I have been toying with Dan's idea about North America perhaps being populated by sea-faring people.

In history we know about Vikings and their ships. We know Cleopatra floated down the Nile to see her Lover. We have heard about Noah.

How long has this technological developement been around?

I think it is an important question, because this advancement had a monumental impact on the accessablility to far off places, and assisted in the migration of people to populate newer lands.

Were people using boats 20, 50, 100,000 years ago?

Who started it and where?

According to this brief article, the oldest boat yet discovered is about 7,000 years old, but one scientist suggests that boating had been around much longer.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20020617/boat.html

Noah had one, how long ago was that?

Cree, after reading your interesting post I came across
one site that speaks of boat or raft miagration 30,000years ago.
click on red arrow at 30,000 B.C after going to...
http://www.divediscover.whoi.edu/infomods/oceanhistory/

Rafts could have been used to island-hop to North America when the ocean was 400'+ lower than today.

The Polynesian people are some of the ones that make me wonder.

They are so remote and isolated, and are also well established on these islands. The idea also of small one or two person crafts, outriggers, dug-outs, canoes is a very simple one, I wonder how long they have been in use. You would think this would be the start of things, gradually growing to larger capacity.

River and boat travel would have been fundamental in trade. Long before roads.

There are many theories supporting the idea that people from the old world visited America long before Colombus and even the vikings. Main candidates are the roman, chinese, polynesian, assyrians and also some irish monks during the middle age (St Brendans if I remember well).
None has been proved as far as I know.

We only know about the ones who returned to tell the tale of a New World ... or whatever they decided to call it.

The ark was the first boat, because it was the first time water had been on the face of the earth.

How long ago that was, is determined by how old you think the Earth really is, although it was a lot closer to the beginning than the present.

jerejerebinks sez:

" ... The ark was the first boat, because it was the first time water had been on the face of the earth. ... "

Where did the fish live?

Originally posted by jerejerebinks
The ark was the first boat, because it was the first time water had been on the face of the earth.

Genesis 1, verse 9: 9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11

lol....i was thinking of the first time it rained...


sawy:(

Are you now saying that it never rained from the days of Creation until the Great Flood?

Yes. The Bible only speaks of a shower "coming up from the ground" in Eden to help the plants grow before the rain of the flood.

A couple of signs that show us this, is the first rainbow and the fact that everyone Noah told this too said there was no way that water could flood the Earth. This shows they had no knowledge that a lot of rain at once, gradually builds up and causes a flood.

The moon is in the sky, there are oceans & tides, the wind blows, seasons happen, rain has to happen.

Absolutely.....but the world completely changed after the flood. The world and its characteristics drastically changed.

I simply don't buy your explanations. You may as well be preaching that the Earth is flat - I don't believe that, either.

Either do I....the bible shows nothing that would suggest it is.

First there was no water, then there was no rain until "the flood"

C'mon now, that is so far fetched.......

So noone ever had a boat before NoaH?????

Originally posted by creetwins
So noone ever had a boat before NoaH?????

If so, you gotta give the guy some credit for a really good first effort.

boats have been here sinc e Bjarni Herjolfsson,Leif Eirikson and Eirķkr Žorvaldsson they come to Newfoundland

Uh, Trunkks, that was only a few hundred years ago, we have had boats for thousands upon thousands of years for sure.

Even predating the alleged Great Flood.

How do you know this, ES?

Originally posted by LionelHutz
If so, you gotta give the guy some credit for a really good first effort.

lol that made me laugh. hehehe.

In the Biblical account of creation, waters covered the face of the earth before man was even created. Then there were rivers mentioned in the garden of Eden.

I think it's reasonable to allow that there may have been boats before Noah.

I do too....