As you all know from your early schooling, U.S. learning institutions all teach that Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492....not that it seems particularly important in this day and age.

A search of commonly available scientific and historical evidence indicates the following time line may be more correct:

- circa 10,00 B.C. - Inhabitants of NE Asia cross the land bridge then existing between what are now Alaska and Siberia, and settle on the North American continent. In roughly the same "age" Polynesians are trading by sea with South Americans...but whether that flow was initiated by the South Americans or the Polynesians is still under hot debate, as is the extent of it.

- ca. 775 A.D. - Norwegians and other Scandinavians discover and settle Iceland

- ca. 982 A.D. Norwegians discover and settle Greenland and Labrador. They also commence regular trading with the indigenous population of North America, via Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland, thus establishing the "Northern Trade Route" with the Americas.

- 1492 A.D. - Christopher Columbus discovers the West Indies and trade commences with that area and, through it, with Central and North America, later to be followed by trade with South America.

And from there on the historical records are pretty clear and well documented for anyone who wants more modern detail.

At any rate the point of all this is to say that insofar as Europeans discovering and settling the Americas, the Scandinavians discovered and established the "Northern Trade Route" in the AD 700-900 window of recorded times. Then the Spanish, Italians, and Portuguese discovered and settled the "Southern Trade Route" about 600 years later.

Looking at it in terms of usable knowledge, I tend to agree with those who don't argue about "who" was first, but as to learning when the north and south routes and ties to Europe were established.

There is a dig just off I-15, between Barstow and Las Vegas where they claim to be finding human artifacts in a layer 200,000 years old.

After watching a TV show I rented an RV to "discover America",...Does that count? It was 1975 by the way....

My Dad was a cultural anthropologist and over the years it was interesting how many "little things" cropped up that were never given attention to.

A big one to me was when he was working at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago back in the early 70's, an old guy brought in a bronze axe that he found while he was digging a foundation to enlarge his basement. It was interesting as it was obviously bronze and cast in an "open faced" mould. The guy was genuine or at least he seemed to me, just wondered what the axe was. Anyway, since it was such an anomaly it was simply discredited and that was that.

Another story was at an archeological dig my Sister was on, at the end of the project she and some friends wanted to prank the site director so I was enlisted to get some pottery from a completely different era (like 1000 years earlier) so I got some from a pot my Dad had made (major brag here, but my father was one of the most talented archeological pottery specialists in the USA at the time). Anyway, I got this piece of pottery to my sister, she and her friends salted this level of the dig that was supposed to be sterile, and then while the site director was wandering by they "discovered" the pottery. The site directors response? He crumbled up the pot shards with his hands in front of the girls with the explanation "See? It is simply dirt!"

Anyway, logic says to me that all sorts of people have been all over the planet since we learned to walk upright, and there may or may not be a record of it.

If the Scandinavians had been a little more up on their Latin, we might be reading how they discovered Italy before Romulus and Remus founded Rome. It seems to me that most of history is written by the cultures with the most up to date language skills. And by manifest destiny, usually the victor gets to write their interpretation the most.

The real question is - did America know it was missing when these early visitors "found" it ?

Good one.

Chuck Norris- whenever he said he did! Sorry, couldn't resist.

quote:

Originally posted by jfromswk:
If the Scandinavians had been a little more up on their Latin, we might be reading how they discovered Italy before Romulus and Remus founded Rome. It seems to me that most of history is written by the cultures with the most up to date language skills. And by manifest destiny, usually the victor gets to write their interpretation the most.

All too true. And religion was as much a problem in those days as was the "lingua franca". Many scientific discoveries were likely "found" many times before they became widely known.

For instance, Galileo was clearly not the first to discover that the sun did not orbit around the earth, but vice-versa. He was the first to openly publish and proclaim that in the states/realms which then composed the Holy Roman Empire.

What good did that do him and the world's scientific community? Well, it got him imprisoned as a heretic (by the then current Pope) where he languished and died. As a result, many other scientific learning results were published only in non-Catholic countries for the next 300 years or so...and where to, if possible, many scientist's migrated.

