Columbus Day 2009

[Electronic God-Man]

Tomorrow is Christopher Columbus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus) Day in the USA and much of the Americas.

What's your take on the man and his voyages? We have a number of Iberians now and I would be interesting in hearing their thoughts especially.


http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~coacdar/member_page/Columbus_Ship.jpg
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/Christopher_Columbus6.jpg

[Damião de Góis]

I think he is someone who got lost and got lucky. His plan was refused by Portugal because our king knew it was crazy to reach India by the west. Other than that he is alright :P

[Electronic God-Man]

517 years ago the world became more connected than ever before. Columbus's voyages, the subsequent New World outposts and colonies made by European powers, and the population transfers from all continents are a direct ancestor of today's multiculturalism and globalization.

[Loddfafner]

I am tired of seeing Latino protesters in the US marching against Columbus Day because it is a symbol of gringo oppression. Columbus never got to the USA, and besides, the Spanish conquest was what created the Latino.

[Comte Arnau]

To me, he was a Catalan-speaking wise guy from the Crown of Aragon, who probably got the knowledge about lands being westwards before sailing there, not just by chance.

[Electronic God-Man]

I am tired of seeing Latino protesters in the US marching against Columbus Day because it is a symbol of gringo oppression. Columbus never got to the USA, and besides, the Spanish conquest was what created the Latino.

Yes, exactly. On one hand they hate Columbus, but on the other it is the Spanish (and Portuguese) conquest of Latin American that created them and their culture.

I witnessed a very odd thing in Mexico. I was at a show that was about the Spanish coming to Mexico and encountering the natives. When the conquistador actors came on stage and knocked down the native idols and replaced them with crosses there seemed to be some tension among the Mexican crowd. I could almost feel them wondering whether or not they should be happy or sad. I heard a few stray shouts of approval and a few boos as well. However, this tension passed once the actor playing an Indian who played the flute accompanied one of the conquistadors who was playing a Spanish guitar. This symbolic merging of cultures and blood was something, finally, that all the Mexicans in attendance could accept as their own whereas before they didn't wholly recognize themselves in either the conquistador or the Indian.

[Loddfafner]

The founder of Mexico was an Aztec woman called La Malinche by some and La Chingada (literally: the one who got fucked) by others. She shacked up with Cortez, bore him a son, and told him how to bring down the Aztec empire.

[Damião de Góis]

To me, he was a Catalan-speaking wise guy from the Crown of Aragon, who probably got the knowledge about lands being westwards before sailing there, not just by chance.

Hum.... it could be. But why didn't he sell his idea with that information to Portugal and Castille when he proposed his plan? And why did he and his crew started to call everyone "indians" when they arrived in the new world?

[Comte Arnau]

Hum.... it could be. But why didn't he sell his idea with that information to Portugal and Castille when he proposed his plan? And why did he and his crew started to call everyone "indians" when they arrived in the new world?

He proposed it to Portugal first indeed. In fact, the Portuguese king took profit from the info and sent sailors to follow the route said by Columbus, but apparently they came back without having reached new lands.

Oh, I'm not saying he knew it was a new continent, what I'm saying is that he had some previous information about the existence of lands beyond those seas. He had been sailing a lot as a pirate, and he very likely knew the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the west coast of Africa, but also Iceland and Greenland, where he probably heard about Terranova (Newfoundland), and it is quite possible that he took part in the Danish-Portuguese expedition via Iceland and Greenland to find a passage to Asia through the North-West in 1476, since he wrote:
He navegado en el mes de Febrero del 1476 hasta cien leguas más alla de la isla de Thule 'I have sailed in the month of February 1476 until a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule' (Thule meant either Iceland or Greenland in those times)

[Guapo]

who probably got the knowledge about lands being westwards before sailing there, not just by chance.

Most likely he did hear of the Viking voyages and possibly even St. Brendan and the Irish monks.


And why did he and his crew started to call everyone "indians" when they arrived in the new world? they thought they were in India. Turkish occupation of the Balkans and Constantinople forced people to find a new route to India hence his voyages.

[Comte Arnau]

they thought they were in India.

Not necessarily in India, but in the Indies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Indies) (or East Indies), what we'd call today South-East Asia. I guess that's how the Portuguese explorers called those lands east of India when they explored them in the 15th century, so that in practice Indian could be understood as a partial synonym of Asian.

