You cant believe everything you read in history books..
No, jw: a German professor from the University of Muenich/München did a survey with her students, about a decade ago, of 750 Egyptian mummies (members of Egypt's upper classes), dating from 1,500 BC to 500 BC. They especially studied the mummies' hair. The hair of 35% of those mummies proved to contain clear traces of heroin, cannabis, cocaïne, and tobacco. I.o.w.: they were regular junkies when they were alive!
One can only become a junkie if one has a regular supply of an addictive drug. I.o.w. there was regular trade of addictive drugs. And it must have been global trade, i.o.w. circumnavigation, because tobacco and cocaïne come from south America!
So 'they' – whoever they were – were already circumnavigating the globe for drug trading 3,500 years BP! Bye-bye Columbus, irish monks, Leif Erickson, etc. ...
http://archaeologica.boardbot.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1911&start=60