Egyptian Glyphs in Australia???

[jw1815]

Were horses all that big in Egypt?.

Not until the Hyksos introduced them - around 1650 BC. Donkeys were more commonly used for transporting people and goods before that, and afterward, as well. Donkeys would have been useful for transporting goods from ships to inland destinations in America.

My point is that, if there was an extensive trade over a long time period, a two-way exchange of natural and man-made goods would have occurred. When people have extensive trade with or relocation to a new region, they take with them the things they're familiar with from home. Vikings took sheep and cattle to Greenland. Spanish took horses to America. Polynesian sailors took pigs to Hawaii. I wouldn't expect to see such items in a first, accidental discovery of a place, but over a long period of interchange, traders - especially Phoenicians, who RS suggested - tended to set up local trading posts of their own people living in the land they traded with, who would have brought with them or requested some comforts of home.

[Edit: I fixed your quote tags, jw. Min.]

[jw1815]

I suspect the Phoenicians and/or Minoans

Why Minoans?

If Egyptians, Phoenicians, or Minoans had extensive trade contact with America, wouldn’t an interchange of plant and animal life also have occurred, as well as some technologies? Things like Egyptian lotus flowers in America (especially in a drug motivated exchange), plus cattle, sheep, goats, pottery wheel, plow.

Two things suggest to me a possibility of Near Eastern presence in Mesoamerica, as a result of isolated shipwrecks rather than extensive trade – the spiral pattern seen in Mesoamerican décor on buildings, and the little wheeled carts in Mexico that look like children’s toys to modern eyes. The spiral pattern is commonly found also in the eastern Mediterranean, around the Greek islands. But, a symbol like that could be independently developed and used as decor. The wheeled carts are more specific, less easily explained.

I can imagine an occasional Phoenician ship on the western coast of Africa getting off course, maybe in the wind and water currents that carry tropical storms and hurricanes to the Americas. But I don’t see a long term, back and forth trade. It would have created a larger exchange of human-made and natural goods.

[Minimalist]

Not until the Hyksos introduced them

Makes sense. I had no recollection of tomb art or statuary from the Old Kingdom depicting horses. Saves me a lot of trouble looking for what is not there.

[Minimalist]

I can imagine an occasional Phoenician ship on the western coast of Africa getting off course, maybe in the wind and water currents that carry tropical storms and hurricanes to the Americas.

Again, a discussion that has gone on before and it is important to lose ideals of 17th century and later sailing ships. Ancient ships rarely sailed out of sight of land and usually put into port (or the shore if no port was available) for the night. This allowed them to forage for supplies and cook their meals on land...which tended to minimize the number of ship-board fires. Theoretically, a ship blown westward by steady winds could survive but it is problematical that the crew would have enough water/food to make it. Depends on what their cargo was, I suppose.

Then there is the whole problem of getting back. Previous discussions of prevailing winds show that catching the westerlies is fairly easy but you have to know to sail along the American coasts either north or south to catch the easterlies.

The same pattern also works for Africa. Winds and currents from roughly the Ivory Coast region could drive a ship across and the distance is much shorter (and thus survivable) for the sailors. Again, getting back is dicier.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] getting back is dicier.

Imo it would take only one ship that found the easterlies – even if by accident – and got back to get the word out that return trips were possible. Only one ship of the hundreds, or possibly even thousands, that got blown off course and to the New World, that would make it back, would be enough to change the (sailor's) world view of the day.
There is, however, another, complicating aspect to this scenario: if you found extremely profitable cocaïne, tobacco, and other trade goods on the other side you would probably keep it's source, and how to get there and back, very secret!

[Sam Salmon]

......Ancient ships rarely sailed out of sight of land and usually put into port (or the shore if no port was available) for the night.

A very club-like statement if it was true then how was Monte Verde settled?

allowed them to forage for supplies and cook their meals on land...which tended to minimize the number of ship-board fires.

Ship board fires are big stuff for writers of historical fiction but IRL a bucket of sand is all that's needed to safely produce cooked food aboard ship-I've done this in large dugouts in Central America.

[Minimalist]

I was speaking about ancient European sailing in the Med, Sam, and

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... Navis.html

It is a general opinion that in the Homeric age sailors did not venture out into the open sea, but that such was really done is clear from the fact, that Homer makes Odysseus say that he had lost sight of land, and saw nothing but the sky and water (Od. XII.403; compare XIV.302; Virg. Aen. III.192, &c.), although on the whole it may be admitted, that even down to the historical times the navigation of the ancients was confined to coasting along the shore.