[Loyalist]

;)

http://i37.tinypic.com/jz8fo8.jpg

[Sol Invictus]

Natives kicked their asses to the curb, Loy.

[Loyalist]

Natives kicked their asses to the curb, Loy.

That has nothing to do with anything, and would have been avoided had Ericson brought a sufficient fighting force. The point is, he was the first confirmed European to reach North America, beating Columbus by 500 years. Yet another demonstration of Nordic superiority.

[Treffie]

That has nothing to do with anything, and would have been avoided had Ericson brought a sufficient fighting force. The point is, he was the first confirmed European to reach North America, beating Columbus by 500 years. Yet another demonstration of Nordic superiority.

*Tongue firmly planted in cheek*

[Inese]

;)

http://i37.tinypic.com/jz8fo8.jpg
lol yes!! :D ^_^ When is Nord Erikson day?? :wink

[Loki]

lol yes!! :D ^_^ When is Nord Erikson day?? :wink

You mean Leif Ericson? Or the guy from Skadi? :D

[Thorum]

What do I think of Columbus Day? It should be done away with and 9 October becoming the proper celebration!!:

Leif Erikson Day!! (http://www.nnleague.org/erikssonday.htm)

http://ingolf-biehusen.homepage.t-online.de/island/is396_18_leif_eriksson.jpg

[Guapo]

You mean Leif Ericson? Or the guy from Skadi? :D

:rotfl :rofl: :pound:

[Inese]

You mean Leif Ericson? Or the guy from Skadi? :D
Hm then i mean Leif Erikson!! :D I was reading to much in the screenshots thread of you in the members section and the messages of Sigurd!

[Electronic God-Man]

The Scandinavians didn't make much of their discovery in North America. The Iberians, on the other hand, sparked the Age of Discovery.

[Guapo]

What about the Irish...

http://history.howstuffworks.com/north-american-history/irish-monk-america.htm

[Electronic God-Man]

What about the Irish...

http://history.howstuffworks.com/north-american-history/irish-monk-america.htm

Same. I don't get the obsession with finding out which European ethnicity was first to make contact with the Americas other than mere curiosity. There is also an argument for the Chinese, by the way.

But it really doesn't matter. None of them did what Spain and Portugal did, which led to the large-scale European colonization of the Americas.

[Guapo]

Same. I don't get the obsession with finding out which European ethnicity was first to make contact with the Americas other than mere curiosity. There is also an argument for the Chinese, by the way.

I was wondering what Americans think of these other arguments.

[Comte Arnau]

It is quite plausible that many a few stepped on the Americas long before Columbus and also before Vikings. Carthaginians, for instance. Obviously it only became important when it was a project backed up by the kings of a major power, and news could already reach far territories at relatively fast speed.

Anyway, the ones who probably stepped first on the Americas were a few strayed Australoids. And the first to do it en masse, the first waves that crossed the Bering Strait, obviously.

[Damião de Góis]

He proposed it to Portugal first indeed. In fact, the Portuguese king took profit from the info and sent sailors to follow the route said by Columbus, but apparently they came back without having reached new lands.

Oh, I'm not saying he knew it was a new continent, what I'm saying is that he had some previous information about the existence of lands beyond those seas. He had been sailing a lot as a pirate, and he very likely knew the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the west coast of Africa, but also Iceland and Greenland, where he probably heard about Terranova (Newfoundland), and it is quite possible that he took part in the Danish-Portuguese expedition via Iceland and Greenland to find a passage to Asia through the North-West in 1476, since he wrote:
He navegado en el mes de Febrero del 1476 hasta cien leguas más alla de la isla de Thule 'I have sailed in the month of February 1476 until a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule' (Thule meant either Iceland or Greenland in those times)

So you think he was perfectly aware that he wasn't in India? His plan was to reach India by the west...

[Comte Arnau]

So you think he was perfectly aware that he wasn't in India? His plan was to reach India by the west...

Again Alex, I'm saying that he had information about the distance and ways to arrive to those lands, not that he thought they weren't part of the Indies (SE Asia).

He was convinced about the world being spheric (not so accepted by everybody at the time), knew about the trade winds (os ventos alísios), so useful to go to America and return, and apparently had charts with the existence of land beyond some islands, with the real distance in miles to the New World.

