Was America discovered before Columbus?

When we say "discovered", we usually have a very special meaning in mind. We mean that people from one civilization came to a region where no one from their place had been before. As you know, an explorer often finds a people and a civilization already living in the place he "discovers." Why not say these people discovered it before him?

From our Western-civilization point of view, we say that Columbus discovered America. This is because after his discovery the New World he found began to be visited and finally populated from the Old World. But 500 years before Columbus was born, the Norsemen did a bit of "discovering," too. They sailed west to discover Iceland, then Greenland, and later the America mainland.

Did you know that the Chinese tell of an even earlier voyage by Chinese sailors to discover what has become California? And people of the South Sea Islands still sing of the great men of their distant past who sailed to South America long time before the white man reached either South America or the South Sea Islands.

For all we know, there may have been many ages of exploration thousands of years ago. There were certainly ages of exploration before the time of Columbus. Perhaps we might say that neither Columbus, nor the Norsemen before him, "discovered " America. Weren't the Indians already living here for many centuries before the white man arrived?

And who can say that they didn't set out on a voyage of discovery? It is believed that they cam from Asia, though we don't know when or how they made a trip. Probably they reached America over a period of centuries and by different routes. They also probably sent their scouts ahead to seek out routes by land or sea. These scouts were their explores, and perhaps it was really they who discovered America!

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