved to support many substantial militant christian orders, was in danger of collapsing unless a new release could be found for the military. And, just by chance, just after Granada is conquered, Columbus returns with news of a rich and fertile land filled with heathans who are ripe for conversion and who lack the attributes of civilization."

http://www.usm.maine.edu/~maps/columbus/production.html

[Jim Noble]

Everybody's gone surfing

Surfin' USA

[twigs]

His timing was better. He landed a few decades after the printing press.

[Michael.SF.]

Vikings from Maine to Minnesota, Romans crossing from Africa to Brazil, and Chinese and Japanese voyagers hitting the Pacific coastline have all been proposed.

What about the Irish? Add them to the list of people who came to the 'new world" then went back and did not tell anyone about it.

Monument to St. Brendan, the Navigator

Historical note: Later upon realizing that the ocean was deeper then anticipated, they gave up on their early idea of using stilts to walk to American and tried sailing)

[Michael.SF.]

(among other things, a pathological liar, a murderer and an incompetent administrator),

Can we not have a discussion here w/o bring Ted Kennedy into every one?

;)

[commonasdirt]

By todays standards there were very few nice guys back then. And your assessment of him was right on the mark. We just have to look at him as being a product of the times in which he lived. As an Irish-American I can rave on about Irish Monks getting here well before him....but a few stones and/or scratchings being left and nothing else do not make for a significant contribution. Thus, lets give him his due no matter what revisionists say.

[Oatka]

. . . they changed nothing. Columbus changed everything.

Reminds me of the guy who invents a neat machine but does nothing with it. Then a businessman comes along and makes a commercial success of it - and gets the glory.