[Beorn]

TAMPA, Fla. – Jeffrey Kolowith's kindergarten students read a poem about Christopher Columbus, take a journey to the New World on three paper ships and place the explorer's picture on a timeline through history.
Kolowith's students learn about the explorer's significance — though they also come away with a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.

"I talk about the situation where he didn't even realize where he was," Kolowith said. "And we talked about how he was very, very mean, very bossy."
Columbus' stature in U.S. classrooms has declined somewhat through the years, and many districts will not observe his namesake holiday on Monday. Although lessons vary, many teachers are trying to present a more balanced perspective of what happened after Columbus reached the Caribbean and the suffering of indigenous populations.
"The whole terminology has changed," said James Kracht, executive associate dean for academic affairs in the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development. "You don't hear people using the world 'discovery' anymore like they used to. 'Columbus discovers America.' Because how could he discover America if there were already people living here?"
In Texas, students start learning in the fifth grade about the "Columbian Exchange" — which consisted not only of gold, crops and goods shipped back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, but diseases carried by settlers that decimated native populations.

In McDonald, Pa., 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, fourth-grade students at Fort Cherry Elementary put Columbus on trial this year — charging him with misrepresenting the Spanish crown and thievery. They found him guilty and sentenced him to life in prison.
"In their own verbiage, he was a bad guy," teacher Laurie Crawford said.
Of course, the perspective given varies across classrooms and grades. Donna Sabis-Burns, a team leader with the U.S. Department of Education's School Support and Technology Program, surveyed teachers nationwide about the Columbus reading materials they used in class for her University of Florida dissertation. She examined 62 picture books, and found the majority were outdated and contained inaccurate — and sometimes outright demeaning — depictions of the native Taino population.

The federal holiday itself also is not universally recognized. Schools in Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and Seattle will be open; New York City, Washington and Chicago schools will be closed.
The day is an especially sensitive issue in places with larger native American populations.
"We have a very large Alaska native population, so just the whole Columbus being the founder of the United States, doesn't sit well with a lot of people, myself included," said Paul Prussing, deputy director of Alaska's Division of Teaching and Learning Support.
Many recall decades ago when there was scant mention of indigenous groups in discussions about Columbus. Kracht remembers a picture in one of his fifth-grade textbooks that showed Columbus wading to shore with a huge flag and cross.
"The indigenous population was kind of waiting expectantly, almost with smiles on their faces," Kracht said. "'I wonder what this guy is bringing us?' Well, he's bringing us smallpox, for one thing, and none of us are going to live very long."

Kracht said an emerging multiculturalism led more people to investigate the cruelties suffered by the Taino population in the 1960s and '70s, along with the 500th anniversary in 1992.
However, there are people who believe the discussion has shifted too far. Patrick Korten, vice president of communications for the Catholic fraternal service organization the Knights of Columbus, recalled a note from a member who saw a lesson at a New Jersey school.
The students were forced to stand in a cafeteria and not allowed to eat while other students teased and intimidated them — apparently so they could better understand the suffering indigenous populations endured because of Columbus, Korten said.
"My impression is that in some classrooms, it's anything but a balanced presentation," Korten, said. "That it's deliberately very negative, which is a matter of great concern because that is not accurate."

Korten said he doesn't believe such activities are widespread — though the lessons will certainly vary.
In Kolowith's Tampa class, students gathered around a white carpet, where they examined a pile of bright plastic fruits and vegetables, baby dolls, construction paper and other items as they decided what would be best for their voyage.
"Do you think it would be good to take babies on a long and dangerous boat ride?" he asked the class. "No!" they replied.
Fifteen miles away, in Seffner, Fla., Colson Elementary assistant principal Jack Keller visited students in a colonial outfit and gray wig, pretending to be Columbus and discussing his voyages. The suffering of natives was not mentioned.
"Our thing was to show exploration," he said.
Meanwhile, Crawford's Pennsylvania class dressed up as characters from the era, assigned roles for a mock trial and put Columbus on the stand. Out of a jury of 12 students, nine found him guilty of the charges.

"Every hero is somebody else's villain," said Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, a scholar and author of several books related to Columbus, including "1492: The Year the World Began."
"Heroism and villainy are just two sides of the same coin."


Source (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_us/us_teaching_columbus)


To me, he was a Catalan-speaking wise guy from the Crown of Aragon, who probably got the knowledge about lands being westwards before sailing there, not just by chance.