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:
There is a dig just off I-15, between Barstow and Las Vegas where they claim to be finding human artifacts in a layer 200,000 years old.

There is little doubt there were indigenous persons in the Americas well before the "Siberian-to-Alaska" migration took place. Unfortunately, we have no definitive clue pointing out from whence they sprang, or when.

There is some potential doubt as to the "true" age of those fossils being unearthed in California. They likely are very, very old, but just how old requires a wee bit of destruction of them (if carbon dating is used).

We may know the age of the geologic layer in which they are being found, but if they were buried there, the age in which they lived or were made could be much later. How much, if any, is open to debate and further findings.

If they are other than humanoid fossils, they could even have been made in much more recent times from older natural resources, which could confuse the dating even more.

Still a very interesting "dig" though...thanks for reminding me of it.

Don't forget the Irish fishing off the Grand Banks of North America in the 4th AD

There's also some evidence of Viking rune stones being found in (IIRC) Oklahoma and/or Minnesota & also Knights Templar paintings in caves in the USA........ and that would also explain why Rosslyn in Scotland has a carving that depicts maize that must have been carved pre Columbus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westford_Knight

http://www.rosslynchapel.org.uk/history.php (pic 3)

While a little off the topic of first visits here before the ones that lasted, there's a whole field of DNA study into the broader migrations throughout the continents. And it's quite interesting, for any here who may care to look at it.

DNA research explains who came from where and generally when. For instance there was more than one migration across from Siberia.

And though it has nothing to do with America being discovered, the DNA records of the settlement of Europe are really fascinating, though it's admittedly slow reading.

An interesting link on it - http://www.eupedia.com/europe/...ogroups_europe.shtml. It says among other things that Native Americans share with Central Asians and Central Siberians a certain DNA marker. To be technical it is Subclade Q1a3a which is a specific sub group of a larger instance of people known as Haplogroup Q (Y-DNA). So, American Indians really did come from Asia and Siberia.

These folks here had a long and interesting thread about the origins and inter-connections of Europeans - http://www.city-data.com/forum...ics-same-people.html

Anyway, back to America, I'd say it's EXTREMELY unlikely the Vikings ever made it to Oklahoma or the Knights Templars (or any of the other Knights Orders) did any caves here.

The problem with those kind of "first human habitation" theories is, in the absence of hard scientific evidence it's just so easy to lapse into an area better known to fans of Nessie, Big Foot, Ancient Aliens, Crop Circles etc.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
There's also some evidence of Viking rune stones being found in (IIRC) Oklahoma and/or Minnesota & also Knights Templar paintings in caves in the USA........ and that would also explain why Rosslyn in Scotland has a carving that depicts maize that must have been carved pre Columbus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westford_Knight

http://www.rosslynchapel.org.uk/history.php (pic 3)

Did you even read up on these. There is a serious lack of credibility and evidence to back these up. On a more serious note, the earliest European settlement that I am aware of is L’Anse aux Meadows.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index.aspx

I'm not suggesting the Vikings or Templars were definitely there first just that there is some evidence to suggest they might have been and I think it's highly unlikely that anyone will ever be able to definitely prove who was first.

To me, some of the most compelling evidence that the Templars MIGHT (note the big MIGHT) have been there is found in Scotland and not America at all........ Maize was only found in the 'new world' and the maize carving in Rosslyn would suggest someone had seen maize AND then travelled back to Rosslyn something like half a century before Columbus discovered America.

Just to throw some more logs on the fire...

There is considerable evidence the Phoenicians (mostly from the area now known as Lebanon) really established the Mediterranean trade routes between themselves, the Greeks, Turks, Creteans, Egyptians, Sicilians, even the Portuguese and so on, before 3,500 B.C. and that trade later expanded to include Spain, Morocco, France and other still existing modern nations/cultures. That was made possible partly because they had to trade to keep their culture going for over 5,500 years now...they were mainly traders, not fighters, and they had the magnificent "Cedars of Lebanon" to use as shipbuilding material. They actually taught the Egyptians how to build ships instead of the small round small boats we would basically class as coracles and rafts the Egyptians used before that, and provided stonemasons to assist in the building of the Great Pyramids.

incidentally, their cedar plank ships were constructed so skillfully, they required no nails.

