Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

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I think this is falling into conjecture which is unprovable.

It is however, the class of outcome I think should definitely be considered plausible, and possible.

But that also admits the plausibility of Phoecians, Romans, reaching the Americas. Could have, but didn't to the best of our knowledge.

Because of a culture of glass and metalworking, they're both outcomes we could expect to "prove" by archeological finds. Coastal locations to 100km inland might withstand the timescale, and yield something, but its needle in a haystack time, and the vikings didn't leave very much behind. (a counter example we have higher confidence in, which yields very little structural evidence)

I do think pacific/island stone tools would stand the same test, but I can't see how an "edge" to antarctica would sustain preservation of worked tools. If you found them in the continental offshore ooze, that would be amazing. (or for that matter, roman artifacts offshore of the americas)

It's fantasy science, but then think about "doggerland" and what is being found in shallow waters between the UK and continental Europe.

Maybe when we start manganese nodule mining by robot, we're going to turn up the equivalent of roman coke tins, phoecian pencil stubs and Islander burger-wraps?

If there were Roman stories of reaching a land across the sea that sounded a lot like North America, then you'd be right.

> that also admits the plausibility of Phoecians, Romans, reaching the Americas

The theory about Pacific islanders has evidence; the above does not.

> It's fantasy science

That's a fantasy comment.

>the plausibility of Phoecians, Romans, reaching the Americas. Could have

not really. Their ships (even quite large ones for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympias_(trireme)#/media/File...) weren't ocean going (like for example giving the way of construction the hulls wouldn't have been able to sustain the heavy waves stress for many days, etc.). To compare this is an example of the ocean going ships - Viking drakkar - in which Americas were first reached:

https://youtu.be/XORSpUUy0lQ?list=RDCMUCNnLNJLZj11RlFYq4HZ6c...

You're projecting modern standards of safety and reliability into a millennium in which they do not belong.

Nobody is gonna sail a warship with a huge expensive crew across the ocean without a damn good reason. Such reason almost certainly never materialized, that's a given.

But local mediteranean cargo vessels are more than seaworthy enough to cross the Atlantic in the same way that I can haul 3000lb in a Ford Ranger. Water and navigation will be your issues. The capability to get it done with not that much luck needed is there. I can't think of is why someone would both have the requisite provisions and a reason to sail west for weeks on end other than a "Skydiving From Space, Brought to you by Red Bull(TM) " style vanity project. And the economic surpluses at the time simply weren't large enough to support a lot of that kind of activity so it's doubtful anyone would have done it.

That said, there is some evidence there may be a roman shipwreck off the coast of Brazil, which has yet to be excavated. While roman designs are not ocean-going, it's entirely possible that they might have been blown off-course and managed to survive the journey.

Would we expect the sailors to have survived as well? Or would they have run out of water like halfway across?

If the ship was intact, they were probably fine with water. A large ship departing harbor without a few months of water onboard would be the most egregious incompetence on the part of the quartermaster. If they were low on water, then you can be sure they would capture rainwater at the first opportunity, and in the tropics they would have to be pretty unlucky to get no rain. Also, this voyage is commonly done in 3 weeks or less. Africa to northern Brazil is the shortest crossing, and it's a downwind run the entire way. That said, if the ship was irreparably damaged anywhere off the NW coast of Africa, it _would_ likely wash up somewhere along the north coast of S America or the Caribbean regardless of the sate of the crew.

Since the ship is believed to be near the mouth of a river, that would imply that some sailors survived the trip and navigated to a source of fresh water.

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