"The Island of Brasil, also known as Hy-Brasil or O'Brazil, is a mythical island that appeared on many sea charts from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries.[1] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) The name is of Gaelic origin, meaning 'Isle of the Blest', although, as the passage below demonstrates, it later became associated with brazilwood, a wood producing a high quality red dye that was known in the fifteenth century from imports from the Orient. The name has nothing to do with the modern country of Brazil, which acquired its name in the sixteenth century because it too was known for a tree which produced a red dye"


Hy-Brasil was typically located on charts as lying somewhere to the west of Ireland. The Island of Brasil is significant to the history of Bristol's early discovery voyages because the first known voyages from Bristol, in 1480 and 1481, involved expeditions to search for this mythical isle.[2] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) Moreover, when the Spanish ambassador, Pedro de Ayala, wrote to his sovereigns in 1498, he claimed that 'For the last seven years the people of Bristol have equipped two, three [and] four caravels to go in search of the island of Brazil and the Seven Cities'.[3] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) This suggests that Bristol had continued its search for Brasil after 1481. These expeditions are regarded as significant, in part, because it is generally supposed that John Cabot's 1496-98 voyages of discovery were launched from Bristol because of the port's established interest in Atlantic exploration, as evidenced by the Brasil expeditions.[4] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes)

Since the publication of the John Day letter in 1956, Bristol's voyages in search of Brasil have received greater attention. This was because, in his letter to Christopher Columbus in the winter of 1497/8, Day suggested of Cabot's 1497 expedition that 'It is considered certain that the cape of the said land was found and discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found 'Brasil' as your Lordship well knows. It was called the Island of Brasil, and it is assumed and believed to be the mainland that the men from Bristol found.'[5] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) These comments have often been interpreted as evidence that Bristol mariners had discovered America prior to 1497.[6] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) Some historians, such as Dr Alwyn Ruddock, have argued that such a discovery occurred but that Bristol's mariners were subsequently unable to find their way back to America.[7] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) By contrast, Prof David Beers Quinn posited that the 1480/81 expeditions were successful with Bristol men discovering North America at or around this time.[8] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) Quinn argued that this discovery was not publicised because Bristol's merchants wished to keep secret the rich cod fisheries they had found off the north east coast of America.

In 1971, Harvey L. Sharrer (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/Harvey%20L.%20Sharrer), wrote a short research note that bears on the debate.[9] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) Sharrer's paper concerned an entry in a Spanish Basque chronicle written by Lope García de Salazar (1399-1476). The entry in question must have been written before Salazar's death in 1476 and may have been written considerably earlier, given that it is found in the eleventh of this twenty-five 'book' chronicle. The entry concerns the island where the legendary King Arthur was supposed to have been buried following his final battle. While most accounts give this as Avalon, Salazar suggests Arthur's resting place was the Island of Brasil. Salazar finishes his account by noting that he has heard from certain Englishmen that a ship from Bristol had at one time found this isle but the mariners had subsequently been unable to relocate it. Sharrer took this as evidence that Bristol mariners had in fact discovered some unknown land to the west of Ireland. Since no islands lie between Ireland and North America, the account, if the story Salazar retold did relate to a genuine voyage, would provide further evidence that Bristol men had discovered North America before John Cabot's 1497 expedition.

The Salazar account of the Bristol voyage is clearly significant to 'discovery history' and would remain so even if it were assumed to be a myth, rather than as an elaborated account of an actual voyage. Unfortunately, the publication of Sharrer's article went unnoticed for a long time by those interested in the history of Bristol's discovery voyages. This was probably because the article had been published in a philological journal devoted to romance languages that was not likely be be read by maritime historians. As a result, even Prof David Beers Quinn, the doyen of English discovery history, only became aware of Sharrer's article in 1992. This followed Quinn's reading of an article in The Independent, a British newspaper, by Dr J. Witherington of Lancaster University. Having read Sharrer's article, Quinn started to write a research note about the Salazar account.[10] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) Although he abandoned this note, he did discuss Sharrer's findings at the Annual Lecture for the Society for Nautical Research, which he gave in November 1992.[11] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) It seems likely that Quinn decided not to publish his note, because, just before he gave this lecture, he found out that Alwyn Ruddock was at last making moves to publish her long-awaited book on the voyages of John Cabot. It appears that he therefore felt it sufficient to pass Sharrer's article on to Ruddock, so she could incorporate the information into her book. It is at least the case that, on 10 November, he wrote of Ruddock that 'I have a piece of information for her that I will send as soon as I have given the SNR Lecture', while, a couple of months later, Dr Ruddock wrote to Quinn to say that:
'I was very surprised and pleased to read the article from ROMANIA you sent me before Christmas. This Spanish version of the Isle of Brasil is quite new to me and will be valuable too. The discovery was already reported and put on record in Italy before 1470 so the evidence from both Spain and Italy support each other convincingly, don't you agree?'[ (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes)12] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes)
The reference to 'the evidence from...Italy' presumably relates to Ruddock's claims, also made in other places, that she had found evidence, in an Italian source, that supported the notion that Bristol men had discovered America prior to 1497. Her letter to Quinn, however, appears to be the only known place where she associates a date with the the Bristol discovery.[13] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) Sadly, Ruddock never published and Quinn died in 2002. The only published mention of Sharrer's work is therefore a brief discussion by Dr A. N. Ryan. This closely follows the line of argument found in Quinn's unpublished note.[14] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes)

