(August 12, 2012 at 11:48 am)cratehorus Wrote:(August 12, 2012 at 11:14 am)Chuck Wrote: Obviously, if Romans recorded such a claim, subsequent history would be very different.
However, based on pure technical ability, I think it is not implausiible.
I think it's more likely the Romans tried and failed. Roman history is very well recorded, and they had no evidence of any form of food preservation, so they likely would have died before making it there.
The biggest mystery right now is who founded the Olmecs? Was it the Mande? The Chinese? The Norse?.... They would be placed at 1500 BC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec_alter...eculations
1500 BC is long before any hint of Norse or anything easily classifiable as Chinese. So I have to go with olmecs founded the olmecs.
As to roman records, their survving records might seem voluminous for some periods like 1st century AD, but even then they were vastly short of comprehensive. In 2nd century AD, when the empire was arguably at its zenith, surviving records seems to have falling pitifully spotty.
As to food preservation, some form of preservation undoubtedly happened. Salting, drying, etc. it's by no means clear the Romans could not have fed themselves on reasonably long sea trips should they have planned for it in the first place.
