Anything we can imagine (and many things we can't, or just haven't) CAN be
true (Ancient Astronauts, Creationists, etc.), and all such have the
possibility of being proven true by future research.  To the extent of my
knowledge, that's what happened with the Vikings in America--there were
oral traditions, the possibility that the Vikings (the premier European
navigators of the last part of the first millennium) could have done this,
and even some artifacts found during the 19th century (which, however,
tended to turn up in places where Scandinavians had settled during that
century--rune stones in Minnesota, etc.).  None of this was proven,
however, until L'Anse aux Meadows was excavated in the late 1950s-early
1960s.  This was a site with numerous European artifacts, buildings
characteristic of the 10th-century Norse, evidence of ironworking and
shipbuilding, located in Newfoundland--proof to destroy what had been,
until then, a valid skepticism.

The Romans, Phoenicians, Greeks, Egyptians and several of the polities on
the West African coast all had at least minimal capability to make a
trans-Atlantic voyage, before Columbus.  We can certainly imagine such
pre-Columbian voyages, probably because post-Columbian voyages are such an
important part of the heritages and cultures of Euro-Americans and African
Americans.  But, wishing and dreaming don't make it so.  We need a Roman
(or Phoenician, Greek, Egyptian, African) L'Anse aux Meadows, not one
terracotta head of questionable provenience.  Until then, it's our job as
archaeologists to be skeptics.

David Babson.




At 10:05 AM 2/15/00 -0500, you wrote:
>     So all of you are agreed that it's absolutely impossible for a Roman
>     ship to have made it to the New World?
>
>     You guys sound like the anti-Viking position back before the discovery
>     of the Newfoundland site.
>
>     Certainly the pop. press will hype this stuff.  Certainly the reports
>     we've seen are not what we'd consider good evidence to support the
>     claims in the press.  But sometimes it's true anyway.  Maybe not this
>     time (who knows?) but to take the position that it CAN'T be true is
>     poor science.
>
>     Jake.
>