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Comment by bkmeneguello | Hacker News Reader

I'm Brazilian so take my opinion with a bit o salt and pepper. I have no doubts our government circa 1985 was totally capable of such things. It was a military government, with lots of censorship (but 85 was they last days). So anything that could raise any question about our national identity was a threat for them. About the feasibility of atlantic crossings from west to east, mainly by odd, it's perfectly possible. The travel back otherwise is another history. Probably they mixed with our native inhabitants and they genes disappeared with the time (and with the arrival of portuguese in 1500). Even today, to question Brazilians national identity is tabu here.

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I can see the 85 government willing to do that (I'm brazillian as well).

I doubt the Romans would arrive here though. They were not navy focused at all. There are detailed accounts of all sorts of trouble they went just to cross to Britain.

At the same time, we had plenty of pre-culumbian tribes here who were masters at pottery (like the Marajoara culture). These are probably pottery jars from one of these cultures.

I found funny what you said about this being a tabu. I don't feel that at all here in Brazil. On the contrary. Brazillians I know acknowledge the Pedra Furada site, for example, but most other countries ignore it, specially the US with their Clover first narrative.

> I found funny what you said about this being a tabu. I don't feel that at all here in Brazil. On the contrary. Brazillians I know acknowledge [...]

do not mix up the current Brazil with the Brazil from a few years ago.

under the worker's party Brazil had great recognition of native cultures and new museums. under the current, elected under a parliament coup (the preferred left candidate just left political prison last week, after a year without trial), all that is gone, and the biggest two museums with Indian artifacts burned to the ground in under three months, one barely showing in the midia.... so go figure.

> I can see the 85 government willing to do that

the current government has a general as vice president (and the president is a failed military career turned professional politician), and everyone in the education ministry are career military, just like the 60s. I find it odd that you can see the problem clearly on the previous coup but not on this one.

I'd rather not mix archaeology with politics. The museum fire was heartbreaking but to call it a conspiracy against our own history is too far fetched.

Don't get me wrong. I despise the current government. I just don't think there's any conspiracy here.

maybe the museums fire were just a coincidence, but read the news if you want more concrete conspiracies. there are thousands on native Brazilians protesting in brasilia today, and the biggest complaint is that their political representation is being systematically undermined:

https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/poder/2019/04/governo-bolsonar...

This has nothing to do with whether the Romans arrived here in ancient times or not.

We're in a deep polarized state right now and there's a popular urge to infuse any discussion with these political overtones. This might be needed for current themes like education and economy, but it has no stake whatsoever in ancient human expeditions across the atlantic.

> the preferred left candidate just left political prison last week, after a year without trial

He was found guilty by no less than 20 different judges (in 3 different courts) half of which were appointed by the criminal (Lula) himself. And he’s still in prison, by the way.

was not saying he was let go, after he made a year in practical solitary confiment (with visits from UN and the pope denied), he was allowed to have the law manbdated leaves and visits, which was already a victory.

Please keep obvious political propaganda out of this side. You may not like the current government and neither do I but the previous one was not healthy at all for our country.

you could practice what you preach :) I didn't vote for either, even on the last election, and would not have voted for him even if he was running. I'm further left.

> but the previous one was not healthy at all for our country

if enacting the very laws that allowed to go after the politic corrupt class in power since forever (even if backfired when it started to work), started a minimum income program in the entire country, paid off the international debt, kept oil reserves for national companies, etc. is a bad goverment... I guess you are right.

Maybe not your intention but thats basically what I would expect from a worker's party political propaganda.

It was bad because we got hit like a truck as soon as commodities prices and China's economy decelerated and government spending did not adjusted at all. Specially bad when lots of public money went to few conglomerates that were part of billionaire corruption schemes, bribe and money laundering. Also sending billions to other African and Central and South American dictatorships - infrastructure projects handled by the same companies involved in domestic corruption scandals. The Brazilian Worker's Party and companies like Odebrecht have a big finger in everything that's happening in Venezuela right now.

And let me say this about Bolsa Família: the minimum income program was created by Ruth Cardoso, the First Lady before Lula's presidency. Lula's original plan was called "Fome Zero" (Zero Hunger) and revolved about government supplying food to poor people much like Chavez did. He ended following mrs Cardosos' plan which is way better than his original idea but also bad because it had no escape mechanism like tying it to educational programs and was used over and over again to coerce the poor population into voting to the workers party.

Please. I may not know about what a bad government is but apparently further left means cherry picking facts to tell your own ideological charged version of history. Even PSOL (Freedom and Socialism Party) member Luciana Genro agrees that Lula and Dilma were criminals that looted the country and should be in jail.

I'm really sorry but every time you tell some rose tinted story about how things were good, names and terms like Odebrecht, Mensalão, JBS, Mariel's Port, Pasadena's Refinery, OAS and Camargo Correa will pop up. So as a brazilian it is a bit hard to swallow and borderline offensive okay?

So much bullshit

And thanks for the guy who thanks me for my nice argument in the immediate future

Can you please review the site guidelines and stick to them when commenting here, no matter how strongly you feel about an issue or how wrong someone else is? That's the only way this community can continue without destroying itself.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This is all fascinating and I can read both sides repeating these arguments over and over all day. It is highly misplaced though.

When talking about history, it is always better to keep current politics OUT of the game.

Even if they did, they'd probably have arrived in the North-East, like Cabral did. But it's highly unlikely. I think the claim that the pots were reproductions, dumped in the bay to age, to be a lot more likely.

> "I think the claim that the pots were reproductions, dumped in the bay to age, to be a lot more likely."

That guy said there were only 16 of them, the archeologist said he found hundreds.

>>specially the US with their Clover first narrative.

You lost me here. What are you referencing?

"Clovis first" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture#Clovis_First/...

June 1985 was already several months after the end of the military government.

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