RE: Humans in S America 22000 Years Ago?
May 12, 2013 at 1:38 pm
(This post was last modified: May 12, 2013 at 1:57 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(April 27, 2013 at 7:37 pm)Minimalist Wrote: The winds and currents are right.
Fantastically demonstrated by Thor Heyerdahl when he and his crew built and -drifted- the Ra (a grass "sail"boat) from Africa to S. America (even though genetics later eradicated any chance of the hypothesis for which this project was undertaken to be true).
The technology existed and was very well developed much farther back then we previously imagined. Now, whether or not it was used, that's harder to pin down. It's been noted that grass boats in Africa and grass boats in S. America are remarkably similar - whether or not this has to do with the mechanics of what makes a boat a good boat or cultural transfer is far less vigorously established. I believe the current paradigm is that the oldest boats we have are 7-10k years old (logboats...and that says something) but some reasons that we don't find older boats are there, specifically in the case of boats made out of wood and grass. We do have plenty of stone "mystery tools" that -can- certainly be used to manufacture boats that are much older......but any concrete evidence that they actually -were- used to make boats...meh again.
IMHO, the issue of a means of conveyance..a boat, is much less troubling for any atlantic crossing than the logistics involved the farther in time we go back. Where did they get and stockpile the amount of food and water required and how would they have stored it? Why would they have undertaken such a trip (specifically..why leave a place in which so much food and water can be collected and set aside for the journey? A place in which such a craft could be manufactured?) and who backed it (again, specifically...who was just "ok": with watching all that industry and agriculture disappear into the horizon never to return so long ago?). The "Lost Fisherman" doesn't work for me. Fishermen load their boats with fish, not water. In fact, the last thing a fisherman is likely to want to see is a boat full of water. Planning for a long trip, I can't imagine why anyone would just expect to find food and water (though what I can imagine and what others so long ago expected..not the same thing). What scenario are we painting here, with an early atlantic crossing in the south?
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