Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#241

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:40 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #22

ilamont wrote: post #4

The Icelandic sagas suggest that the Norse engaged in cultural exchanges with the Indigenous groups of North America34. If these encounters indeed occurred, they may have had inadvertent outcomes, such as pathogen transmission7, the introduction of foreign flora and fauna species, or even the exchange of human genetic information. Recent data from the Norse Greenlandic population, however, show no evidence of the las…

I can imagine an indigenous woman having a fling with a viking and just rasing the kid in her village. No one the wiser. It would be impossible to know if this happened. Even if you found someone with both indigenous and Viking genetics, you don't know if it's because his great grandfather came from Norway in the 1920s. The history of early American immigration is absolutely fascinating, there was a story of a Chines…

My (Punjabi) great grandfther told the Census takers this in the twenties in Detroit. Worked like a charm apparently.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#242

Post by anthk » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:41 PM UTC

chestertn wrote: post #149

avgcorrection wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is meaningless since they did not write about it nor they stablished commerce. The first African to climb Mt. Everest, you say? Well he didn’t help build a network of base camps so I’m just going to say that it’s meaningless.

Yes. Meaningless. 1492? Very meaningful. One of the most important feats if not the most important of what we used to call the Age of Exploration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery This led to global trade that changed the face of the earth. It opened philosophical debates about human rights, the legality of wars, etc., which are still important today. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/school-salamanca/…

Yeah, we had the School of Salamanca, and the state-of-the-art Liberal Constitution from Cadiz, but somehow, we the Spaniards fuck things over spectacularly, as if we had a curse.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#243

Post by selimthegrim » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

AlotOfReading wrote: post #117

danjac wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the animals that were there mostly didn't contribute serious new ones Aren't syphilis and Lyme disease of New World origin?

There's quite a lot of debate over the precise origins of syphilis. I'm only peripherally familiar with the literature, but my understanding is that recent work suggests (but not concludes) that it might have been endemic to afroeurasia rather than or as well as the Americas. Lyme disease is indeed wholly American, but it's not epidemic or even particularly mortal.

Yaws is found in Africa and was there before 1492. But syphilis was in the Americas before 1492 as well..

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#244

Post by VHRanger » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

seph-reed wrote: post #210

VHRanger wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw that's based on "Guns, Germs and Steel" which is not very respected as an academic work

So, I just went down a rabbit hole of criticisms on Guns, Germs, and Steel... it's largely coming from the far left and far right. Very few moderates. The far left says it's a cop out on racism, blaming white evil on natural conditions. The far right says that it's too PC, that plenty of other places had the right conditions and gives no credit to culture or innovation. So both the far left and far right want to take…

Uh, go to a place like r/badhistory where they actually cite sources for their problems with it for a start

Actual academics have problems with it

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#245

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:43 PM UTC

jnwatson wrote: post #64

queuebert wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parallel evolution of two strains of smallpox might have meant still no immunity to the Spanish version several centuries later. And the diseases were only a small factor in the outcome of the colonization. Guns being a much larger factor, for example.

Between “discovery” and permanent settlement of the continental US, an estimated 55 million Native Americans died of disease. [1] The colonization of North America would have gone quite differently with that many folks to contend with. 1. https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-changed-after-europe...

> estimated 55 million Native Americans died of disease

These estimates vary wildly, by more than a factor of 10.

One large source of error is the accounts by Spanish Conquistadors. They are suspected of greatly inflating the numbers they conquered, in order to boost their prestige back in Spain. It also seems doubtful their censuses were more than just wild guesses.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#246

Post by anthk » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:46 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #22

ilamont wrote: post #4

The Icelandic sagas suggest that the Norse engaged in cultural exchanges with the Indigenous groups of North America34. If these encounters indeed occurred, they may have had inadvertent outcomes, such as pathogen transmission7, the introduction of foreign flora and fauna species, or even the exchange of human genetic information. Recent data from the Norse Greenlandic population, however, show no evidence of the las…

I can imagine an indigenous woman having a fling with a viking and just rasing the kid in her village. No one the wiser. It would be impossible to know if this happened. Even if you found someone with both indigenous and Viking genetics, you don't know if it's because his great grandfather came from Norway in the 1920s. The history of early American immigration is absolutely fascinating, there was a story of a Chines…

Hispanic can be any race. Blacks in Cuba/Haiti, white in Argentina/Spain, mostly mixed across the pond, native South American, some Japanese descendants in Peru...

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#247

Post by anthk » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #39

999900000999 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine an indigenous woman having a fling with a viking and just rasing the kid in her village. No one the wiser. It would be impossible to know if this happened. Even if you found someone with both indigenous and Viking genetics, you don't know if it's because his great grandfather came from Norway in the 1920s. The history of early American immigration is absolutely fascinating, there was a story of a Chines…

> I can imagine an indigenous woman having a fling with a viking and just rasing the kid in her village. No one the wiser. Except everyone who saw the kid?

In Northern Spain sometimes you could even distinguish if someone who crossed behind you was an Spaniard, Portuguese, French or half-German over the day.

Heck, I can put several people in a photo from the North, the inner Castilles, the Eastern Mediterranean, Andalusia and Canary Islands and you could never, ever say every one in that photo would be from Spain.

We have been invaded over so many times from European tribes that we are utterly mixed.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#248

Post by CountDrewku » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #234

newfriend wrote: post #179

The media is really pushing this (and related) story hard this year. Anything to delegitimize Columbus.

... Good. Listening to the story in school it was obvious there was some stuff being glossed over; like, how did he discover America if there were people there already? ... And those people just gave their land to Europeans because ... ? And, in the years since grade school, the answer to those questions have led to darker questions, with dark answers. And oh shit, we're actually still pulling this shit. So again - g…

Ok then fuck the Vikings too. Do you realize how much violence and destruction they wrought?

At least keep your shit logically cohesive.

While you're at it do a little research on "indigenous" culture and how they treated each other. I assure you it wasn't butterflies and kisses before Columbus got here.

> how did he discover America if there were people there already

He discovered it in relation to Europeans who didn't know of its existence. This is one of the dumbest things I've read today. Your take would mean literally nothing could be discovered.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#249

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:49 PM UTC

hapticmonkey wrote: post #189

chestertn wrote: post #41

There are plenty of valid claims that many other civilizations contacted America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_co... But it is meaningless since they did not write about it nor they stablished commerce. The fact is that before 1492, most civilizations in Africa/Asia/Europe did not know that America existed and that other humans lived there. After 1492, that changed forever.

That's like saying The Apollo moon missions were meaningless because they failed to set up commercial hub on the moon.

I hate to say it, but in a sense, they were meaningless because there was no followup. We haven't had a machine that could even get us back there for 50 years now.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#250

Post by mkrazzledazzle » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 11:56 PM UTC

So what? This news reads to the rest of the world as.. Europeans squabbling between each other as to who amongst them first visited a continent they'd previously not known about, already brimming with other populations of humans. End of story. It's 2021 folks, no one cares about eurocentric land grab claims.