Floating A Big Idea: Ancient Use Of Rafts To Transport Goods Demonstrated

Science Daily ^ | 3-22-2008 | MIT

[blam]

GGG Ping.

[BfloGuy]

Kon-Tiki

[ASOC]

Thank you - Title should be

Univesity reinvents wheel.......

[Alright_on_the_LeftCoast]

You beat me to it....Heyerdahl goes over 4K+ miles on a raft across the Pacific in the late 40’s...MIT goes out for a half hour ride in a river....big deal.

[Sherman Logan]

Interesting, although there are some serious anomalies if the two groups of civilizations were in constant contact.

For instance, while corn native to Mexico made it to Peru, I don’t believe potatoes, native to Peru, made it to Mexico.

Also, writing was common in Mexico and unknown in Peru.

In many other ways the two civilizations are as different from each other as any two on earth.

[edcoil]

The history channel had a special on big ships that were as big as a football field 1,000’s of years ago.

[sionnsar]

and the arrangement of centerboards. These boards were used in place of a keel to prevent the craft from being blown to the side, and also provided a steering mechanism by selectively raising and lowering different boards from among two rows of them arranged on each side of the craft.

Who writes this tripe?

[Michael.SF.]

Wonder where they could have gotten this idea?

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Blam. This is of course ridiculous. No one crossed large bodies of water until 1492. The Polynesians? They didn't get to those islands by boat, they were carried by the wind from elsewhere. In case anyone needs it -- [sarcasm alert] Nice to see someone actually getting down to work regarding this. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[bill1952]

Did somebody in that faculty read the Kon Tiki when they were stoned in the library and then thought that it was a very obscure thesis so they repeated it as some new and startling discovery?

How do they trot this crap out, anyway?
Are they going to float the idea that the Earth is not the center of the Solar System next?

[Fresh Wind]

So, once again, modern elitists have discovered that people thousands of years ago were actually intelligent and had a talent for engineering.

[TexanToTheCore]

Sailors sail, archaeologists don’t. End of story.

[mtbopfuyn]

Kon-Tiki

You beat me to it. MIT students needed computer programs to design their rafts while the originals were probably slapped together in a couple days with what was on hand.

[Moonman62]

Equatorial waters are fairly calm and storm free, so rafts may have worked.

[bert]

In my library is the book Kon Tiki that solved these problems years ago. I feel guilty because I borrowed the book from my uncle and never returned it.

[Tallguy]

You beat me to it....Heyerdahl goes over 4K+ miles on a raft across the Pacific in the late 40’s...MIT goes out for a half hour ride in a river....big deal.

Yes, but think of all the self-esteem & "knowledge" that was generated! /sarcasm

[Judith Anne]

LOL! I read Kon-Tiki in hs, and that’s the first thing I thought of when I got the ping.

[ASOC]

I read it in HS and OK.

Then, I read ot again as an adult. Thor was a Commando in WWII - as an adult, it was a story of a bunch kick-ass Commndo types taking on the ocean in a lttle raft.

And the ham part? They used an old WWII “Radio Swan” (spy) rig, too cool

I didn’t realize how much education I missed by going to High School...

[Judith Anne]

Hmmmmm....I guess it would be a good idea for me to read it again, too (with all the MO flooding), there are a bunch of books I need to re-read. I thought he was a really good-looking man, at the time, and the story was just fascinating.