My purpose for mentioning this is the early Phoenicians sometimes got pushed by Mediterranean storms out past Gibraltar and into the Atlantic. There is some evidence that some of those ships which managed to find their ways home brought back trade goods from the Americas well before the Birth of Christ. Not a lot of such evidence, but some.

Got to go eat my supper which is getting cold... best wishes to you all.

Thought you might be also interested in another Phoenician tidbit. I'm sure almost all of you have heard of Hannibal, who invaded Rome and the Roman Empire via the Alps, using Elephants. He was a general of the Army of Carthage, a city/state of what we would now call Mediterranean North Africa. Carthage was founded and long established as a colony of Phoenicia.

quote:

Originally posted by Spooksar:
Don't forget the Irish fishing off the Grand Banks of North America in the 4th AD

I was not ignoring your input. Yes, I have heard that once or twice about the Irish, but have never seemed to get the time to look thoroughly for documentation of it. Do you have knowledge of any source I could read about it?

quote:

Originally posted by TomP:
There is a dig just off I-15, between Barstow and Las Vegas where they claim to be finding human artifacts in a layer 200,000 years old.

I'm sure the Mormons can explain that anomaly.

Grizz

yep the book of Mormon tells all about the inhabitants of this continent thousands of years ago.
the rest of the country is just now finding the evidence to support the book...

quote:

Originally posted by thecanadian:

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
There's also some evidence of Viking rune stones being found in (IIRC) Oklahoma and/or Minnesota & also Knights Templar paintings in caves in the USA........ and that would also explain why Rosslyn in Scotland has a carving that depicts maize that must have been carved pre Columbus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kensington_Runestone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westford_Knight

http://www.rosslynchapel.org.uk/history.php (pic 3)

Did you even read up on these. There is a serious lack of credibility and evidence to back these up. On a more serious note, the earliest European settlement that I am aware of is L’Anse aux Meadows.

http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index.aspx

Yes, I have. And the Wikipedia references are not entirely reliable. For one example, part of one of them says this:

"Some suggest that the timing is also inconsistent with history, as at the time of the alleged voyage (1398), the Order of the Knights Templar was not in existence, having been publicly disbanded ninety years earlier. However, there are those that claim that the order continued to exist "underground" after that time."



But, there is no doubt the Templars did continue to exist as a secret society up until 1717, when it came back into the open under another name as a society with secrets, rather than a totally secret society.

While it is true that the Pope, in cahoots with King Francis the Fair of France (where the Pope had earlier been a Bishop) did order the disbanding of the Templars in 1307, that order was only successful insofar as it took away the official recognition of the Templars as a prominent official Order of the Roman Catholic Church established by an earlier Pope and made them subject to arrest on sight.

It actually ordered them to be merged with the Hospitalers, the other Catholic Order of Knights which worked mainly in Southern Europe and the Middle East to provide succor to those in need of it. That simply did not occur, as they both had long been competitors with each other.

It quickly evolved into a Papal Bull which ordered all their lands and wealth to be forfeit to the King of France and the Pope, and for them to be placed under arrest and tried for heresy, the punishments for which were excommunication, imprisonment, and/or death by burning at the stake.

When that failed to produce the results the two conspirators wanted, the inquisition of them began and they eventually ended up being declared "outlaws" by the Church and about 300 were captured out of a total number of 3,500.

Those 300 were tortured and some of them confessed to the false charges concocted by the Pope and King, while others were burned at the stake for refusing to confess. The Templar Order's fortunes simply disappeared, as did the other 3,200 members of the Order. Most of their estates never became property of the Church or the King either...their titles having been arranged so they did not appear to be properties of the Order.

