Quote:
Originally Posted by BK911
Civilization WAS global way back when.
|
Yes, I agree, but not to the extent that things are global these days. I think long distance travel was a thing, but it was also MUCH slower than today. It's entirely possible that Bob from England traveled to South America, but may have never made it back to England due to much lower life expectancy, long sea voyages being more dangerous and time consuming, etc.... And then there would be the language barrier and the written word and lack of widely available translations between languages likely kept some knowledge from being more widely known/disseminated. Today, an idea and photos/diagrams can be transmitted instantly in a widely understood language and/or translated into just about any other language in the blink of an eye. While I'm sure lots of info/knowledge was shared and disseminated widely, I don't think that it was nearly as extensive as today.
I think that the Scandinavians made it to North America long before Columbus in the east and the Asians in the west. They may not have made any long term settlements, or there may not have been large scale colonization, but I think they were there. I think there was absolutely a fair amount of travel and trade between the far east and west of Eurasia. And it would make sense that there would be similar travel to the farthest reaches of Africa from Eurasia. The idea that man did not travel extensively across those 3 continents seems absurd since you could practically walk the whole thing side to side and top to bottom.
And I think man was capable of navigating by boat much farther and earlier than expected. Do I think there were regular boating routes between all of the continents back then or monthly trade routes, probably not. I don't think ships were large enough and robust enough to safely make long ocean voyages successfully, and probably a high number of folks that set out got lost or killed by weather, disease, other people. I think there was probably a lot of navigation between and throughout Asia and Australasia. And therefore, Africa and Eurasia probably had knowledge of Australasia. I suspect the Americas were remote enough from the rest of the world (Europe, Africa, Australia, and Asia) that the amount of travel and knowledge/goods trade between the Americans and the rest of the world was extremely limited until the Spanish and others started hitting NA pretty regularly.
Today, the world is a very small place. Back then the world was global, but a much, much larger place if you understand what I'm trying to say.
THere were some very advanced civilizations around the world over the years, and I suspect those civilizations had knowledge of and shared knowledge with other groups over vast areas. Central and South America have had some impressive civilizations. Asia, of course, has had quite the list with a long history of advanced civ in China, the folks that built Angkor Watt, various groups in India, various groups in Arabia, Egypt in Africa, etc....