Ancient Greeks in the Americas

the 'usual suspects' for Greeks/Roman/Carthaginians/etc. in the new world are older books and authors; "Long Before Columbus" by Hans Holzer, "America BC" by Barry Fell, "Columbus Was Last" by Patrick Huyghe, and "They All Discovered America" by Charles Boland. A lot of them discuss the Mystery Hill site in New England, as well as assorted other supposed stone artifacts. Needless to say, none of them are considered to be correct by the vast majority of historians...
I was under the impression that the most popular Pre-Columbian visitor theory for Mystery Hill were the Irish monks called Culdees who tend to be fairly popular in older local literature of this kind. Never heard of any of the "big shot" ancient civilizations being used as an explanation for what is really a pile of stones made by farmers, although even ignoring that I somehow have a much easier time imagining Culdees coming here than I do imagining an ancient Greek trireme somehow rowing its way to this region. Although I guess I may have heard something vague about Carthaginians being behind "America's Stonehenge", but I'm also pretty sure that 99% of people who talk about pseudohistory have no concept of who the Carthaginians were besides a convenient excuse for voyages.
 
. Never heard of any of the "big shot" ancient civilizations being used as an explanation for what is really a pile of stones made by farmers,
Mystery Hill is very very unlikely to be from an ancient civilization or even a Pre-Columbian one.... but... it is a weird place. Even people who dismiss it's ancient origins note that the place is a rather odd collection of stone buildings and walls, unlike most other Colonial stonework. So the real mystery is why they built such a place...
 
Mystery Hill is very very unlikely to be from an ancient civilization or even a Pre-Columbian one.... but... it is a weird place. Even people who dismiss it's ancient origins note that the place is a rather odd collection of stone buildings and walls, unlike most other Colonial stonework. So the real mystery is why they built such a place...
I've been there a few times, it's about a 20 minute or so drive from where I am now, and I can say it's not incredibly bizarre or eerie far as I remember. Also not sure I'd describe anything there as a "building", although I think the person who dubbed it Mystery Hill might've attempted to pile some of the stones in imitation of one. Thing is there's long stone walls all over the place here put up by farmers to delineate land demarcations, and the stones are super easy to come by since they'd just be running into one after another each time they try to plow. And eventually some farmer in Salem must've been feeling a little creative so they made a little project that later generations became rather fascinated by. That's my theory anyway, and it seems the likeliest one.
 
I've been there a few times, it's about a 20 minute or so drive from where I am now, and I can say it's not incredibly bizarre or eerie far as I remember. Also not sure I'd describe anything there as a "building", although I think the person who dubbed it Mystery Hill might've attempted to pile some of the stones in imitation of one. Thing is there's long stone walls all over the place here put up by farmers to delineate land demarcations, and the stones are super easy to come by since they'd just be running into one after another each time they try to plow. And eventually some farmer in Salem must've been feeling a little creative so they made a little project that later generations became rather fascinated by. That's my theory anyway, and it seems the likeliest one.
could be. One problem is that amateurs pretty much ruined the site for any real research... one guy who owned the site wanted to investigate it, and in the process, shoveled away a lot of the debris around the place; something that a real archeologist could have studied. What modern studies have been done have turned up colonial and native American items... and nothing else. Definitely nothing ancient or medieval...
 
I'm no expert on the subject, but my understanding was that Greeks and Romans had no expertise in seamanship on the Atlantic, since it was not profitable at all. So maybe you need a PoD where a Greek port is established on the Atlantic, perhaps in OTL Portugal to conduct trade with the Gold Coast maybe?
 

aenigma

Banned
The less likely of the 2 is one where a Greek explorer returns to Greece with knowledge of South America, you could see huge voyages carrying settlers which would settle trading cities dotted around the Amazon and Venezuela. This would have the effect of destroying the native population via introduction of diseases, and during a rise of Rome scenario you could see an influx of people escaping Latin persecution end up in these colonies. Going further with a similar Roman rise timeline, it wouldn't be out of this world to assume a Roman emperor would be interested in conquering South America, leading to a conquest of the Greek city states, expansion into Columbia/Amazon and latinisation of the subjected areas. The eventual spread of Roman technology will impact Mesoamerica and North Americans reaction to the Romans in the south, and a collapse of the Roman empire in the old world could be mirrored in the new world where native Kingdoms occupy previous Roman lands, but form latinised kingdoms.
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i gues east and west roman empire would get a new meaning then
and civil wars could be intresting if a general in south america proclaims himself Emperor

also there is a episode in legend of tomorrow where they give a map of the world to ceasar i believe
has a fairly intresting result on america when they go back
 
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