Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

Re:Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021 by voz_ on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @08:41PM (#28938802)

Right, agreed entirely, this is higher than the numbers I recall from reading, but same order of magnitude. It was the flippant reference to Spain regarding chronology that I took umbrage with. Thats ~700 years after the area of Spain was named Spain (Latin Hispaniola in the Roman empire, iirc).

I always find the slightly emotional charge discussions (and subsequent downvotes) odd. There seems to be a very strong interest in certain groups to downplay or deride either the colonized, or colonizing side on measurements such as perceived development.

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Re:Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021 by AlotOfReading on Thursday October 21, 2021 @12:42AM (#28940349)

It's true even if we're very pedantic. Mesoamerica has had urbanization and high population densities for quite a long time. Michael Smith has pointed out pretty high urbanization rates (approaching 20%) even in the terminal formative period. Typical numbers I've seen are somewhere in the 8-12+ish people/km^2 range. That's roughly comparable to the western Roman empire at the time. But yes, I did mean the kingdom, not a separate term in another language for a peninsula that doesn't really correspond to the modern area.

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Re:Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021 by nl on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @10:32PM (#28939575)

> It was the flippant reference to Spain regarding chronology that I took umbrage with. Thats ~700 years after the area of Spain was named Spain (Latin Hispaniola in the Roman empire, iirc).

Obviously the land area of Spain has "always" existed. I think referring to "Spain's existence" as the socio-political entity established during the Reconquista is a reasonable position for a throw-away line during a HN discussion.

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