Ancient ocean crossings : reconsidering the case for contacts with the pre-Columbian Americas / Stephen C. Jett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jett, Stephen C., 1938- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

America--Discovery and exploration--Pre-Columbian.

America.

Discoveries in geography.

Physical Description:

xviii, 508 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Tuscaloosa : The University of Alabama Press, [2017]

Contents:

Part I Intellectual Obstacles to the Notion of Early Transoceanic Contacts 13

1 The Myth of the Oceans as Uncrossable Barriers 15

2 Before Columbus, the Earth was "Flat"? Flat Wrong 27

3 Conveyor Belts of the Seas: The Prevailing Winds and Currents 32

4 Staying Alive While Crossing the Deep 43

5 Getting the Drift Accidental Voyages and Discoveries 48

6 No Plague in the Land? The Alleged American Absence of Old World Communicable Diseases 57

7 Why Most Domesticated Animals and Plants Stayed Home 71

8 Low Tech: The Absences of Many Old World Inventions in the New World 80

9 More on the Whys of Technological Absences 95

10 The Mystery of the Missing Artifacts 103

11 The Supposed Silence of the Historical Record 120

12 The "Silent" Historical Record Speaks: Documents Possibly Describing Pre-Columbian Crossings 130

Part II Means: The Types and Availabilities of Watercraft and Navigation 143

13 Some Nautical Myths and Issues 145

14 The Myth of the Inadequacy of Pre-Columbian Watercraft 152

15 It's Earlier Than You Think: The Antiquity of Seagoing Watercraft 167

16 Have Sail, Will Travel: The Origins, Types, and Capabilities of Sails and Rigs 173

17 Products of the Paleolithic: Rafts 182

18 Out of the Ice Age: Skin Boats of the North 192

19 Mesolithic and Neolithic Legacies: Dugouts and Lashed-Plank Watercraft 196

20 Hulled Wooden Ships East and West: The Junk and the Nao 206

21 Modern Experimental Voyages: The Empirical Approach 217

22 Asea without a Compass: Celestial Way-Finding 233

23 A Matter of Course: Seamarks and Haven-Finding 246

Part III Motives for Ocean Crossings 257

24 Repellants 259

25 Attractants 266

Part IV Opportunity for Exchange: Concrete Demonstrations of Contacts 283

26 Shared Physical Materials, Domesticated Animals, and Diseases 285

27 Shared Cultigens: From New into Old (World) 298

28 Cultivated Plants: Old World Cropping Up in the New 314

29 Tobacco, Coca, and Cannabis: The Mummies Speak, but the Scientists Stand Mute 320

30 Old World Faces in New World Places 329

31 Incongruous Genes in America 340

Part V Conclusions 357

32 Mission Possible: Crossings Occurred 359.

ISBN:

0817319395

9780817319397

OCLC:

969863185