When was it first recorded that people traveled between the northern and southern hemispheres, and is there any record or evidence that those travelers noted a discrepancy in the seasons they expected for the time of year?

by eilatanz

I wondered this question while watching a youtube video about physics here - obviously the seasons occur at different times of year in the southern hemisphere than in the north. Is there evidence that explorers and travelers understood this, what was their reconciliation of this change if they didn't understand it, and when was the first time known that people traveled between the hemispheres? I'm interested in pre-history and the goings-on in earlier humans, but am more interested in post civilization exploration (since that is where I assume we would find the sort of record that lends an answer) if it applies to this question.

jschooltiger

So we don't know when people first traveled between hemispheres. Leaving aside for a minute the fact that people in many parts of the globe lived on or near the equator -- travel for them across hemispheres could be quite regular -- we have a couple of possibilities for the first recorded travel.

  • Herodotus says that Phoenician sailors traveled around Africa, but there has been some disagreement on this topic among our flaired users in the past. See for example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/18hcee/phoenician_trade_routes_around_africa/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1fhmvv/did_phoenicians_circumnavigate_africa_in_the/

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3dmbcg/i_heard_recently_that_herodotus_mentioned_a_story/

  • Portugese sailors crossed the equator in 1471, and established a base at Sao Tome in 1485. The explorers noted that the constellations had changed, and found that the Southern Cross could be used for navigation.

  • Bartolomeu Dias finally rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, which is the first recorded time the Indian Ocean had been reached from the Atlantic.

I can't speak in particular to a change of seasons, but Ronald H. Fritze's New Worlds: The Great Voyages of Discovery, 1400-1600 is a good one-volume introduction to this period. I don't have it on me, unfortunately, but I have a vague memory that it references seasons.