With a strong Libyan presence. The Lybians themselves probably entered North Africa via Sicily ands modern Tunisia.
Well, the Malian empire certainly did send out expeditions to investigate the Atlantic Ocean with the intention of crossing it, to see what was on the other side. Reputedly, one such expedition was headed by the current King, though it never returned and no expedition ever returned with news of America.
Contentious. I wouldn’t use the word certainly. The report is third-hand, via a historian recording a reported story Mansa Musa relayed while on Hajj. While it is possible ( though probably not on the grand scale claimed of 3,000 vessels ), for all we know he was telling a tall tale about his predecessor.
:dubious: Well?! Was it the white people who colonized Mars?! Was it?!
Did a quick Google but no joy .
Is there any significant history of Sub Saharan Africans having a seagoing, exploration/trading culture ?
I’m not making any point but am genuinlly curious .
Like I say I did a quick Google, but then again not all data is on the internet, though all too many think that it is.
Duh. Where do you think the White Martians came from?
It hardly matters which group made the first incidental landing in the Americas after their colonization by the people who became the Native Americans.
Really the only ‘discoveries of America’ that matter are its original colonization by what became the Native Americans, and its later colonization by Europeans after Columbus.
Damn White Martians keeping the Green Man down!
Years ago in the early days of the Internet, I knew this guy who seemed fairly level headed and straight forward. Then he suddenly took a left turn and put together a web site claiming that Kings of Mali had colonized North America before the Europeans, and that several major east coast Native American tribes were ruled by them and intermarried with them.
Until the white man showed up and deliberately set about to destroy all evidence of this Great Heritage.
All in all it isn’t much different from any other group deciding that they’re really descendent of these Great Kings of Old and thus, more worthy of whatever than they really are. Heck, per-contact Central America was thick with groups trying to claim descent from the Olmecs and other great historical powers. It is a basic part of Human Nature.
Due to the regularity of the seasonal monsoon winds, anyone able to construct a simple dhow could travel all the coasts of the Indian Ocean from the eastern coast of Africa to the Island of Java.
This was a massively important trade route carrying religion (Islam to Indonesia/East Africa, Hinduism to Cambodia, etc), people (Malagasy to Madagascar, Tamils to Malaysia, etc), and culture/technology (spread of writing, navigation, etc).
Basically anyone along this route had a seagoing, exploration/trading culture.
If we go for the pre Clovis theory then the Americas were discovered by people from what is now France long before anyone else.
Actually sailed on one for a short trip out of Mombasa, though he was using an engine.
I asked how could he tack using the rig, but they can’t, so can’t go to windward,(Under sail), plus having no keel can’t make life any easier !
Thanks for the links, I genuinely find this an interesting subject.
Modern dhows have no keel but it’s quite possible or even probable that ancient ones did.
Just to add some specificity to orcenio’s excellent answer, the city-states and petty states of the Swahili Coast, the Somali coast and further north states like Aksum in particular were substantial trade entrepots from at least the 1rst century. So coastal sub-Saharan East Africa from the Sahara south to about modern Sofala in Mozambique had a lot of maritime ties to the Indian Ocean trade system from classical times.
West Africa saw far, far less naval activity pre-European penetration. Overland trans-Saharan trade routes here were preferred at least partly due to a dearth of good harbors and unfavorable winds and currents. Central Africa was further cut off from contact by the vast Congo Basin, which was actually rather more impenetrable ( in terms of economically feasible trade ) than the Sahara.
I dunno. Even if the rather weak claims for the Solutrean hypothesis were proven, that would simply mean that some rather small number of Europeans landed on and colonized a small section of North America long after the Americas had already been populated by migrations from Asia.
They look like they can tack somewhat but without a center board that would brutal.
I don’t get the original claim. Is it being suggested that Africans populated South America first or beat the Europeans and the pyramids are proof of that or both?
Several older posts comment on the lack of stelae in New World sites. They are indeed present and I’ve had the privilege of seeing them in great number in Chichen Itza and a few in Coba.
Where is the writing? It’s there, but it isn’t Egyptian writing. Like Egyptian writing it appears more like art than letters. Pictographs.
This doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to investigate.
In a round about way, it has already been investigated and the answer is a pretty resounding “no,” it never happened. There have been enough DNA tests of various populations over the years to be able to track populations around the world. Africans and pre-Columbian Americans are the most distant populations. All the connections between New World and Old World populations run through Northeast Asia. This does not meant that no African could possibly have sailed to the Americas, (or that the European/Solutrean hypothesis could never have occurred), but it does indicate that any such contact was small, localized, and fleeting and that Africans and Europeans have never actually colonized the Americas.
I’m fairly sure that European *have *colonised the Americas. 