Hi all
I'm jumping in after having missed 90% of the thread.
Everyone seems to be discussing viable trading routes between the New and
the Old world, but there is something in the New world that might be more
valuable than mere goods in 300 BC. The New World is literally a new world,
a continent (or two when they discover North America) populated by poorly
organized, Neolithic people who may or may not yet have one or two rising
local powers. By comparison the Med and North African coasts are already
looking crowded by 1000 BC.
What if the Phoenicians (or any other real maritime Meditterran power of the
pre-BC era) had a bit more of colony building habit than either the
Phoenicians or Carthaginian or even the Romans or Greeks?
Reasons for more frequent colony building might be a succession system that
leaves 2nd-inlines for the throne in harm's way if they stick around or a
tradition of getting together a ship load of family, friends, business
partners, slaves and life stock and striking out on your own if you have a
disagreement with the local boss-man, or your neighbor, or just because you
have that crowded-in feeling.
For such a civilization to continue thriving (and to remain in touch with
'home-base') they can not be the ecological strip-miners that the Greeks
proved to be, letting their livestock and farming practices devastate the
local ecology in a few human generations, sufficiently to force the
colonists to move on.
If the trend started around 1000 BC, and a new colony is spawned from an
existing one ever 100 years or so, they should be well out of the Med. by
300BC, especially if they are traders and are chasing stuff like the cheap
tin and labor in Britain, or ivory in non-Sahara Africa. This kind of
civilization might have a chance of discovering the Atlantic islands, and
maybe establishing viable colonies on them. If an accident in or near 300 BC
leads them to find the Azores, it triggers a fresh land rush from congested
and over-grown colonies all along the Med.
Some of the ships bound for the Azores might go 'missing', something a
colonistic, maritime, trading culture would undoubtedly, expect. After
getting one or two functional colonies up and running in the Azores it only
takes a foolish captain sailing at the wrong time of year and/or an
navigational accident to send a ship across the Atlantic. For a culture like
the one I have discribed arriving on unfamiliar shores is not a tragedy, so
they could set up home and farms in the Carribean islands (like Columbus) or
in the Eastern tip of modern day Brazil. The Carribean islands are
attractive homes, and there is relatively speaking lots to go round. Any
captain who can make it back to the Azores or a colony in Britian (depending
on how he sails back) and tells his tale will trigger a fresh land rush. He
might hold out on the info and only share it with people who will pay him
for the information.
Lots of fresh young Iron-age people cramming into the Caribbean and South
America, with their livestock and Old World diseases is a Columbus-scale
disaster for any unorganised Meso-American culture(s).
Lots of 'if's but it could be possible. But it seems in OTL the Med.
cultures were not this enthuastic or competent in striking out for fresh
lands.
For an example of a similiar slow, multi-generation migration see the
Polynesians spreading across the Pacific. They didn't have iron, they were
hardly as organized or numerous as the Med. cultures but they managed to
colonize everything from the south east of Asia to New Zealand in (I think)
a thousand year time frame. The Pacific is bigger, the journeys were longer,
their ship-building technology was hardly up to Med. standards (although
apparently very practical for the journeys they were undertaking) and
somehow they still managed to migrate a distance at least as great as the
Azores to Cuba or eastern Brazil.
The Kon-Tiki expedition proved that it was possible for Neolithic people
with no metallurgy or advanced ship building techiques to cross the biggest
expanse of land-less water on the planet.
Surely a 300BC Med culture could do the same, especially if they had been
practicing for it for 700 years.
Just my 2 (South African) cents...
Regards
Frank Scrooby
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