Editing Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories (section)

=== Claims of travel in Roman times ===
[[Pomponius Mela]] writes,<ref name="Pomponius">[[Pomponius Mela]]. ''[https://archive.org/details/pomponiimalaedes00mela De situ orbis libri III]'', chapter 5.</ref> and is copied by [[Pliny the Elder]],<ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'', Book 2, chapter 67.</ref> that [[Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer (consul)|Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer]] (died 59 BCE), [[proconsul]] in [[Gaul]], received "several Indians" (''Indi'') who had been driven by a storm to the coasts of [[Germania]] as a present from a foreign king, listed by Mela, in different manuscripts, as ''rege Boorum/Boiorum/Botorum''<ref name="Podossinov2014">{{cite book|first=Alexander V. |last=Podossinov |title=The Periphery of the Classical World in Ancient Geography and Cartography|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/36855017|year=2014|publisher=Peeters Publishers|editor=Alexander V. Podossinov|isbn=978-9-04292-923-4|pages=133–145|chapter=The Indians in Northern Europe? On the Ancient Roman Notion of the Configuration of Eurasia |series=Colloquia Antiqua|volume=12}}</ref> and usually identified in recent scholarship as king of the [[Boii]],<ref name="Podossinov2014" /><ref name="Lerner2020">{{cite book|first=Jeffrey D. |last=Lerner |title=Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/94849825 |year=2020|publisher=Oxbow Books|editor1=Jeffrey D. Lerner|editor2=Yaohua Shi|isbn=978-1-78925-470-9|pages=267–284|chapter=The Case for Shipwrecked Indians in Germany }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Robert |last=Morstein-Marx |title=Julius Caesar and the Roman people|year=2021|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=173|isbn=978-1-108-83784-2}}</ref> though Tausend (1999) argued that it might be corrupted name of the [[Goths]];<ref name=Tausend1999>{{Cite journal |last1=Tausend |first1=Klaus |year=1999 |title=Inder in Germanien |journal=Orbis Terrarum |language=de |volume=5 |pages=115–125 }}</ref> Pliny identifies the king as the ruler of the [[Suebi]] instead:

<blockquote>

''Ultra Caspium sinum quidnam esset, ambiguum aliquamdiu fuit, idemne Oceanus an tellus infesta frigoribus sine ambitu ac sine fine proiecta. Sed praeter physicos Homerumque qui universum orbem mari circumfusum esse dixerunt, Cornelius Nepos ut recentior, auctoritate sic certior; testem autem rei Quintum Metellum Celerem adicit, eumque ita rettulisse commemorat: cum Galliae pro consule praeesset, Indos quosdam a rege Boiorum dono sibi datos; unde in eas terras devenissent requirendo cognosse, vi tempestatium ex Indicis aequoribus abreptos, emensosque quae intererant, tandem in Germaniae litora exisse. Restat ergo pelagus, sed reliqua lateris eiusdem adsiduo gelu durantur et ideo deserta sunt.''<ref name="Lerner2020" />
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
For a long time it was doubtful what there was beyond the Caspian bay: whether the same Ocean, or a land infested with cold, spreading out without circumference and boundless. But, in addition to the natural Philosophers and Homer, who have said that the whole universe was surrounded by sea, [[Cornelius Nepos]], as more recent in authority and hence more certain, is available. Moreover he adds Quintus Metellus Celer as a witness to the fact, and asserts that he related this account: that while he was in charge of the Gauls as proconsul, certain Indians were given to him by a king of the Boii as a gift; and that in inquiring whence they had arrived into these regions, he learned that, driven from Indian waters by the violence of tempests, they had passed over the seas which intervened and finally had come through onto the shores of Germany. Therefore, there remains the sea, but the remaining places of this same side are held in the grip of continual cold and hence are deserted.<ref name="Pomponius"/>
</blockquote>

Both Mela and Pliny listed this incident as evidence supporting the notion that all lands of the world, including northern parts of Europe and Asia, are surrounded by [[Oceanus#Geography|Oceanus]], and that it is theoretically possible to sail from India to Europe through a northern passage.<ref name="Podossinov2014" /><ref name="Lerner2020" />

Since Metellus Celer died just after his consulship, before he ever got to [[Gallia Narbonensis|Transalpine Gaul]] (in the area of present-day southern France),<ref>{{cite book|first=T. Corey |last=Brennan |title=The Praetorship in the Roman Republic|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-511460-4|page=578|chapter=Cilicia and the Gauls in the Late Republic|volume=II}}</ref> the authors accepting the historicity of the incident either date it to 62 BCE, when Celer was governing [[Cisalpine Gaul]] (in the area of present-day northern Italy),<ref>{{cite book|first=T. Corey |last=Brennan |title=The Praetorship in the Roman Republic|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-511460-4|page=582|chapter=Cilicia and the Gauls in the Late Republic|volume=II}}</ref><ref name="Podossinov2014" /><ref name="Lerner2020" /> or interpret texts of Mela and Pliny as garbled accounts of Celer's encounter with some Indians at an earlier date, when he served as [[Pompey]]'s legate in Asia.<ref>{{cite book|first=Frank E. |last=Romer |title=Pomponius Mela's Description of the World|year=1998|publisher=The University of Michigan Press|page=114|isbn=0-472-10773-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Duane W.|last=Roller |title=A Guide to the Geography of Pliny the Elder|year=2022|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=32–103|chapter=Book 2 - Cosmology|doi=10.1017/9781108693660.005}}</ref>

Richard Hennig suggested that the castaways mentioned by Mela and Pliny were possibly [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indians]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard |last=Hennig |title=Terrae incognitae. Eine Zusammenstellung und kritische Bewertung der wichtigsten vorcolumbischen Entdeckungsreisen an Hand der darüber vorliegenden Originalberichte|volume=1: Altertum bis Ptolemäus|year=1944|publisher=E. J. Brill|pages=289–292|edition=2nd}}</ref> Other interpretations of the incident were also proposed. Bengtson (1954), McLaughlin (2016) and Lerner (2020) argued that Celer might have encountered actual merchants from India, who reached Europe from [[Phasis (town)|Phasis]] on the [[Black Sea]] coast.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bengtson |first1=Hermann |year=1954 |title=Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer (cos 60) und die Inder |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |language=de |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=229–236 |jstor=4434397}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Raoul |last=McLaughlin |title=The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China|year=2016|publisher=Pen & Sword Books|chapter=Caspian Routes and the Crimea }}</ref><ref name="Lerner2020" /> Other authors interpret supposed Indians as misidentified speakers of [[Finno-Ugric languages]] originating from the areas east of the [[Bothnian Bay]]<ref name=Tausend1999 /> or [[Vistula Veneti|Baltic Veneti]].<ref name="Podossinov2014" /> An article in the ''Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York'' published in 1891 suggests that the word "Indos" is so indefinite as to be subject to speculation, and that copyist errors may have changed "Jernos" (Irish) or "Iberos" (Spaniards) to Indos.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hurlbut |first1=George C. |title=Geographical Notes |journal=Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York |date=1891 |volume=23 |pages=80–111 |doi=10.2307/196577 |jstor=196577 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/196577 |access-date=4 December 2024 |issn=1536-0407}}</ref>