One of my favorite historical debates is the debate over who discovered America.  In one sense, America has never been lost.  The book “Lies My Teacher Told Me,” in one of its most entertaining chapters, examines a long set of “discoverers” and rates the possibility of their discovery on a scale from possible to certain, examining the cultural and physical artifacts left behind.  Some will tout the Vikings, whose lead contender is one Bjarni Herjolfsson, hero of the Greenlanders’ Saga.  Some will tout the Chinese of 1423 and the Ming Dynasty’s treasure fleets.  Others will talk about the expeditions of the Mali emperor, or the Polynesians.  Others tout Columbus, probably those with the least interest in examining the historical record.

All of them may have done it–some people certainly did (for example, the evidence that the Vikings reached North America around the year 1000 is indisputable, as is Columbus’ own explorations).  Ironically enough, Columbus may not have even been the first Spaniard to discover the New World–the Basques were fishing off the coast of Newfoundland before 1492, and their previous explorations are what gave Cabot his route for England’s first and often forgotten mission of exploration in 1497.  There appears to be some fighting as if an earlier discovery means that one has some better claim of ownership of territory or legitimacy as a people.

For those of us with few axes to grind in the ideological struggles and merely an interest in the historical question, it is worthwhile to examine a few things about the various “discoveries” of America.  One important fact, given the large number of potential (or actual) discoveries, is that just about any society with sufficiently seaworthy craft, enough security at home to justify the expenditure, and enough curiosity about foreign realms along the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, was a potential discovering nation.  The number of potential nations that fit into this category are immense.  Everything from Hebrews and Phonecians during the time of David and Solomon to the Celts just before the Roman conquest, to the Polynesians who settled nearly every inhabitable island in the entire Pacific Ocean, to the Chinese of the Ming Treasure Fleets, to the Vikings of the 900’s and 1000’s, to the 15th century empires of Mali, Spain, France, and England.

In fact, let us say that for any seafaring nation that had sufficient ability to keep its crewmen fed, hydrated, and sane for more than a couple months on the ocean and had a hankering for ocean travel and exploration had a near metaphysical certainty of discovering something.  If Columbus had not reached the coast of the Bahamas in 1492, European exploration would not have been greatly hindered.  As soon as the ability and the inclination were present to spread one’s influence and to explore, exploit, and settle other areas of the world, the distances of the ocean were not going to stop an expansionistic civilization.  From the moment that expansion and exploration became the inclination of a well-armed and moderately developed culture the conquest of the Americas by someone was a near metaphysical certainty.  The only question was when, and by whom.

Rather than quarreling over discoverers, for there are many, depending on which culture at which time, it is a far more profitable subject to examine what factors led at various times to the discovery and settlement of the Americas.  The picture may be far more complex than we know, for there may have been extensive cultural borrowings in the “New World” from the “Old World” going back a very long time.  Why do the native chickens of the Americas make the noise of the East Asian chicken and not the European one?  Because someone brought them across the Pacific Ocean–whomever it was. Is it possible that pyramid building or human sacrifice or any number of customs sprang from foreign cultures?  Possibly.  It is worth examining, at any rate.

The purpose of such an examination ought not to be the glorying of any one particular people or nation as advanced to the exclusion of others.  The purpose is that our own understanding of the world and any kind of linear path between primitive past and advanced present is itself entirely improper.  Instead of assuming that our own current globalization is an entirely new phenomenon, we ought to be sensitive to its appearance in the past under very specific circumstances.  If those circumstances change, our own period of globalization will precede another period of parochialism.  We then ought to consider that the movement of peoples or the expansion of understanding depends not only on technology, but also on worldview, confidence, and stability.  We then ought to carefully consider such matters insofar as our own well-being depends on those issues.