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I was watching a show about ancient civilizations and they mentioned this as one piece of evidence that there had been contact and trade between the continents in ancient times. I did a little digging, and there does appear to be some real science at work, or at least some people who appear to be real scientists involved:http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/botany/mummy.htmThat's on the pages of a prof at University of California at Riverside; not exactly a bastion of knowledge, but not a rambling blog promoting drugs and pyramids (if you Google the topic, you will find several of those). This prof references a paper by another prof, this one at Colorado State:http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en570/papers_2000/wells.htmlInteresting stuff. I haven't found any information on the tests being redone; it seems simple enough to prove or disprove.There was an old clip of Thor Heyerdahl on the show and he made an interesting point in the form of a question – “The Egyptians worshiped the sun and had big boats. Why wouldn't they have followed the sun to see where it went?”
However Balabanova and others also proposed that such plants may have developed independently, but since have gone extinct.DR MICHELLE LESCOT – Natural History Museum, Paris: “I'ts true that the official theory is tobacco originates in South America. It's also true that there are species in Australasia and the Pacific Islands. There could have been other varieties, ancient varities that once existed in Asia. Why not Africa? Varieties that have now disappeared so it's not sacrilege to challenge the official theory.” http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Misc/mummies.htm
These studies seem to focus on transatlantic trade. Isn't there some theory that Ancient Chinese or Southest Asian civilizations/people traveled to South America? Maybe the cocaine and tobacco came to Egypt via China?
There are lots of theories. There is even a reverse migration theory, as a significant number of lowland sites in Bolivia were abandoned roughly coincident with an ice shelf breaking into the sea and potentially flooding the place and also roughly coincident to when civilization started picking up steam in the Mid East about 8000 years ago. When I watch a slickly produced special on cable, I want to believe every one of the passionate scientists presenting their theories. But they rarely if ever have concrete evidence and often explain away an awful lot of conflicting evidence. Common themes in ancient myths (like the flood story central to the reverse migration theory) are awfully hard to ignore. I think one or more of the competing theories is probably correct, but how can we possibly sort them out now?BTW, I have a hard time with the drug one mostly because it seems like they would have brought back more than cocaine and cigarettes, though I guess it is possible that even back then addicts might have spent all their butter and egg money on that…
I was watching a show about ancient civilizations and they mentioned this as one piece of evidence that there had been contact and trade between the continents in ancient times. I did a little digging, and there does appear to be some real science at work, or at least some people who appear to be real scientists involved:http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/botany/mummy.htmThat's on the pages of a prof at University of California at Riverside; not exactly a bastion of knowledge, but not a rambling blog promoting drugs and pyramids (if you Google the topic, you will find several of those). This prof references a paper by another prof, this one at Colorado State:http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/courses/en570/papers_2000/wells.htmlInteresting stuff. I haven't found any information on the tests being redone; it seems simple enough to prove or disprove.
I'll say that I'm skeptical, simply on the grounds that this would entail. I checked one of those sites out and sure enough, the evidence they give that ancient man actually may have traveled to the New World is similarities in designs in artifacts on both sides of the Atlantic. With such a preposterous claim, I would want something in the line of hard evidence in the form of Egyptian/ancient Near Eastern/European artifacts in the Americas.
There was an old clip of Thor Heyerdahl on the show and he made an interesting point in the form of a question – “The Egyptians worshiped the sun and had big boats. Why wouldn't they have followed the sun to see where it went?”
That kind of reason simply doesn't do it for me. If they worshiped the sun and had knowledge of astronomy, why wouldn't they have built a space ship and traveled to the center of the sun? ;D
The thing that bothers me most is the central issue is the validity of the drug test, which can be redone. If it turns out to really be positive, then IMO the doubters need to step up and get more proof that coca and tobacco or other sources of the same ingredients existed somewhere in Africa or EurAsia earlier and went extinct. I have a hard time with that line of reasoning; if they existed and were used for their effects, it seems unlikely they would have gone extinct. They probably would have been cultivated. I am less than optimistic about a second test showing positive results, but the people who did the first one seem to have enough credentials that I don't think it should be dismissed as a hoax out of hand.
The thing is, I would go about it in a different way and would not place the burden of doubt on the skeptics of the theory. Instead, I would place the burden on the people presenting the unconventional theory. Assuming the cocaine tests are positive, is it more likely to think that it was harvested in Africa/Asia and that such crops died out over the past few thousand years, or that Trans-Atlantic voyages were being made around 1000 B.C.? The former seems more plausible (IMO) and should be examined before the latter is entertained.
Well, to begin with, there should be another test. If there is, I think it is quite likely that it will end there with nothing found. But it bugs me that the first test was done by people who appear to be legitimate researchers, so I would entertain the possibility that it will come back positive. If it came back positive, I would say that is enough to support the theory unless someone comes up with proof of plants that produced nicotine and cocaine and were available to the Egyptians. Simply put, until the test is corroborated, I think the people presenting the theory are grasping at straws, because it is plausible but not very likely. If the test are corroborated, then I think the skeptics using an unknown plant desired by the ancients but allowed to go extinct as their plausible but not very likely explanation. At that point I would say the skeptics would be grasping at straws and yes, I would place the burden of proof on them.
