Boats

[Rokcet Scientist]

First of....all ancient stats must be taken with a huge grain of salt....or grano salis, if you prefer Latin.

Creative bookkeeping is the second oldest profession.

[Minimalist]

This seems more reasonable.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/su ... 589350_ITM

But Polybius, who participated in the campaign, confirmed that 'the number of deaths was incredibly large' and the Carthaginians 'utterly exterminated'. (6) In 146, Roman legions under Scipio Aemilianus, Cato's ally and brother-in-law of his son, razed the city, and dispersed into slavery the 55,000 survivors, including 25,000 women.

[Digit]

As RS says, no state at that time would have been able to absorb that number of hostile people. Just feeding and clothing them before their efforts made some contribution would have been a considerable strain.
As North Africa was the bread basket of the Med more likely most stayed where they were.
Technically slaves, yes, but in the same area, shipping that number across the Med would have been a strain and ruined the price of slaves as well.

[Cognito]

In 146, Roman legions under Scipio Aemilianus, Cato's ally and brother-in-law of his son, razed the city, and dispersed into slavery the 55,000 survivors, including 25,000 women.

Yup, that's about the right number for slaves taken - everyone else was either put to death or escaped. I agree with Digit that bringing so many slaves back to Rome would have been economically disastrous since it would have plummeted the value of existing slaves. And as Min mentioned, slaves were big business in Rome. By 1AD up to 40% of the City of Rome's population was in slavery.

[Minimalist]

Rome had been bringing back piles of slaves since the end of the Second Punic War (202BC). Their expansion into Greece and Macedonia brought them many slaves who were essentially used to offset the costs of the wars themselves.

This did have a devastating effect on the Roman Republic which hitherto had been a nation of yeoman farmers. One problem was that the senatorial class was restricted from pursuing business ventures and could only own land. The wealth which flowed in gave the senators the power to buy up the small farms and create vast estates (latifundia) which were worked by slaves. This had the effect of forcing the yeoman farmers into the cities where they became a political problem. The social unrest of the second half of the second century BC in large part arises from this creation of a dispossessed class of Romans who thought themselves highly entitled to the glories of the empire. It also directly led to the collapse of the republic because it severely restricted the number of soldiers who could be called up to the legions. Such classes were based on property and there were fewer and fewer able to meet the requirements to be in the primary classes of Roman heavy infantry.

After the catastrophic defeat at Aurasio in 105 BC then consul, Gaius Marius did away with the property system and began recruiting the poor for the armies based on the promise of land, citizenship, and pay. The manpower crisis was solved but within 20 years these new soldiers were found to be more loyal to their commanders than they were to the state and they followed L. Cornelius Sulla into Rome where he set himself up as dictator.

So, yes. Slaves were destablilizing. (To put it mildly.)

[kbs2244]

There is a tremendous amount of unspoken about evidence of a very wide spread North African presence in North America.
Strangely enough, it is more around the interior river systems then along the East coast. From West Virginia to Wisconsin to Okalahoma.
But then, if they took the route that Columbus and the Spanish later did, they would be more familiar with the South coast of NA then the Atlantic.

[Sam Salmon]

There is a tremendous amount of unspoken about evidence of a very wide spread North African presence in North America.
Strangely enough, it is more around the interior river systems then along the East coast. From West Virginia to Wisconsin to Okalahoma.

Ah Yes Barry Fell et al.

[kbs2244]

Well, you can be a Fell fan or not.
But the fact is there was something physical, or a photo of something physical, for him and others to look at.
He did not make them up.
Some claim he was wrong half the time. Maybe so.
But if I was right 3 times out of 10 I would have the N Y Yankees knocking at my door.
Even if you throw away 70 percent as “hoaxes” you still have a lot of stuff.

[Sam Salmon]

Well, you can be a Fell fan or not.
But the fact is there was something physical, or a photo of something physical, for him and others to look at.
He did not make them up.

I don't disagree I just find it startling/amazing that people made their way up all those huge wild rivers through territories of people who had lived there for thousands of years and weren't at all inclined to be friendly with outsiders.

Reading an account of Lewis & Clark ascending the Missouri in relatively modern times and supplied with gifts/bribes/serious armaments and translators gives a person some small idea of the huge obstacles in place.

[Minimalist]

The thing that argues against early European contact in my mind is the fact that Old World diseases were not transmitted to the native population.

If they had, there would have been some degree of immunity for when Columbus' men landed.

[rich]

And tobaco and other plants weren't brought back.

[Rokcet Scientist]

And tobaco and other plants weren't brought back.

Maybe not to Europe, but they did get brought back: to Egypt. The hair of 35% of some 700 Egyptian mummies, dating between 500 and 1500 BC, examined by the University of Munich, proved contaminated with tobacco, cannabis, opium, and cocaine.
So the Egyptian upper classes were junkies! So there must have been a regular supply... trade!

[kbs2244]

I would also have to guess that the degree of sickness among Libyans or Egyptians was lower than the rat a insect laden European vessels.
They were just coming from a cleaner environment.
I would not be surprised if they carried bribes, trading goods of some kind, and translators.
Do to the lack of study we have no idea of how long it took them to get how far.

[Minimalist]

It doesn't have to be bubonic plague. Measels did a number on the Indians, too.

All you need is a "carrier."

[Minimalist]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/200806 ... MUE01.html

NEW YORK (AP) - Four men, one 29-foot rowboat - and about 3,200 miles to go. A team of rowers from the United Kingdom set out from the Hudson River on Sunday to try to cross the Atlantic Ocean. They hope to end at the Isles of Scilly, a group of small islands off England's southwestern tip.

The boat has an electronic tracking system, and a Web site dedicated to the effort says the rowers had gone 37 miles as of Sunday night. They hope to break a record of 55 days and 13 hours, set by two Norwegian-Americans in 1896.

The rowers are expected to take turns, with two people rowing in two-hour shifts and then switching off. They range in age from 19 to 43 and have been training for more than a year.

They are carrying about 1,500 freeze-dried meals and a device that can make saltwater safe to drink.

Solutrean hunters, not looking to set any speed records, could have easily (one suspects much more easily) travelled along the edge of the ice, getting water from ice and killing a seal every so often for food. Plus, if a storm came up they could seek refuge on the ice until the storm blew over.