What is the earliest year that colonizing the Americas could begin?

A fairly large bump...

But I was searching through the forums and found this again, and got reinterested.

Reading this link gives a couple more interesting ideas...

There are theories of the Moors making it in 889, and again in 999, both before the Vinland colony. Also, a Celtic voyage in the 6th Century and as I mentioned before a Mali crossing during Mansa Musa's reign. (Which I think someone should make a TL of, but that's just me) As some kind of validation, Columbus was told of Blacks making visiting them a century earlier or so, and the earliest descriptions of Native Americans rarely described them as "red" but as "black", "brown", or "yellow". Mansa Musa claimed he had sent voyages to see what the limits of the Atlantic were, and that Mansas before him had done so.

Any chance of a western Hemisphere nation contacting the Eastern Hemisphere? 99.99% ASB, but hey, any theories for the .01%, just for discussions sake?
 
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About when it happened.

If you come earlier, you're tech advantage is small, and you'll just be transferring it to people with way better local knowledge and adaptation.

You don't have the numbers or infrastructure to come in force, and the Indians will be better able to cope with depletion from disease (time to recover). Then they'll just wipe you out.

Also, while the Romans and Vikings had the ability to cross the ocean, they didn't have the ability to do it reliably and with large enough cargos to support a colony.

In other words, more or less hopeless before the turn of the 16th c.
 
About when it happened.

If you come earlier, you're tech advantage is small, and you'll just be transferring it to people with way better local knowledge and adaptation.

You don't have the numbers or infrastructure to come in force, and the Indians will be better able to cope with depletion from disease (time to recover). Then they'll just wipe you out.

Also, while the Romans and Vikings had the ability to cross the ocean, they didn't have the ability to do it reliably and with large enough cargos to support a colony.

In other words, more or less hopeless before the turn of the 16th c.
Could not have put it better myself. It also helps to either suck up to the natives until you can get settled (the English way) or establish bases from which you can attack from (the Spanish way). What you don't do is follow the Norse approach beating up the natives soon after you have met them without the numbers to back up your xenophobia. They got run out from Vinland in two years!
 
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