IT does make sense as you can generally get anywhere in the Med without getting out of sight of land with the exception of a couple of islands. They had no compass or rudder but if you sail along the coast you don't really need them. The knowledge of the captain would be paramount in this situation.

Monte Verde is a problem. Is it possible that a group sailed all the way around the Pacific, bypassed the entire coast of North and Central America and half of South America before deciding to land? Anything's possible. There could have been a whole series of settlements along the route which are now submerged by the rising sea but it seems equally possible that a band from Polynesia landed from the south after missing whatever was their original target. At least people are now investigating the possibilities and I guess we can be thankful for that.


As far as the fires at sea go, sure, it could have been done but "accidents" by definition almost, happen unexpectedly. If they were landing at night anyway why bother? While accounts of merchant voyages are rare we do have examples, such as Aegospotami where the Spartans caught the Athenian fleet on the beach and destroyed it. In fact, now that I think about it, I can't think of a single naval battle which took place in antiquity that was out of sight of land.

[Sam Salmon]

Monte Verde is a problem. Is it possible that a group sailed all the way around the Pacific, bypassed the entire coast of North and Central America and half of South America before deciding to land? Anything's possible.

No problem if they sailed from present day Australia.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking stone age people were primitives-remember the Polynesians who relatively recently settled much of Oceania using accumulated oral knowledge, simple boat building techniques and guts.

[Rokcet Scientist]

No problem if they sailed from present day Australia.

Yes problem if they sailed from Australia! It's just about the longest oceanic voyage conceivable (assuming a straight line for practical purposes; in reality multiply by 6, at least; by 20, more realistically) out of sight of land – there are no islands along that route! it's totally deserted open ocean – on the face of this earth!

It is the longest, most difficult transoceanic crossing imaginable. Still today.

[Sam Salmon]

No problem if they sailed from present day Australia.

Yes problem if they sailed from Australia!.......It is the longest, most difficult transoceanic crossing imaginable. Still today.

No problem if they knew what they were doing and as mentioned stone age people have proved they knew how to navigate long distances-are you being deliberately obtuse?

[Rokcet Scientist]

if they knew what they were doing

I have news for you, Sam: IF they did it, they most certainly DID NOT know what they were doing!
They had never done it before, you see...

and as mentioned stone age people have proved they knew how to navigate long distances-are you being deliberately obtuse?

No, you are being deliberately simple: an intercontinental voyage from Oz to Monte Verde is the longest and most difficult transoceanic crossing conceivable on the face of the earth. And for that reason alone it's also the least likely crossing. Basic logic.

[Sam Salmon]

Oh Ye of Little Faith That which was once done shall be done again, ancient knowledge of the heavens that guides ships in one sea shall guide them around all of urth.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Oh Ye of Little Faith That which was once done shall be done again, ancient knowledge of the heavens that guides ships in one sea shall guide them around all of urth.

Yeah, a lot has been written.
Most of it bullshit.
Starting with 'holy books'.

I'm not saying crossing from Oz to Monte Verde was impossible and/or never happened (say 20,000 or 50,000, or 500,000 BP). I'm saying that it is (by far) the least/last of the theoretic possibilities, and therefore (also by far) the least likely scenario.
Imo it is simply more productive to focus on physically simpler routes, like crossing Beringia, on foot!, or coastal hopping, or even island hopping. E.g. along the Aleutians, or through Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. We know they got as far as Easter Island about 1,000 BP/AD. That could have happened earlier too. Although the last stretch to south America, crossing the Humboldt Current, is an almost insurmountable obstacle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_current) to seafarers without engines or navigational tools. Kind of like, on land, the Andes range is/was for people on foot.

[Minimalist]

Don't fall into the trap of thinking stone age people were primitives

I don't consider them "primitives", Sam. They survived under conditions which would kill most of us in a month or less. Nor do I expect to find evidence for 800,000 year old boats because the materials needed for boats simply could not survive that long. By deduction (if not by evidence) a sea voyage to South America seems ultimately more likely than walking around around the edge.

But, I also doubt that there was any 'intent' to sail from Australia to Monte Verde. More likely, someone was going somewhere else and got caught up by the winds or currents and blown ashore. Food is obtainable by fishing but water is the bigger problem. These were humans and they would have needed fresh water. Can one count on the random chance of running into a rain storm to replenish one's supply? Then again, perhaps only those who did encounter such a storm survived to make landfall. The rest perished.

So it goes.

[Rokcet Scientist]

If they drifted they would never have made landfall in south America, Min. Neither dead nor alive. Look at the Humboldt Current in that map. (Sufficiently capable) propulsion and steering are absolute prerequisites to cross it. Without those it is totally impossible.