[Aztlan] ANCIENT PACIFIC COAST TRADE REPLICATED

[michael ruggeri]

Listeros,


Researchers and students at MIT built a replica of a raft that could  
engage in trading voyages along the Pacific coast of the Americas and  
tested it to stability and seaworthiness and cargo capacity made of  
the same materials as found in Ecuador. They found that shipworms  
were the biggest problem and they live along the Pacific coast and  
devour the balsa wood rafts quickly. The researchers found that they  
could make two round trip voyages between Peru and Western Mexico  
before the raft needed replacing. The rafts cannot be left in harbor  
long since this is where the shipworms enter.

They found the voyages would take 6 to 8 weeks and could only be  
taken when  trade winds were favorable and as a result traders would  
have to stay at their destinations for 6 months to a year each trip.  
This would have allowed for a transfer of knowledge between widely  
separated groups. The rafts had a capacity of 10 to 30 tons, the same  
capacity as the barges that once plied the Erie Canal.

This is the first analysis to use modern engineering techniques to  
determine design parameters and constraints of ancient watercraft to  
prove the feasibility of this kind of trade.


Innovations Report has the story here;
http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/verkehr_logistik/ 
bericht-105942.html

I have made a tiny URL;
http://tinyurl.com/32awn9

Mike Ruggeri




Mike Ruggeri's Ancient West Mexico from the Pre-Classic to the Tarascans
http://tinyurl.com/32uo5m