Greeks, Romans, Egyptions and Chinese in the New World?

It was possible, but many things were possible for ancient people that we have no evidence of them doing. Things like steam-powered engines, even something as simple as hot-air balloons were possible to ancient cultures, but there is no evidence of them. Also there is the very important question of "will." Where is the motivation for sailing across an ocean of unknown size, for a purpose that is inherantly undefineable? Columbus and the other explorers of that period had large, ocean-worthy craft, a solid mission, and yet many of them sank beneath the waves never to be seen again.

The idea of ancient Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians venturing into the open Atlantic seems incredibly absurd to me. Sure, they "could" have done so, but there's no evidence of it. These coins and pots "found" by farmers in the 19th century prove nothing and are highly suspect. Archaeologists have been combing the US, Canada, and Latin America for a century now and have not uncovered anything that proves contact across the Atlantic... the only exception being the possibility that Vikings or Brendan sailed to northeastern Canada or possibly the New England area. It's interesting, and telling, that many of these "finds" occured in the 19th and early 20th centuries, before archaeology was a true science. The public had an immense appetite for the unusual and unexplained, as any look at the history of PT Barnum will readily illustrate.

No offense to the poster is intended... I think many of the things mentioned are interesting. I just think they are coincidental or fakes. That's my opinion though.

sennacherib, I wonder how likely it is for entire civilizations to not explore the ocean when the tools are available. Surely most people would fear they'd fall off the earth or just drown, but it only takes 1 curious little group, in hundreds of years, by any of the mentioned civilizations, to first establish contact. America has been 'discovered' several times, after all... True, this might have been because of accident, or because there was no turning back, but those conditions could've arisen long before the middle ages just as well. And if there had indeed been contact, no matter how insignificant at first, they must've really exploited it and established connections for trade, at least, that would seem logical to me. I'm not saying the resources that were there must have been used, I just wonder how likely it is they were not.

For the same reasons why they didn't invent of attempt a great many other things... they had no motivation or spark to do so. The Egyptians built the Pyramids... they were engineers of tremendous skill, no one (I don't think) would doubt that. However, there's no evidence they even explored the whole of their own continent in ancient times, much less sailed around it, nor set off across open water in ships not designed for that task. And why should they have? What possible interest would they have had in financing an operation of blind exploration over open ocean? Ancient peoples simply did not do this, at least as far as is known. Now, the report of oriental craft off the American coast in the 16th century... perhaps. By that time period exploration and open-water sailing was not as bizarre, and there were people willing to finance such operations. I am not willing to assume that ancient people did everything under the sun they were capable of doing. Just because it could have been done, doesn't mean it was done.

Sure, that's all it takes. However, that still doesn't prove, or even make it likely, that it happened. Please understand, I think it would be magnificent if it were true, but after all this time, and after all the solid info we have from the peoples in question, nothing close to proof has ever surfaced. What we have is equivalent to the "proof" that people have regarding alien visitors... lots of people say they believe it, but the evidence is far from conclusive.

By whom?

But there's no evidence of that... none at all. I'm not about to tell you how to think, but I believe we are just approaching things differently. I don't think it's useful to assume cultures did things simply based upon what they "could" have done. My assertion is they did things, we study them to find out what they did, and we don't speculate any further unless there is good reason to believe otherwise. Currently, there is no reason (IMO) to believe that any ancient civilization made voyages of exploration to America, on accident or otherwise. the Viking connection gives me pause, only because of the wandering zest of the people and their relative closeness to Iceland, Greenland, and the northeastern Canadian coastline. I think if any other culture had made such contact, especially on purpose, there would be records of it... especially in light of all the surviving records from Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

"I'm not saying I'm convinced or anything - but I think the odds are pretty good."

I think I understand what you mean, and I enjoy discussing it with you.

Reviving a topic I found interesting. Could'nt some of the discoveries have been genuine? I mean its perfectly possible that some sailors got lost, and landed in the Americas. And vice versa.

it is not that difficult as some of u imagine for anicent people to move from one continent to another or sail through open sea. There are lots of evidences showing that the Chinese race in fact came all the way from Mesopotamia area and finally settled in the Yellow river basin.

also, it is not impossible for the oreintal people to sail along the ocean current to America or by crossing the Bering strait . Never underestimate the capacity of human beings. They might act as planned or by accident.

So it is very hard to conclude absolutely. About 2200 years ago, the Chin's first emperor once assigned 3000 men and women aboard to search the legendary island on the Pacific where immortal pills could be found. But what happened to those men and women, history is silent.

And history is always silent. What we have recorded is only a tiny and selective(due to subjecitve or objective reasons)fraction of the whole human activities.

So before a time shuttle machine being invented, no presumption is absurd or impossible as long as it is practical in theory. Historians and archaeologists still have pretty much work ahead.

here is one of the pyramids in China

this should be moved to historical amusement.

this is ridiculous for these reasons:

1) there are no accounts by romans or egyptians of a "new world"

2) the different ages of the coins suggest that romans would have had to have been coming to and from the new world, which is impossible, and again, with no accounts by the romans.

3) if these evidences were true we wouldnt be reading it from a site like that, it would be on the news,  in encyclopaedia's, etc...

they walked from siberia to the america's from the bering straight during the ice age. they didnt use ships.

The great majority of the "evidence" posted in the initial few posts is either hoaxes, or simply made up. I almost laughed when I saw that allegedly coins that had been "invented" by emperor Huangtu in 2637BC were discovered in the Americas... I mean, the very existence of that emperor has not been corroborated by archeological evidence in China itself,let alone the Americas.

Anyway, here's an interesting article on the tests that revealed traces of nicotine from tobacco as well as cocaine (American plants) in Egyptian mummies. Unlike other claims, these tests have been conducted in a scientific manner. The article explains the presence of tobacco quite well, but the presence of traces of cocaine is still somewhat of a mystery.

http://www.hallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file =article&sid=45

I think that there is a possibility that there was sporadic contact before the Vikings, but it was probably mostly accidental. To those that argue about the unsuitability of ancient seacraft to cross the Atlantic and the Pacific, I'd remind them of the achievements of the Polynesians, who somehow managed to colonize Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island, although they were separated by thousands of kilometers from the nearest islands. It was certainly not impossible, although the crafts of most of the civilizations rumored to have crossed the Atlantic (Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans), were very different from Polynesian crafts.

Overall, I would say that cultural and scientific links were minimal at best, and whatever contact there was, it had virtually no influence on the development of Native American civilisations.