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<blockquote data-quote="cignus_pfaccari" data-source="post: 4649306" data-attributes="member: 14557">In most cases, it's far easier to accept short-term or one-off contacts than extended contact.&nbsp; Like the chicken bones from South America that have been dated to before the European discovery, or the sweet potato (both of which appear to have come from Polynesia); it's not too hard to imagine a trade route existing for a short time before (say) the Polynesians involved decide it's just not worth it, stop going, and in a generation or two they've forgotten they ever went that way.But the more crackpoty things...yeah.Things like &quot;the Ancient Egyptians came over to America to mine copper&quot; require that said Egyptians were able to sustain an expedition over here with not-terribly-seaworthy ships (Mediterranean, yes, Atlantic, not likely) while ignoring the fact that they could buy almost all the copper they wanted from local sources at vastly cheaper rates (once you take into account how much everything costs, including the time and labor of your miners), and managing to keep all the evidence of their passage hidden.&nbsp; While it's not impossible that some power-mad and paranoid entity decided to have an expedition to have a secret source of copper in case the Cypriots and other sources turned off the spigot, it's really, really, really, really unlikely.Or &quot;the Ancient Egyptians taught the Aztecs and Mayans how to do pyramids&quot;, which sounds cool and stuff, until you start looking at who did what with pyramids, and why don't they look the same?I personally love this stuff; sometimes they pull up generally interesting stuff, and other times they're waaaay out in left field, with their saucers' landing gear stuck in the soft soil of the Nazca plain.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Brad</blockquote>

[QUOTE="cignus_pfaccari, post: 4649306, member: 14557"] In most cases, it's far easier to accept short-term or one-off contacts than extended contact. Like the chicken bones from South America that have been dated to before the European discovery, or the sweet potato (both of which appear to have come from Polynesia); it's not too hard to imagine a trade route existing for a short time before (say) the Polynesians involved decide it's just not worth it, stop going, and in a generation or two they've forgotten they ever went that way. But the more crackpoty things...yeah. Things like "the Ancient Egyptians came over to America to mine copper" require that said Egyptians were able to sustain an expedition over here with not-terribly-seaworthy ships (Mediterranean, yes, Atlantic, not likely) while ignoring the fact that they could buy almost all the copper they wanted from local sources at vastly cheaper rates (once you take into account how much everything costs, including the time and labor of your miners), and managing to keep all the evidence of their passage hidden. While it's not impossible that some power-mad and paranoid entity decided to have an expedition to have a secret source of copper in case the Cypriots and other sources turned off the spigot, it's really, really, really, really unlikely. Or "the Ancient Egyptians taught the Aztecs and Mayans how to do pyramids", which sounds cool and stuff, until you start looking at who did what with pyramids, and why don't they look the same? I personally love this stuff; sometimes they pull up generally interesting stuff, and other times they're waaaay out in left field, with their saucers' landing gear stuck in the soft soil of the Nazca plain. :) Brad [/QUOTE]

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