In 2007, Evan Jones (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Staff/jones.htm) found out about Quinn's unpublished note and this prompted him to read Sharrer's article. He then contacted Prof. Sharrer (University of California) to ask whether he would be prepared to produce an English translation of the Salazar text for this webpage. Prof Sharrer kindly agreed, providing the 'Comments on the text' and the 'Translation of Salazar's Account' given below.



That has nothing to do with anything, and would have been avoided had Ericson brought a sufficient fighting force. The point is, he was the first confirmed European to reach North America, beating Columbus by 500 years. Yet another demonstration of Nordic superiority.

Are the native Britons Nordic?

THE row over who discovered America has erupted again with claims that it was not Christopher Columbus nor even a Welsh prince 400 years earlier.
But historians are claiming that the true winner of the race to America was Welsh, and was a prince. But they say it happened in the sixth century, not the 12th.
Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett , who are leading experts on King Arthur, say the South Walian prince Madoc Morfran sailed in 562AD and made the discovery.
Madoc made his journey after a comet hit the Earth in the 500s, which Welsh scientists say caused famine and disease during that century.

It throws into doubt the academic theory which says another Madoc, the son of Owen Gwynedd, sailed to North America in 1170. It also predates Columbus's voyage in 1492.
Mr Wilson, from Cardiff, and Mr Blackett, from Newcastle, who have published five books on Welsh ancient history, claim British-style hill forts exist in Ohio, and that Welsh became integrated into Native American languages.
They say their research is backed up by records of Native American history which tell of a race of white men arriving in America around that time, as well as discoveries of Caucasian-like skeletons around Ohio.

Mr Wilson said, "There are old-style Welsh hill forts around the Ohio River valley that are patterned as they are in Britain.
"They have a lot of inscriptions out there, carved in caves and on artifacts which are in coelbren, the old Welsh alphabet mainly recorded in South-East Wales.
"The idea is that Madoc did go to America; the question then is, 'Which Madoc?'
"These voyages are described as mystical. There was a strange belief in the 19th century that the ancient British believed in another world. But that was what the Spanish called the New World."

Mr Wilson believes Madoc sailed across the Atlantic from Milford Haven, arriving in Newfoundland and sailing down the coast along Massachusetts and then around Florida.
The Welsh explorers then sailed to the Gulf of Mexico and joined the Mississippi River before continuing along the Ohio River and settling in Kentucky.
Mr Wilson said, "We are working with the Americans on this and what they are saying is the ditches around the mounds have been slowly filled in and they are getting down to the original level of the ditches where sixth century material is coming out.
"There is so much evidence. What we are saying is that this should be looked at.
"Madoc came back after 10 years, he then describes in well-known poetry this place he discovered.

"It is no good dismissing it as fairy tales, it must be done as clinically and honestly as we can.
"We are not jumping up and down and saying this should be believed straightaway, but there is very strong evidence. It is quite a story.
"Everybody forgets the Native American history which says a nation of white men arrived."
Astronomers at Cardiff University this year announced that the cause of poor crops and starvation in the 6th Century was a comet hitting the Earth.

Mr Wilson said Mr Blackett and he had made the discovery in the 1980s.
The comet caused a massive explosion in the upper atmosphere.
Debris from the giant blast enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the extremely cold weather - as would happen after an all-out nuclear war.
Mr Wilson added, "The affect of the massive catastrophe caused by debris from a comet falling on Britain in 562 ADcalls for a re-writing of British history."