As for The Templar's members, a few did become Hospitalers, some became part of the German Order of Teutonic Knights, and many simply migrated to more friendly climes, mainly Spain, England, and Scotland, where they thrived as an underground Secret Society. No longer bound by their Catholic Templar Order vows of personal poverty and celibacy, they established businesses and families, and thrived.

Before the Templars were disbanded, they were not just Knights, they were also the first organized public bank with branches, honoring checks they issued to depositors internationally and providing "personal safety deposit facilities" (and double entry bookkeeping which they learned from the Phoenicians). So they knew how to do the things necessary to succeed.

Incidentally, the date of the Pope's disbanding of their Order, was Friday, May 13th, 1307, hence the origin of the still infamous "Friday the 13th".

A/C

Excellent post with a good insight into Templar history although as I was 'taught to be cautious' I guess we should note there is no proven link between the original order and that of the society with secrets, rather than a totally secret society.

As an aside, we have a lot of KT history, castles and preceptory buildings here in Portugal, especially central Portugal where I'm based but very little of the modern craft here and no modern Masonic KT whatsoever.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
A/C

Excellent post with a good insight into Templar history although as I was 'taught to be cautious' I guess we should note there is no proven link between the original order and that of the society with secrets, rather than a totally secret society.

As an aside, we have a lot of KT history, castles and preceptory buildings here in Portugal, especially central Portugal where I'm based but very little of the modern craft here and no modern Masonic KT whatsoever.

That is true...there is no absolutely proveable link between the KT and the society with secrets. Because their very lives depended for 300 years or so on no one being able to find a link or the members' names, the Secret Society kept no records or documents which made the existence of the society "discoverable" by The Church or anyone else.

Instead, they relied on other means of operation. They used mainly geometric symbols, such as the compass and the square, and secret methods of physical contact (NOT sexual) to identify each other. All of their rites were passed on as word for word unchangeable rote learning. Those rites, BTW are still often virtually identical to those of the "officially disbanded" Knights Templar order. The Templars themselves were a bit of a secret society, likewise with no internal records discoverable even by the Pope, and with ALL KTs sworn to a vow of secrecy about the groups members, properties, table of organization, and internal functions. Breaking of that vow was punishable by death at the hands of their brother KTs. They were also (in the Christian countries of the day) exempt from all of the various laws and orders issued by the ruling monarchies of Europe and elsewhere.

Any encroachment or violation of the Papal directive would be cause for immediate excommunication of the offending Monarch by the Pope, which would have the effect in many of the countries of making him or her ineligible to be the monarch. So, in the Christian countries before the "Reformation", the Pope's word was law at an even higher level than the power of Kings.

At any rate, it is worth noting that the "order with secrets" did not evolve from ANY craft society, be it Carpenters, Butchers, Stonemasons, Jewelers, or whatever. All those operating trade societies existed simultaneously with both the secret Templar society and the society with secrets, as is still the situation today.

New initiates are led to believe the society with secrets slowly evolved from something else, but that is one way of keeping the societal secrets, even today. As true in the Original order of the Knights Templar, one only learns more over the years spent actively participating in the Society and building the trust of the fellow, more senior, members. That is the way secrets are kept.

It is interesting to me to hear that there are no KTs in Portugal. Are there no "societies with secrets" originating from York, (England) or from Scotland? Both of those societies include special rites creating KTs, though it is particularly stronger as part of the York-based organization.

Best wishes, and thanks for the undeserved praise for my weak literary skills.

Portugal has 2 or 3 UGLE but all in the S. The rest of the country is Portuguese speaking GLLP.

The latter is relatively new (certainly post Salazar & often much newer) but thriving beyond belief when compared to most other countries.

I believe there are other KT fraternities here but none linked to the KT or KM we were referring to.

We have a lot of towns with original KT castles etc & most have fiestas linked to them & on these occasions many dress up in the appropriate clothes as part of the day.

You almost assuredly already know this, but some lurkers may not....

