I read some where over the holiday that two native Americans sailed across the Atlantic to what is present day Netherlands in 60 b.c.e. I checked for sources on the reading but it lacked them. Is there any validity to this claim? Did native Americans really brave the Atlantic and make the first contact with Europeans?
There's always room for discussion, but perhaps these topics will answer your inquiry
This story has been asserted as fact by many spurious speculators.
The story orginates from interpretations of a paragraph in Roman writer, Pliny the Elder's Natural History, which he may have derived from a similar paragraph by Roman Geographer, Pomponius Mela, in De Situ Orbis, which Mely may have got from now lost works of Roman writer, Cornelius Nepos.
It takes creative interpretation to see this paragraph as evidence of Native Americans turning up on the coasts of Europe.
For a lengthy discussion of this paragraph and its interpretations, see:
http://www.jasoncolavito.com/native-american-discovery-of-europe.html
So, it is vaguely possible that the incident referred to could have been caused by some Native American seafarers, but other explanations seem much more likely.
Thank you both. Seemed to good to be true.