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Just a reminder of Amazing Astronomical Discoveries from Ancient Greece.
The Histories by Herodotus (484BC to 425BC) offers a remarkable window into the world as it was known to the ancient Greeks in the mid fifth century BC. Almost as interesting as what they knew, however, is what they did not know. This sets the baseline for the remarkable advances in their understanding over the next few centuries – simply relying on what they could observe with their own eyes.
Herodotus claimed that Africa was surrounded almost entirely by sea. How did he know this? He recounts the story of Phoenician sailors who were dispatched by King Neco II of Egypt (about 600BC), to sail around continental Africa, in a clockwise fashion, starting in the Red Sea. This story, if true, recounts the earliest known circumnavigation of Africa, but also contains an interesting insight into the astronomical knowledge of the ancient world.
The voyage took several years. Having rounded the southern tip of Africa, and following a westerly course, the sailors observed the Sun as being on their right hand side, above the northern horizon. This observation simply did not make sense at the time because they didn't yet know that the Earth has a spherical shape, and that there is a southern hemisphere.
[...] Sadly, the vast majority of these works were lost to history and our scientific awakening was delayed by millennia. As a tool for introducing scientific measurement, the techniques of Eratosthenes are relatively easy to perform and require no special equipment, allowing those just beginning their interest in science to understand by doing, experimenting and, ultimately, following in the foot steps some of the first scientists.
One can but speculate where our civilisation might be now if this ancient science had continued unabated.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @02:12AM (6 children)
Nearly every city in the Eastern Mediterranean, and therefore every center of learning, was destroyed by a series of wars [explorethemed.com] around 1200BC. There is evidence that transatlantic trade networks existed before then. Traces of cocaine and tobacco have been found in Egyptian mummies [ancient-origins.net], and somebody was mining a large amount of copper in Michigan [grahamhancock.com] from 2400 BC until... 1200 BC, when the trans-Atlantic market would have collapsed and also when iron weapons were introduced by the Hittites.
The Michigan copper had also been mined during an earlier period from 4500BC - 3500BC [eos.org], which suggests that somebody remembered this location in a thousand-year-old legend and went back to find it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 23 2020, @05:08AM (2 children)
Even if true, there are other plants that produce cocaine. For example, a quick google found that the genus Erythroxylum (~200 tropical flowering plants, including the coca bush) is spread worldwide with species in South America, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Yemen. Erythroxylum socotranum is an endangered species [earthsendangered.com] from Yemen. I was unable to determine whether the plant produces cocaine in detectable amounts, but it's part of a genus that has a number of cocaine-producing plants and it's pretty close to Egypt.
Similarly, nicotine appears in other plants as well:
Eggplant, for example, is thought to have originated in India or Africa. So just on this first link, we have alternate possible sources for cocaine and nicotine that don't require global trade.
The links about mining copper don't tell us anything because copper would be mined anyway, whether or not there was trade with the Old World. But what is telling is a number of missing things: the complete absence of any goods from the Old World, a similar absence of diseases from the Old World, no existence of copper in a transportable form such as oxhide ingots [wikipedia.org], and no shipwrecks.
Here's the claim that supposes a substantial source of copper to have come from the New World:
However, the abstract for the actual research [uchicago.edu] in question ("On the Structure and Composition of Copper and Tin Ingots Excavated from the Shipwreck of Uluburun" by Andreas Hauptmann, Robert Maddin, and Michael Prange):
So it turns out that the metal was remelt from copper smelting, contrary to the earlier claim.
So sorry, but none of your links support your assertion that there was any sort of global trade with the New World. It really bears remarking here that boat technology of the time in the eastern Mediterranean just didn't have the range to go to the New World. For example, you would need boats with high cargo to crew ratios - that means few or no rowers, good stability in deep ocean weather, and good sail configurations (since most of the speed would have to come from sails). You'd also need good navigation skills on deep ocean since you could go weeks without seeing land - it's notable that the ships of the time were typically operated near land. It's far from impossible since the Austronesian had similar technology, but were able to sail all over the South Pacific, even in 1200 BC.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @05:40AM (1 child)
Khallow in his natural element! Offering obvious rebuttals to an Atlantean!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:55PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @11:55AM (2 children)
Copper wasn't mined in the Keweenaw Peninsula until colonization. Rather, the area is so rich in it, they would just pick up a blue rock and polish it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 23 2020, @07:53PM (1 child)
The significant of Keweenaw copper is that it is native copper [wikipedia.org]. It's not a blue rock that you'd have to smelt to get the copper out. It's (nearly) pure copper just waiting for someone to pick it up. If you had read the linked studies, you would see that they determining mining happened because of the significant spiking of lead in lake sediment. Only known cause in that part of the world is human mining of the copper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2020, @03:00AM
Mining the copper would be stupid though, because it was already on the surface, everywhere. You can still find copper up there just walking. They also didn't smelt metals at all, unless that technology was somehow lost and yet never shows up at all in the archaeological record, which clearly shows trade of that same copper across the US.