Discovering America?

Question

How could no one have been to america (besides indians) before the vikings. How could no one have enough curiosity to sail as far as they could east/west and discover it. i mean between about 40000bc and 1000ad no one sailed to it, even by accident. Im just wondering if somebody could tell me if someone did come or why nobody did.

Answer 1

Well, the Europeans always thought the earth was flat and there was nothing west of Europe and therefore never set foot in America. The Vikings were different and believed that something was there and set sail for America which they had heard from in legends and fables. Ancient people also didnt have the technology ie boats and such to go to America and it remained isolated for a long time.

Answer 2

your dates leave open another possibility.

up until major melting started around 13 to 15 thousand years ago. seal hunters that lived on the ice could have migrated from Europe along the edge of the ice that covered much of the northern hemisphere.

DNA evidence suggests that someone with with European DNA markers may have arrived here as far back as 30,000 years ago.

they wouldn't have done this intentionally but simply as the natural spread of the population of an ice living people when the edge of the permanent ice sheet was continuous south of Iceland & greenland.

of course individuals & small groups undoubtedly ended up here as a result of storms & accidents occasionally too.

Answer 3

Not necessarily nobody sailed there, simply nobody sailed there and lived to tell the tale, or left any other evidence of their 'visit'. Being that ships weren't as resilient as they are today, it wouldn't be surprising if the curious sailor were to die while sailing in uncharted waters.

Answer 4

Not to put to fine a point on it, but in order to sail one needs a boat.   The technology needed to sail between Europe and the New World did not exist prior to the Vikings first arrival.  Granted the Polynesians had colonized much of the Pacific Ocean (or rather the islands therein) but the did not sail, their long boats used oars or paddles.  Also they were coming from the other direction.  Having said that, there is some debate about weather or not the Inca and Aztec civilizations were descendants of Polynesians rather than Native North Americans, but most of the evidence (actually all of it except for wishful thinking) points to this being false.  The Chinese could also have made it to North America if they had chosen to do so, in fact between 1403-1431 their large fleet led by Admiral Zheng Hi, did make it to Madagascar and some of the crew even intermarried with the native people's of that island, however, the Ming Emperor had the fleet beached and the ships destroyed.  So others did have the opportunity to reach the New World but that's just not how things worked out.

Good luck with your question.

Answer 5

Many came to america - but no one knew about it because they STAYED - and did not return, so no none knew where they went - they thought they died at sea.

Answer 6

We just don't have any known records of previous america explorations, it's difficult to get records from that long ago, and to understand what this random country they are talking about exploring (america) would be even harder