For more information, log on to realhistoryonline.com.

[Loyalist]

Are the native Britons Nordic?

THE row over who discovered America has erupted again with claims that it was not Christopher Columbus nor even a Welsh prince 400 years earlier.
But historians are claiming that the true winner of the race to America was Welsh, and was a prince. But they say it happened in the sixth century, not the 12th.
Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett , who are leading experts on King Arthur, say the South Walian prince Madoc Morfran sailed in 562AD and made the discovery.
Madoc made his journey after a comet hit the Earth in the 500s, which Welsh scientists say caused famine and disease during that century.

It throws into doubt the academic theory which says another Madoc, the son of Owen Gwynedd, sailed to North America in 1170. It also predates Columbus's voyage in 1492.
Mr Wilson, from Cardiff, and Mr Blackett, from Newcastle, who have published five books on Welsh ancient history, claim British-style hill forts exist in Ohio, and that Welsh became integrated into Native American languages.
They say their research is backed up by records of Native American history which tell of a race of white men arriving in America around that time, as well as discoveries of Caucasian-like skeletons around Ohio.

Mr Wilson said, "There are old-style Welsh hill forts around the Ohio River valley that are patterned as they are in Britain.
"They have a lot of inscriptions out there, carved in caves and on artifacts which are in coelbren, the old Welsh alphabet mainly recorded in South-East Wales.
"The idea is that Madoc did go to America; the question then is, 'Which Madoc?'
"These voyages are described as mystical. There was a strange belief in the 19th century that the ancient British believed in another world. But that was what the Spanish called the New World."

Mr Wilson believes Madoc sailed across the Atlantic from Milford Haven, arriving in Newfoundland and sailing down the coast along Massachusetts and then around Florida.
The Welsh explorers then sailed to the Gulf of Mexico and joined the Mississippi River before continuing along the Ohio River and settling in Kentucky.
Mr Wilson said, "We are working with the Americans on this and what they are saying is the ditches around the mounds have been slowly filled in and they are getting down to the original level of the ditches where sixth century material is coming out.
"There is so much evidence. What we are saying is that this should be looked at.
"Madoc came back after 10 years, he then describes in well-known poetry this place he discovered.

"It is no good dismissing it as fairy tales, it must be done as clinically and honestly as we can.
"We are not jumping up and down and saying this should be believed straightaway, but there is very strong evidence. It is quite a story.
"Everybody forgets the Native American history which says a nation of white men arrived."
Astronomers at Cardiff University this year announced that the cause of poor crops and starvation in the 6th Century was a comet hitting the Earth.

Mr Wilson said Mr Blackett and he had made the discovery in the 1980s.
The comet caused a massive explosion in the upper atmosphere.
Debris from the giant blast enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the extremely cold weather - as would happen after an all-out nuclear war.
Mr Wilson added, "The affect of the massive catastrophe caused by debris from a comet falling on Britain in 562 ADcalls for a re-writing of British history."

For more information, log on to realhistoryonline.com.


The difference here is that this is merely speculation, wheras archaeological evidence has confirmed the presence of Norsemen in the Americas centuries before Columbus. That said, I have clarified many times that I use the term Nordic in a geographical sense; interchangeable with Northern, and the Britons are comfortably a Northern European group. I was not referring to individuals of the Halstatt physical type. If a Welshman was actually the first European to reach North America, even better, as I have no Icelandic ancestry, but I do have Welsh forbears. :thumb001:

[Beorn]

The difference here is that this is merely speculation, wheras archaeological evidence has confirmed the presence of Norsemen in the Americas centuries before Columbus.

As the article above mentioned also. http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Culture&F=1&id=5889


That said, I have clarified many times that I use the term Nordic in a geographical sense;

Ah, fair enough then, but what do you think of the theory that Egyptians were the first to discover the Americas?