In the days of the secret, underground Templar society (1307 A.D 'til 1717 A.D.), most men were the chattels (property) of the landowners on whose estates their homes stood. They could not leave the estate without the written permission of their owners without suffering very strong legal discipline(s) if caught.

However, there were some exceptions...mainly shopkeepers and/or tradesmen who lived in the then developing villages and towns. They were "free" men, as were the members of their families....that situation was allowed to develop because even the feudal high mucky-mucks needed their skills...especially as most of the aristocracy was illiterate at the time. Only clerics were generally literate. [In fact, both of England's first two universities (Oxford & Cambridge) were established as training schools to create church clerics, and graduates were ordained. No one other than an ordained cleric was allowed to teach at either one.]

Anyway, members of the secret society dared not meet in any regular place, at any regular time or date, or in any sizeable number, for fear of arousing official attention which could lead to the fire as their fate. So, they often traveled and met in the forests, or on other basically uninhabited lands.

Each would carry a bible, and quite often either a compass or a square. As it was illegal to traverse the country without being able to show that one was a "free" man, the compass or the square which were common tools of the stonemasons, allowed one to claim to be a mason. The Bible was carried so he would not be mistaken for an atheist, which could get him quickly burned at the stake for heresy without the benefit of a trial by other than the Inquisition.


Upon coming upon those who might be other members of the secret society, they would hail each other in a particular way, follow the society-taught physical contact, and if both were satisfied that both were members of the secret society, then they would open a bible to a particular book and verse, and lay both of their individual stonemason's implements together on the open Bible in a particular way, to produce a geometric symbol of a common facet of the universe. They could then confidently perform their rites or otherwise meet to conduct society business.

The reason so many pretended to be stonemasons when travelling, whether members of the secret society or not, was that stonemasons were allowed to go anywhere without restriction as their craft was in great demand over all of Europe and the rest of the world for the building of homes, castles, fortifications, and most of all...the great cathedrals.

That meant they did not need papers to travel in their own country, or passports or other papers to cross international borders. Some countries also conferred "instant citizenship" on stonemasons , which would allow them to immediately ply their trade in that country.

A final point...the members of the secret Templar society usually did not know each other personally...it was very much like today's well handled spy cells...all information was on a strictly "need to know" basis...if you didn't know the others' names or any other information about them or the society itself, you couldn't be tortured into giving that information to the authorities.

Interesting, isn't it? Where there is a will to do something there has always been a way to get it done.....

I've certainly heard all those stories but of course one never knows for certain how true they are (esp in the case of the original Templars after the betrayal). I'd say they're certainly plausible.

The same can be said of the theories of the Craft going back to the time of the pyramids because they sometimes both share similar symbols...... the link could be true but it could equally be that the Craft simply copied symbols from a previous time. As I see it, one can only make up ones own mind.

History is full of possible links but many cannot be absolutely, positively, definitely proved beyond all doubt.

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
I've certainly heard all those stories but of course one never knows for certain how true they are (esp in the case of the original Templars after the betrayal). I'd say they're certainly plausible.

The same can be said of the theories of the Craft going back to the time of the pyramids because they sometimes both share similar symbols...... the link could be true but it could equally be that the Craft simply copied symbols from a previous time. As I see it, one can only make up ones own mind.

History is full of possible links but many cannot be absolutely, positively, definitely proved beyond all doubt.

As is true of the majority of historical accounts of any person, group, culture, or country, from time immemorial right down to today's news about yesterday's happenings.

quote:

Originally posted by Alberta Canuck:
As is true of the majority of historical accounts of any person, group, culture, or country, from time immemorial right down to today's news about yesterday's happenings.

I agree completely.

There are also reports of thousands of tons of copper being removed from the Lake Superior area during the Bronze Age. No one knows where it went, but speculation is it went to Asia.

http://www.history.com/shows/a...t-lakes-copper-heist

So THAT'S where the Bronze Age came from. Just add a bit of tin to all that copper and you got it.

Case closed.

..but how'd the Eskimos get all that back to Siberia??

As the ole hag said not to long ago,

"what difference does it make now"