WAS THE NORTHERN ATLANTIC
ROUTE ALREADY |
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The trip from Africa to America across the South Route is relatively simple: the powerful Equatorial Current and permanent trade winds carry everything which swims across the Atlantic, even without crew and sails. But the compelling question is how did the seafarers sail East, back to Africa, which is the most challenging leg of the journey? The Atlantic passage from the Americas into the Old World travels along the Gulf Stream, through the North Atlantic. This North Route is not reliably supported by steady winds. If an East wind picked up, ship and crew had to tack for many days or they would have been pushed back by the wind to the starting point of the journey. It is precisely this tacking ability of Stone-Age seafarers and their vessels that today’s shipping experts dispute. |
EXPERTS DISPUTE THE TACKING ABILITY OF STONE-AGE
SEAFARERS AND THEIR SHIPS.
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| Therefore, the prevailing
opinion is that the North Atlantic passage was not possible 14,000
years ago. And if the return journey from the Americas into the Old World was impossible, so too was regular commerce between the two continents. But every assumption is valid only when the opposite is proven to be untrue. If the presence of tobacco and cocaine in Egyptian mummies is a strong indicator that regular trade was being conducted between the two civilizations, it means that the timeline of the global economy concept needs to be reconsidered. The time for a change in views has come. |
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With
a 60 m² sail, the reed boat ABORA II tacked against the difficult
Mediterranean winds. |
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Experts
believe that deep sea shipping originated as early as 5,000 years
ago in Old Egypt, or in the Mesopotamia. However, the ships from
this period, depicted here, are much too complex to mark the beginnings
of shipping. |
The famous
Waldseemueller Map of 1507 is the first map of the modern age to
show both North and South America and the Pacific. But European seafarers
did not discover its shores until decades later. |
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People may
have already used these sea routes before the last Ice Age. They
sailed with large boats, as the cliff photos (drawings) of the North
Spanish Solutrean and Magdalenia prove. |