Isaac

Sorry if this has been posted before; I didn't see it anywhere.

Who really discovered America? Most people praise Columbus for it, but I've been reading up lately on how it might've been the Chinese. What they're saying now is that before Columbus discovered America, the emporer of China sent out a massive fleet to map the entire world, and they did so. But when they got back years later, there was a new emporer, and he ordered all their findings destroyed.

What do you think?

Lpspider

I don't know for sure. It might have been the Chineese, but I was under the impression that it was some people that are from the Viking line. I know they were there before Columbus, but I'm not sure if others were there before them.

MafiaMaster

Are people forgetting that people followed the cattle from Russia through Alaska and then down into the Americas? The last Ice Age, the Wooly Mammoths and Mastedons traveled across the ice sheet that was connecting Alaska to Russia? Couldn't these nomads be considered the 'first people to discover America?' Then again, I suppose when people say discover, they mean discover to the already known world and then send the information back to that area. I don't know...I consider the nomads that traveled to America thanks to the Ice Age the ones who discovered America.

tedkaw

I agree that if this story is correct, the travelers across the Berring Straight would be the true discovers of America. However, something is telling me there were inhabitants of our Continent before they arrived. North and South American is a huge makeup of land... there's no way it was all barren before the land bridge.

EvolvedSaurian

Are you talking about 1421? Sorry, no. Zheng He and his fleet mainly went to the coast of Africa and India. A power struggle in the palace led to the files being stored away, while the ships (quite a bit larger than Columbus' ships) were left to rot.

The first contact since the ice age is widely disputed. The most common consensus is Leif Ericsson and the Vinland colony.

Other suggestions have included Romans, Carthaginians, Welsh*, Irish**, Celts***, Greeks or Africans****.

*Due to similarities between Welsh and a Native American language, forgot which one.
**St. Brendan
***Roman-era Celts
****Certain Mesoamerican statues seem to feature black African faces.

EvolvedSaurian

The oldest confirmed datings are 11,000ya.

However there are a few sites that have been dated to a far as 25,000ya. Inconclusively, of course.

Ragz

The folks who already lived here when the Europeans and Asians arrived some 50,000 years later.

Why Columbus is important is because his re-discovery led to the great migrations and colonizations of the 15th - 16th and 17th centuries. (The most profound event in world history) His landing made a difference...no one elses did....other than the aforementioned.

If I find a cure for cancer but then tell no one and die with the secret, then you come along and re-discover it, then share with the world, guess who is gonna get credit???

Belisarius

There is a theory gaining credibility that the migration over the Bering sea was not the first. The first migrants to enter America were apparently from France via canoe across the Atlantic.

Lord_Cronus

What timline are we looking at for this expedition? A canoe across the Atlantic is one hell of a feat. In responce to the Berring Straight, I don't think those who went across survived. Scientists are saying they've only found the genetic imprints of 70 people.

Nick

-Columbus?
-The explorers of the Middle Ages who claimed to have visited strange lands?
-The Chinese?
-Lief Eriksson?
-What about the ancestors of the Indians who came over from Asia during the last Ice Age?
Americe's been "discovered" and lost many times in history.