People often think that ancient people's (or "primitive" people) were not capable of traveling by sea. Thus finding any cultural similarities on other continents must mean that it came spontaneously from the mind of humans (or UFOs, if crackpot theories work for you). However, as Joseph Campbell pointed out in 1959, the argument has already been decided in favor of diffusion (travel to other continents by land-bridges and boats) as the best and only way to explain how similar ideas or artifacts can be found on separate continents. In other words, this is the theory that tends to hold true most of the time (from 1898);
1898 - Leo Frobenius announced a new approach to the study of primitive cultures (the Kulturkreislehre, "culture area theory") wherein he identified a primitive cultural continuum, extending from equatorial West Africa eastward, through India and Indonesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, across the Pacific to equatorial America and the northwest coast. This was a radical challenge to the older "parallel development" or "psychological" schools of interpretation, such as Brinton, Bastian, Tylor, and Frazer had represented, in as much as it brought the broad and bold theory of primitive trans-oceanic "diffusion" to bear upon the question of the distribution of so-called "universal" themes. (Primitive Mythology by Joseph Campbell, page 15)
The dawn of history, as we know it, has now been securely placed in the Near East in the ealy hieratic city states. And the powerful diffusion of the great syndrome of the higher civilizations from those early centers to the bounds of the earth has now been traced clearly enough to let us know that most of what used to be regarded as evidence of, in Frazer's words, "the effect of similar causes acting on the similar constitution of the human mind in different countries and under different skies," is actually evidence, rather, of diffusion. - Joseph Campbell, Primitive Mythology
We have more evidence of travel by sea than ever before...
Pesse Canoe: Oldest canoe carbon dated to have been made between 8040 BCE & 7510 BCE (it’s a lucky break to find a wooden object from such a long time ago)
The canoe was replicated and found to be sea worthy. Best part is that it is constructed in the dugout style that primitive tribes (including Native American tribes) use to this day. The following is a drawing from 1590 (shows how a style, i.e. a cultural development, once developed, tends to stay uniform over a great deal of time - thousands of years in this example)
If canoes exited 9000 years ago then could the following discovery of a Monolith on the sea floor in the Mediterranean with cut out holes have been an ancient lighthouse? The discover seems to think so and the evidence of canoes makes that even more likely (& is probably where he got the idea from)...
They suggest the complete hole held a torch, allowing the monolith to serve as a "lighthouse, to separate the settlement from the sea," Lodolo said, but it's only a guess.
The Last Glacial Maximum began about 19,000 years ago, the researchers said. At that time, Europe was about 40 percent larger than it is now, but as the glaciers melted, sea levels rose about 410 feet (125 m) from then until present day, Lodolo told Live Science. "This global event has led to the retreat of the coastlines, especially in lowland areas and shallow shelves, such as the Sicilian Channel," the researchers wrote in the study. Before the sea level in the Mediterranean rose, an archipelago existed between Sicily and modern-day Tunisia. Perhaps people lived on these islands and constructed the monolith, Lodolo said. "[The archipelago] was like a bridge between the European world and the African world," Lodolo said. "It's quite reasonable to think it was inhabited by some settlers." The archipelago inhabitants likely came from Sicily, as land bridges existed throughout the Last Glacial Maximum between the two, according to modern-day analyses, the researchers said. Traveling from Africa to the archipelago would have been more difficult, because about 31 miles (50 km) of open sea separated them. The archipelago disappeared underwater about 9,500 years ago, suggesting the monolith was erected before then, Lodolo said.
The archipelago disappeared underwater about 9,500 years ago, suggesting the monolith was erected before then, Lodolo said. Advanced technology The finding supports the idea that ancient people, who possibly lived in hunter-gatherer societies, had the capability to create monoliths, Lodolo said. It's unclear how these ancient people made the monoliths, but they likely needed advanced techniques to prepare the stone.
Many other dug out canoes have been found ranging from 6000 to 1000 years old. The Hawaiians have a legend that they came to those islands by canoe and that could very well be true as adventurers try out the canoes and survive on the ocean in our times. Could the above Monolith have been a lighthouse feature in the Mediterranean where many paleolithic - verging on neolithic cultures -had probably developed travel by canoe?
More archaeological evidence of widespread caneo use (ocean travel... even the Hawaians claim to have arrived on the islands by boat and have had sailors from many times!);
Were the following ships regularly crossing the oceans in prehistory?(All of these vessels have the large forward sterns to deal with the sort of waves one expects to find in an ocean/sea and were thus capable of crossing the oceans.)...
