AHC: have a verified non Norse pre 1492 contact

samcster94

Banned
Other than the Norse, there is no unambiguous pre 1492 contact between the Americas. There is a hypothesis involving pre-literate Pacific Islanders and sweet potatoes, but the link is weaker in comparison. The POD is as soon as humans have boats, but it has to be a literate society of some kind. The colonizer does not have to make a major state that lasts, but have to leave a record similar to the Norse at minimum, like a settlement or two, weapons not of a Native American origins, and especially something in a written language. Bonus points if it is not a Chinese dynasty of any kind. For the purposes of this discussion, Mormon theology is not allowed as an answer as there is nothing to back it up, and non-Mormons widely recognize Joseph Smith as a fraud.
 
Last edited:
Why is the link weak?

It's not. Sweet potatoes on the islands, chicken skeletons in South America, it happened.

However, it is undocumented by the contemporary societies, so the details are shadowy, unlike the Norse contact.

The closest thing I can think of otl that might be a contact (and I don't think so) are the voyages of St. Brendan.

Still, it would be cool to do a whole Dark age Irish age of exploration tl that leaves NA speaking Gaelic.
 
It's not. Sweet potatoes on the islands, chicken skeletons in South America, it happened.

However, it is undocumented by the contemporary societies, so the details are shadowy, unlike the Norse contact.

The closest thing I can think of otl that might be a contact (and I don't think so) are the voyages of St. Brendan.

Still, it would be cool to do a whole Dark age Irish age of exploration tl that leaves NA speaking Gaelic.
An old Gealic-Native American merged culture would be interesting.
 
Basque fisherman were apparently sailing up to North America. Maybe have them create some sort of settlement or just a trade/fishing contact that they record. IIRC We know they had some minor contact.
 
Does it count if the verification comes centuries after the fact, or does it have to be known by the contemporaries?
 
Phoinicians/Carthagians could do that. Perhaps Greeks or Romans too but it is bit implausible when them hadn't such ships which could cross Atlantic. Altough it is possible that some Roman ship wanders on storm to South America or Caribbean, but it wouldn't find route home anymore.
 
Phoinicians/Carthagians could do that. Perhaps Greeks or Romans too but it is bit implausible when them hadn't such ships which could cross Atlantic. Altough it is possible that some Roman ship wanders on storm to South America or Caribbean, but it wouldn't find route home anymore.
IIRC it's been suggested that there may have been Roman "contact" with S.America that way. Obviously very speculative and difficult to prove at this point though.
 

ben0628

Banned
Well for Europe, there is always Carthage, maybe the Greeks or Romans. There is also the Basque. Also, perhaps the Knights Templar?

In Africa it is said that the king who ruled the Mali Empire immediately before Mansa Musa believed that there was land on the other side of the Atlantic and he himself attempted a crossing, but was never seen again.

As for Asia, idk China maybe?
 
The Polynesians could still count for this, if Rongorongo became more widespread and was actually translated. Hell, there could already be some accounts of South America in the existing records, we just haven't been able to translate them yet.
 

samcster94

Banned
It's not. Sweet potatoes on the islands, chicken skeletons in South America, it happened.

However, it is undocumented by the contemporary societies, so the details are shadowy, unlike the Norse contact.

The closest thing I can think of otl that might be a contact (and I don't think so) are the voyages of St. Brendan.

Still, it would be cool to do a whole Dark age Irish age of exploration tl that leaves NA speaking Gaelic.
I meant that it is not as set in stone as the Norse ones or as clear, but there is clear evidence. Dark Age Irish are a candidate, especially if you use the Warm Period and the agricultural changes of the era as a timeframe. China doing it is cliche, but Korea or pre-Shogun Japan doing it is more interesting. Also, Columbus being a year early is not a big enough change, albeit an unambiguous Portuguese contact before 1450 would be quite interesting. They had the ships for decades.
 
As for Asia, idk China maybe?

It is very implausible that any East Asian ship has ever landed to North America before Columbus. Travel is very long and sea currents not help that any. And Chinese haven't any reasons do that. There is some claims about Asian connections but there is not any evidences about that. Best possibilities are Ainu or Japanese fishers but about such hardly is clear evidences.
 
It is very implausible that any East Asian ship has ever landed to North America before Columbus. Travel is very long and sea currents not help that any. And Chinese haven't any reasons do that. There is some claims about Asian connections but there is not any evidences about that. Best possibilities are Ainu or Japanese fishers but about such hardly is clear evidences.

Well they wouldn't have landed deliberately, but the odds that Japanese fishermen (it could be any East Asians fishing off the coast in that part of the world) haven't at some point landed off the West Coast are rather high. I believe at some point archaeological evidence of a pre-1492 connection will be found.

But it's a one way trip, and even if they did make it home, it isn't like they're going to publicise it and get anyone to send more people over there to make a settlement even as small as the two Viking settlements in Newfoundland.
 
Basque fisherman were apparently sailing up to North America. Maybe have them create some sort of settlement or just a trade/fishing contact that they record. IIRC We know they had some minor contact.

The same with fisherman from Bristol England in the 1480s, I believe they were drying their catch onshore because salt for preserving fish was expensive in England.
 
The same with fisherman from Bristol England in the 1480s, I believe they were drying their catch onshore because salt for preserving fish was expensive in England.

The question is what impetus is there for a permanent settlement?
 
The question is what impetus is there for a permanent settlement?
Maybe you could have a tyrannical king give one of them the bright idea to go out "fishing" with their families and never go back, and this makes a trend in the Basques for escaping bad royals?
 
Polynesian colonization of the Galapagos which trades with Native Americans-difficult but possible. Even if the colony collapses or is absorbed by Native cultures, if it lasts until the rise of the Inca or some equivalent there will be an oral record of their presence recorded by Europeans, the Polynesian rat's existence on the Galapagos and subsequent extinction of most native mammals will be very unambiguous in the fossil record, and monument work equivalent to the Moai will be remarked upon by Europeans. If the colony survives until European contact (and even past that, though sadly that's not guaranteed) then hey presto, you have definitive proof of the Polynesian contact!

Currently the only evidence of pre-European human activity on those islands was pottery (lost to the east Polynesians) discovered by Thor Heyerdahl (so probably misinterpreted or outright faked).
 

samcster94

Banned
My earlier ideas were for alternate timelines not OTL, but I can see a possible Polynesian connection in OTL(the chicken bones, the sweet potato, a linguistic connection involving a word between indigenous peoples and Polynesians). This contact would be unambiguous if there were large numbers of pre 1492 rat bones and Europeans finding the rats.
 
Top