There are many interesting theories out there regarding the amount of influence that numbers of individuals can exert on their surroundings.
You need a certain amount of people to exert enough social pressure to cause persistent and observable changes in a society. There's a term for this concept, that I can't remember right now.
Perhaps isolated bands of bands of lost mariners didn't have the critical numbers to be able to influence the native tribes.
There have been found large cemeteries in China with what appears to be celtic remains, and yet, no signs of their presence has been found beyond these...
Vasques, Galicians and Asturian sailors plied the waters of Labrador for centuries, and yet, no signs of their presence is apparent, beyond a few underwater wrecks.
Vikings had a large colony in Galicia, known as Jakobsland. Yet the only remaining signs I ever saw of the vikings (beyond toponymics) was a couple rowing oars. These were over the altar of a forgotten medieval church, lost in the Galician mountains...
The Spanish reached today's Canada (
Aca Nada: Nothing here) in their explorations, and yet only a Helm and a breastplate have ever been found, in the silt of a dredged harbour.
So yes, I also believe that there were many, albeit ephemeral visitors to American coasts, long before Erik and Colon.
Just pondering.
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Originally Posted by fearn
I've got to sit with Aiontay on this one.
Thing is, we've got enough archeological evidence for things like the spread of the bow and arrow from the Labrador Eskimo around 2000 BCE to down through the Americas, and we've got some evidence of corn spreading out of Central America by around 1000 CE. What we're missing is substantial evidence of technical or biological transfers from the Old World to the New, with the exception of those Chilean chickens and (possibly) Mayan bark pounders. Not great.
Even at L'Anse Aux Meadows ( link), we've got good archeological evidence of the Vinland colony, and material from it shows up in Indian archeology sites. But we don't see the Indians learning to make iron tools from the Norse. Ditto with the Norse Greenland settlement.
Similarly, the only good evidence we have for New World to Old World transmission is the sweet potato from south America making its way into Oceania, probably again from Chile. Again, not much.
It's a wonderfully seductive area to theorize in, but with the exception of the sweet potato transferring to Oceania, there was little in the way of definite technology or cultural transfer. Even with millenia of potential contacts, that's kind of a sad result.
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