Reconstruction of a Mycenaean ship in use around 1600 BC
The known enterprise of the Phoenician race, and this ancient knowledge of America, so variously expressed, strongly encourage the hypothesis that the people called Phoenicians came to this continent, established colonies in the region where ruined cities are found, and filled it with civilized life. It is argued that they made voyages on the “great exterior ocean,” and that such navigators must have crossed the Atlantic; and it is added that symbolic devices similar to those of the Phoenicians are found in the American ruins, and that an old tradition of the native Mexicans and Central Americans described the first civilizers as “bearded white men,” who “came from the East in ships.” - John Denison Baldwin, Ancient America, 1871
A depiction of a stern mounted steering rudder ship from 1400 BC
An Egyptian ship from 1250 BC
Assyrian warship dated to 700 BC
The world according to Herodotus 440 BCE
(Clearly the ships crossing the oceans were not spreading their knowledge... maybe because they never came back once they left?)
Athenian Warship 400 BC
A river boat transporting wine around 200 AD
Roman war ship
Model of Roman Ship
This sort of coastal ship, used by Jewish merchants in medieval ages...
Was traveling all around the world!
Could the famous Bat creek, with paleo-Hebrew writing, considered to be a forgery, be a remnant from this sailing culture?
Compare to the writing on ancient Jewish coins;
A Chinese Junk ship in existence from at least 200 AD. This one is from the 13th century
The Hjortspring boat made around 400-300 BC, reconstructed
Sketch with correct scaling and angles of the Danish 'Hjortspring boat' from 400-300 BC, built more than 1400 years before the first Viking ships appeared in Scandinavia.
Petroglyphs of boats from the Nordic Bronze Age in Scandinavia.
Replica of viking boat in use by 1000 AD
NOTE
Could people with advanced methods of using architecture in the ancient megalithic and cyclopean architectural styles have crossed the oceans with their best - and most advanced - engineers and architects (with the most innovative techniques being from the top of society, as that's where the first out-flux of refuges usually comes from, i.e. the well to do and highly skilled while the poor take the brunt of any famine or war) looking for a better life or escaping adversaries such as the sea people who were attacking all along the Mediterranean as depicted in this Egyptian drawing;
The term “Cyclopean” for this sort of stone work comes from the beliefs of the classical Greeks that only a Cyclops had enough strength to move these stones into place.
Lions Gate (closeup)
Ashlar style architecture (the other type of Mycenaean architectural style)
Cyclopean architecture involves placing stones - without mortar - to fit together into a wall. The big thing about cyclopean architecture is that the stone blocks are carved/chiped so that each block fits together with the other blocks in such a way as to be a stable and strong wall.
Here you can see stones of different shapes fitted together without mortar into a wall that has lasted thousands of years.
Now notice this Cyclopean architecture in South America (Cuzco);
The same architectural styles of fitting stones together - of different shapes, without mortar - seems to have existed independently in the New World (America) as well. Though possibly more advanced...
Now notice this Cyclopean architecture in South America (using even larger stones!);
Saksaywaman: It is said to have been started by the Killke culture around 1100 AD and then occupied and built up some more by the Inca’s in the 13th century. Since stone can’t be dated the site was dated by pottery fragments found on the site which dated to 1100 AD and later.
Notice how puny the Inca architecture is compared to the “Killke culture” architecture
I.e. Inca culture reconstruction are those tiny stones on the upper left (talk about a ridiculous fall in construction and engineering ability!). Could the larger stones have been put up by a culture that died out in the region? Could they have been from Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt?
This was a culture of megalithic stones cut in odd/unusual shapes and fitted together without mortar
A large view of the structure at Saksaywaman
A wall made out of 6 monoliths
A water fountain using megalithic stones
A standing doorway
In other words...
Could people with advanced methods of using architecture in the ancient megalithic and cyclopean architectural styles have crossed the oceans with their best engineers and architects looking for a better life or escaping adversaries such as the sea people who were attacking all along the Mediterranean as depicted in this Egyptian drawing;
Egyptian War with the Sea People 1175BC
Of course, alot more research needs to be done. Since stone can't be dated and the Incas say that many of these sites were already there when they found them, maybe some of these sites were made by migrants from the Mediterranean region who later abandoned these sites due to some reason (maybe war, as some researchers have suggested). It may help to look under the stones for datable material to get an idea of when they were built.
Note: A possible solution to explaining ancient ocean faring people (given how the dugout canoe not only remained constant over thousands of years but was being used by Native Americans at the same technological level):
We know the Hawains were using a sort of canoe design that makes ocean travel easier (the following image is from 1781)...
How easy these sort of canoes are to make;
Modern ocean going canoes designed along those principles;
Could canoes have carried man to other continents without the need for land bridges BEFORE the invention of the big ships?
Even the standard theory has South Asian peoples reaching Taiwan by boat by 3000 BC and Hawai by 500 AD using just the above caneo tehcnology, so it certainly seems possible and prob;
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