[Comte Arnau]

"The Island of Brasil, also known as Hy-Brasil or O'Brazil, is a mythical island that appeared on many sea charts from the fourteenth to nineteenth centuries.[1] (http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/Maritime/Sources/1476brasil.htm#intronotes) The name is of Gaelic origin, meaning 'Isle of the Blest', although, as the passage below demonstrates, it later became associated with brazilwood, a wood producing a high quality red dye that was known in the fifteenth century from imports from the Orient. The name has nothing to do with the modern country of Brazil, which acquired its name in the sixteenth century because it too was known for a tree which produced a red dye"


Interesting. As I said, I'm quite sure that the Americas were already partially 'discovered' by other European or Euromediterranean people. It is even logical. In fact, even strayed West African boats could perfectly have reached it. Suspicious pre-Columbine non-Amerindian artifacts have been found. The fact is, the now apparently disliked word "discovery" should simply be replaced by "promotion in Europe".

[Loyalist]

As the article above mentioned also. http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Culture&F=1&id=5889

The evidence they present is circumstantial. A similar written alphabet or like-sounding language does not necessitate a connection. I remember an article at Skadi where an Amerindian tribe was shown to have a language almost identical to Hebrew, and speculation over the Lost Tribes of Israel started immediately. As for the Welsh, we will have to wait on those DNA tests.


Ah, fair enough then, but what do you think of the theory that Egyptians were the first to discover the Americas?

Bollocks. ;)

[Allenson]

Why do people always forget the Solutreans?! :033102st: ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis


http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/troufs/anth1602/images/solutreanbladetriplesmall.jpg

[Beorn]

The evidence they present is circumstantial.

Hardly circumstantial. If that is circumstantial then so is Leif Ericson's discovery. Afterall, like Madoc's discovery of America, all we have is Old Norse sources and a flaky Vinland map.
The case for Madoc's discovery vastly superior in validity due in part thanks to radio carbon dating and physical British style artefacts.


As for the Welsh, we will have to wait on those DNA tests.

We shall. I think they would surely be out already, but I can't find anything.

[Loyalist]

Hardly circumstantial. If that is circumstantial then so is Leif Ericson's discovery. Afterall, like Madoc's discovery of America, all we have is Old Norse sources and a flaky Vinland map.
The case for Madoc's discovery vastly superior in validity due in part thanks to radio carbon dating and physical British style artefacts.

Um, no, we have conclusive archaeological evidence for Ericson...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows


We shall. I think they would surely be out already, but I can't find anything.

It was probably inconclusive or disproven.

[Beorn]

Um, no, we have conclusive archaeological evidence for Ericson...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows

That's funny, because so do Alan Wilson and Baram A. Blackett. :)


It was probably inconclusive or disproven.

Probably. Just been doing some Googling around and nothing came up in concerns to it.

[Loyalist]

That's funny, because so do Alan Wilson and Baram A. Blackett. :)

No, they don't. :banghead:

[Beorn]

No, they don't. :banghead:

Of course they do.

[Electronic God-Man]

Here's a Wikipedia page where you can take a look at a bunch of different Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact) theories. Eat your hearts out.

[Beorn]

Thanks for that Seuth. Interesting reading. I thinks it's important to realise that a continent that size had been discovered and lost many times over in the course of human history. To declare one population discovered it before another is simply absurd, and in some cases smacks of fringe racial fanaticism.

[Beorn]

In Ferdinand Columbus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Columbus)' biography of his father Christopher, he says that in 1477 his father saw in Galway (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galway), Ireland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland) two dead bodies which had washed ashore in their boat. The bodies and boat were of exotic appearance, and have been suggested to have been Inuit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit) who had drifted off course.[64] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact#cite_note-63)

From that Wikipedia article, but it raised a memory of a recent article about body parts being washed up ashore in various locations. They were all feet, I think, and it was always one side landing in America/Canada and the other side in Europe.

[Hrolf Kraki]

The Scandinavians didn't make much of their discovery in North America. The Iberians, on the other hand, sparked the Age of Discovery.

The Age of Discovery? The Scandinavians had been there, done that 500 years prior.

The Scandinavians had a settlement at L'anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland from about 1000 to 1020, and had a long lasting settlement in Greenland. Evidence suggests that Norsemen crossed the Davis Strait for lumber as late as the 1340s. The Little Ice Age was responsible for the decline of Norse Exploration and Discovery. Eventually they were forced to abandon their settlements in Greenland due to the severe winters.

[Electronic God-Man]

Eventually they were forced to abandon their settlements in Greenland due to the severe winters.

...and thus all known European contact with the Americas ended. The Scandinavian colonies failed and not until the Iberians traveled to the Americas in the 15th century was contact restored. For good.