27
votes
Did any European ever witness a major Inca religious festival?
Garcilaso de la Vega, a Spanish-Peruvian chronicler in the Viceroyalty of Peru(then Spanish-held) recounted several aspects of Incan life and tradition. His most famous works include Historia de la ...
- 494
27
votes
Accepted
Did any European ever witness a major Inca religious festival?
Cristóbal de Molina, a young Spanish priest, witnesses in 1535 the Inca celebration of the maize harvest:
On a platform Indians were throwing meats into a great fire. At
another place the Inca ...
- 6,267
21
votes
Did anyone in Europe predict the existence of the Americas?
Europeans, perhaps not, someone in the old world, yes.
Al-Biruni (973–1050) lived in Khwarezm (modern Uzbekistan). Among other works in mathematics, astronomy, physics, mineralogy, history and ...
- 1,082
21
votes
Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
Cotton
As far as crops are concerned, I would say that Cotton is certainly one of the best candidates. Although the species are different, in both the old and the new world, different civilizations ...
- 1,381
15
votes
Accepted
Which 'evidence' is there for a claim that 'Chinese discovered America in 636'?
Ironically enough, this is likely a case of Chinese whispers.
There is a relatively established crackpot "theory" that the Chinese discovered America in the 5th century or so, and called the new land ...
- 97.6k
14
votes
Why did the United States issue the Monroe Doctrine when it did?
By 1824, Spain had lost all of its mainland colonies in America. When the powers of Europe proposed to use the recently created Congress System to help Spain regain control of her lost American ...
- 6,267
14
votes
Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
Dogs were common to both the Americas and the old world, since at least some of the prehistoric ancestors of American Indians brought dogs with them from Asia.
The plains Indians used travois pulled ...
- 19.4k
12
votes
Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
Barley is another example. Barley of the Old World and the Little barley of the New World are different species but the same genus, hordeum. From the abstract in
N. Mueller et al. "Growing the ...
- 6,245
9
votes
Which 'evidence' is there for a claim that 'Chinese discovered America in 636'?
There are two potential points of evidence that I am aware of.
1) A Mr. Moriarity and Mr. Pearson first published a paper detailing the findings of circular stone anchors similar to a type of anchor ...
- 702
9
votes
When did Europeans realize Native Americans had weaker immunity to Old World diseases?
The Spanish and Portuguese noticed early in the 16th century that the native peoples of the Caribbean and South and Central America were sickly to the point of being unsuitable (in general) for slave ...
- 72.5k
9
votes
Accepted
Why did Europeans call Native Americans Indians in the 18th Century AD, After they had found out they were in the wrong continent?
Remember that the word "India" would mean 'get-rich-quick-dream-land' for the sailors. At first Columbus believed he was in Asia, and they had been looking for a way to India for generations. For ...
- 4,598
8
votes
Accepted
Why America was not discovered from the left land at Bering strait?
It was discovered, since there is evidence that the native Americans came from Asia through the Bering Strait land bridge (at a time where there was no sea in the straits due to the water being held ...
- 12.7k
8
votes
Did Columbus really never know he reached a new continent?
That Columbus died thinking he hadn't reached a "New World" is one of the most widespread of myths....In 1492 he might've thought he reached Asia, but in 1498--during the Third Voyage--he ...
8
votes
Were there any crops and livestock common to both the Old and New Worlds prior to the Columbian exchange?
Reindeer/caribou (Rangifer tarandus) have been herded by Arctic peoples since time immemorial. They are herded rather than farmed. The conditions in the far north require that the herds migrate, so a ...
- 1,360
8
votes
Given that there were there larger, more organised civilisations in South America compared to NA, why did they not colonise North America themselves?
It wasn't worth the effort
This comes close to the question why the Roman Empire didn't take over Ireland or Germany: there was nothing there that warranted the effort; the costs would be prohibitive. ...
- 22.7k
7
votes
What is the position of modern scholarship as regarding the claims of professor Samuel Rafinesque in his book about the indigenous Americans
This was posted as an answer to an earlier version of the question titled
Does modern scholarship treat Samuel Rafinesque as credible?
(See the question edit history for more information)
It is ...
- 77.2k
7
votes
Accepted
Why Did the Founding Fathers Create the Electoral College?
One of the first suggestions for electing the President was a direct vote. However, it was quickly and resoundingly rejected.
The basic problem with having a popular vote was that it didn't take into ...
- 122k
6
votes
Why did Native Americans never unify into a single country?
There's a bit of a false premise here, in that there were Native American empires. I suspect you meant why weren't there any north of Mexico, as there is no way you could overlook the Inca, Aztec, ...
- 179
6
votes
Accepted
Columbian exchange in European grades K-12
This question is in part based on a premise that is between misleading and false.
In Germany schools do not choose to skip the whole my-tomatoes-for-your-cows lesson.
What is true is that there was ...
- 80.8k
6
votes
Was there any knowledge of America before Columbus?
No, because Columbus didn't know about America
Columbus set out to find an alternative route to East Asia, after the closing of the Silk Road by the Ottomans. This is the argument he made to the ...
- 14.2k
5
votes
Is there a possibility that the Islamic civilization visited America before Columbus?
It's technically not impossible, but extremely unlikely. Thor Heyerdahl proved Polynesians could travel to South America. It still is an open question if they ever did that.
Claims of Mohammedans ...
- 22.7k
5
votes
Why America was not discovered from the left land at Bering strait?
Columbus was neither the first human to discover the Americas, nor was he the first European.
In particular, the Aleutian Island chain is no real barrier to natives in possession of simple boats. ...
- 122k
5
votes
Given that there were there larger, more organised civilisations in South America compared to NA, why did they not colonise North America themselves?
'Why didn't X happen?' questions are inherently speculative, so in that spirit, here's my wild, uninformed speculations...
Logistics
For Central American states, invading North America would mean ...
- 919
3
votes
Why did Europeans call Native Americans Indians in the 18th Century AD, After they had found out they were in the wrong continent?
SHORT ANSWER:
Up until about 1800 the majority of the area of North and South America was claimed to be part of a kingdom with the title of "The East and West Indias". And thus the aboriginal ...
- 19.4k
3
votes
Did Woodland period Native Americans seek/value gold prior to European Colonization?
Before European contact, copper and not gold "overwhelmingly predominates the metallurgical landscape," in the Eastern Woodlands.
That doesn't mean gold was absolutely absent and unknown however. ...
- 23.1k
3
votes
Columbian exchange in European grades K-12
This is not true about Ukraine. From the early childhood I knew that potato, corn, tomatoes, cocoa, tobacco and squash came from America as a result of Columbian exchange. We also knew that the ...
- 38.8k
3
votes
Which 'evidence' is there for a claim that 'Chinese discovered America in 636'?
There is a book called They All Discovered America, by Charles Michael Boland, 1961, which listed and discussed all the claims of pre Columbian discoveries of America that the author could find.
Each ...
- 19.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible