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Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

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361–370 of 408 posts

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

#361
I was curious how the solar storm giving radiocarbon works. It seems approx:

In the storm the sun chucks out hydrogen and helium ions.

>It is not uncommon for [these] to collide with an atom in the atmosphere, creating a secondary cosmic ray in the form of an energetic neutron, and for these energetic neutrons to collide with nitrogen atoms. When the neutron collides, a nitrogen-14 (seven protons, seven neutrons) atom turns into a carbon-14 atom (six protons, eight neutrons) and a hydrogen atom (one proton, zero neutrons).

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

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the Conquistador commanders sent back written reports, I doubt they were illiterate. And even if they were illiterate, they were trained by military people who were. And even if those were also illiterate, they were steeped in military traditions of discipline, organization, tactics, etc., that went back to the greeks. The way they operated was clear evidence of military sophistication.

> And even if those were also illiterate, they were steeped in military traditions of discipline, organization, tactics, etc., that went back to the greeks. And why couldn't, say, the Inca draw on the Wari, who could draw on the Moche, who could draw on the Chavin, who date back even before the Greeks? The problem with claiming the utility of writing in developing military tactics is that Western Europe doesn't have…

No, you are wrong. The Western Europe inherited a lot of experience, tactics and fighting methods from the Roman empire.

And OFC from their enemies.

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

#363

Scandinavians are pretty proud of this fact. Look up Leif Erikson, supposedly the first European to set foot in America, 500 years before Columbus.

Seems like a weird thing to be proud of. "We found this whole new continent, sparsely populated and rich with all kinds of resources, but only explored a tiny piece of it and then basically ignored it/forgot about it." I suppose it's better than "We found a whole new continent, killed vast numbers of inhabitants, and then brought over millions of others to subject to horrific abuse".

It showed they had decent boats a long time ago though.

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

#364

An interesting counter-factual that comes to mind - if the Norse Greenlanders had brought smallpox or other diseases with them, then Native Americans would have had 500 years to recover (and keep immunity?) - The conquistadors would have faced millions of not-dying-natives. A much different world would have resulted.

I do think about that idea as well, but population density (on both sides) is an important factor though. Both the Vikings and the native populations had far lower population densities than, say, 15-century Spain and Italy, which is likely why the diseases didn't spread in the first place. Mesoamerica a few centuries later did end up having the density required for disease transfer as history shows, but it was also h…

> If the Spanish hadn't ever set foot on shore and the Mesoamerican society was allowed to develop, they would likely have developed their own diseases and the subsequent immune response, which may have helped fight Smallpox.

The most charitable reading of this is "if cowpox, monkeypox or some other zoonotic pox virus had an opportunity to spread through Mesoamerican society, they might've fared better with smallpox."

A less charitable reading is "they might've faired better with smallpox if they had some other disease exposure prior to invasion."

Either of these cases seems implausible. I don't know of any pox virus from the Americas that provides immunity to smallpox. In Europe we know that cowpox provided immunity among milkmaids. We also know that it didn't spread between people. There's no reason to believe that the only missing element was time for some other pox to emerge. As for the less charitable reading, prior infection with a pathogen is unlikely to provide any benefit against an unrelated pathogen. In the decades after smallpox swept through Aztec society the Cocoliztli epidemics killed twice again as many people.

Fundamentally the problem was the introduction of a virus with a high mortality rate to an immunologically naive population. There's a major difference between a disease killing 50% of your under 12 population and 50% of everyone. The former is a disaster, the latter will collapse society, particularly one already fighting against an invasion.

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

#365

An interesting counter-factual that comes to mind - if the Norse Greenlanders had brought smallpox or other diseases with them, then Native Americans would have had 500 years to recover (and keep immunity?) - The conquistadors would have faced millions of not-dying-natives. A much different world would have resulted.

Not really. The disease was a important bio-weapon, but the technological gradient was what allowed the conquering and exploiting. There was no basis for a American Native Confederacy and a renaissance like fast build up towards a industrial basis. None of the American Native Factions ever showed the reaction that japan had - which is the only correct approach to a invading external force with technological superiority.

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

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I enjoyed this paper on the origins and distribution of Treponema (the bug that causes syphilis and a few other skin diseases). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956094/

I'm surprised that paper got published, considering the basic spelling errors ("jaws" for "yaws") and errors of fact ("Española Island…a part of the Galápagos Islands").

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

#367

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.

A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/09/25/a-monk-in-14th-century-italy-wrote-about-the-americas There was an interesting recent Economist story about that. There is a 14th century Italian monk that did write about Newfoundland based on the oral testimony of “sailors who frequent the seas of Denmark and Norway”. It is possible Columbus was aware of this.

Discussed here a few weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28648793

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

#369
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn’t find out what was going on until the 20th century… Before that they thought it was God’s judgment on the heathens or something.

They sent blankets used by infected people. They didn't understand germ theory, but they understood contagion.

I acknowledged that much, but my point is they had no idea that these “new people” had no immunity and that the sickness would tear through the population so effectively. Moreover, “they” isn’t “all Europeans”—we need to be careful who we blame or else we verge on racism ourselves.

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

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I enjoyed this paper on the origins and distribution of Treponema (the bug that causes syphilis and a few other skin diseases). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3956094/

I'm surprised that paper got published, considering the basic spelling errors ("jaws" for "yaws") and errors of fact ("Española Island…a part of the Galápagos Islands").

> considering the basic spelling errors ("jaws" for "yaws")

Missing a single erroroneous instance of a word that won't get caught by spell check may be embarrassing, but it's hardly material.

> ("Española Island…a part of the Galápagos Islands")

https://www.galapagos.org/about_galapagos/about-galapagos/th...

What is the error here?

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