Country with the shortest history

[geomancer]

Which country has no prehistoric artifacts, no human fossils, and in fact no human prehistory whatsoever? That is, the very first human habitation is recorded in historical documents.

[Epictetus]

Which country has no prehistoric artifacts, no human fossils, and in fact no human prehistory whatsoever? That is, the very first human habitation is recorded in historical documents.

I googled your question and learned you asked the same on Yahoo Answers. Some of them are pretty funny, but I suppose New Zealand or some other Pacific island must be the place. I suppose it would be hard to say exactly given the negative quality of the evidence.

[Epictetus]

Oh! I'll bet Iceland is a better answer. There were no Inuit there.

[lightgigantic]

Which country has no prehistoric artifacts, no human fossils, and in fact no human prehistory whatsoever? That is, the very first human habitation is recorded in historical documents.

The Tubbytronic Superdome

[spidergoat]

Which country has no prehistoric artifacts, no human fossils, and in fact no human prehistory whatsoever? That is, the very first human habitation is recorded in historical documents.

What do you mean by country? Certainly no nation-states were around back then. Antarctica probably has no evidence of permanent human habitation. But mostly, humans were everywhere.

[Aqueous Id]

Which country has no prehistoric artifacts, no human fossils, and in fact no human prehistory whatsoever? That is, the very first human habitation is recorded in historical documents.

If you define the age of a country by the age of its present form of government, the US is generally held to be the oldest country in the world.

Under that definition, it would be hard to relate this to "first human habitation".

It would seem unlikely that any country would be deemed not to have any human fossils unless you mean none have been found.

It also seems bold to assume that humans did not at one time inhabit some country then vanish without a trace.

I could go on. Maybe you could be a little more specific.

[Buddha12]

Grand Fenwick

Located in the Alps along the French and Helvetian borders, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick is the smallest country in the world not consisting solely of a radar platform, and rarely appears on maps because printers complain that no one can ever make out what the cryptic phrase "DUCHY OF GRAND FENWICK" actually points to. Grand Fenwick was founded in 1370 by Englishman Roger Fenwick, who, as he later said, rather took a fancy to the place and moved in. The only real resource of the duchy is grapes; and of course its chief export is wine, particularly the Pinot Grand Fenwick. The Forest is a favourite of hikers and naturalists; which has led to a nascent ecotourism firm in the Duchy. Mostly this involves young Henry Bascombe pointing out the woods to visitors and telling them to have a good time. If there is no guard on duty at the border, just go right on in.

Due to its relative small size, the geography of Grand Fenwick is not varied as much as, say, France. It is only 15 sq. miles (39 sq. kilometers), but only about a 1/4 of that is inhabited, and another 1/3 is vineyards. The remainder consists of the Fenwick Forest and Fenwick Mountain.


http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...z2_5WHjN7Zq9XQ

[Epictetus]

Grand Fenwick? Well maybe. Founded in 1870 is very recent, but is this a real place? I don't see anything in the article about prehistoric artifacts. Do you have any information on that?

As for the Pacific, Wiki says:

The Polynesians: About 3000BC speakers of the Austronesian languages, probably on the island of Taiwan, mastered the art of long-distance canoe travel and spread themselves, or their languages, south to the Philippines and Indonesia and east to the islands of Micronesia and Melanesia. The Polynesians branched off and occupied Polynesia to the east. Dates and routes are uncertain, but they seem to have started from the Bismark Archipelago, went west past Fiji to Samoa and Tonga about 1500BC. By 100AD they were in the Marquesas Islands and 300-800AD in Tahiti (Tahiti is west of the Marquesas.) 300-800AD is also given for their arrival at Easter Island, their easternmost point and the same date range for Hawaii, which is far to the north and distant from other islands. Far to the southwest, New Zealand was reached about 1250AD. The Chatham Islands, about 500 miles east of New Zealand were reached about 1500. The fact that some Polynesians possessed the South American Sweet potato implies that they may have reached the Americas, but the evidence of such contacts is very poor.

source

Also according to Wiki, Iceland was founded in 874 A.D. So I suppose the newest country by the OP's definition is New Zealand.

I always enjoy a nice map. How about you?

[mathman]

Why is there a distinction between melanesians, polynesians, and micronesians?

[Cavalier]

Grand Fenwick? Well maybe. Founded in 1870 is very recent, but is this a real place?

No, it isn't real. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Fenwick

But Sealand is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand Since it consists entirely of an artificial structure, I'd guess it has no prehistory.

[geomancer]

When I said "country," I meant a sovereign state generally recognized by other countries and by the UN. And "history" includes pre-independence history. For example, the USA was founded in 1776, but it has an earlier colonial history and and even earlier, pre-Columbian history (prehistory) when it was inhabited only by Native Americans.

[Epictetus]

Why is there a distinction between melanesians, polynesians, and micronesians?

You can find the answer here.
As far as I know all three peoples can sometimes be found on the same island, with the Melanesian furthest inland, and then I forget who is in the middle, and who is closest to the shore. I suppose all that is traditional, and nowadays in al larger world they probably intermarry more.

And here is a map from wiki:

[mathman]

The reference is inadequate. It really doesn't answer the question, just simply gives definitions.

How different are the languages? Are they different genetically?

[geomancer]

Oh! I'll bet Iceland is a better answer. There were no Inuit there.

Iceland is close, but the sagas report that when the Norsemen landed, they found previous settlements by Irish monks.

As for the Pacific islands, most of them were inhabited by Malayo-Polynesian peoples for a few centuries before Europeans arrived and started writing their history.

Other ideas?

[Buddha12]

Epictetus;2945548]Grand Fenwick? Well maybe. Founded in 1870 is very recent, but is this a real place? I don't see anything in the article about prehistoric artifacts. Do you have any information on that?

The economy of the teeny-tiny European duchy of Grand Fenwick is threatened when an American manufacturer comes up with an imitation of Fenwick's sole export, its fabled wine. Crafty prime minister Count Mountjoy (Peter Sellers) comes up with a plan: Grand Fenwick will declare war on the United States. Grand Duchess Gloriana (Peter Sellers again) is hesitant: how can meek little Grand Fenwick win such a conflict? Mountjoy explains that the plan is to lose the war, then rely upon American foreign aid to replenish Grand Fenwick's treasury. Bumbling military officer Tully Bascombe (Peter Sellers yet again) leads his country's ragtag army into battle. They cross the Atlantic in an ancient wooden vessel, then set foot on Manhattan Island, fully prepared to down weapons and surrender. But New York City is deserted, due to an air raid drill. While wandering around, Sellers comes upon atomic scientist David Kossoff and the scientist's pretty daughter Jean Seberg. Kossoff has been working on the deadly "Q Bomb," a football-sized weapon with the destructive capacity of a hundred hydrogen bombs. Suddenly seized with patriotic fervor, Tully captures Kossoff, his daughter and the bomb and brings them all back to Grand Fenwick. Tully has "won" the war-precisely what he'd been told not to do. The upshot of this "victory" is that every world power converges upon Grand Fenwick to claim the Q Bomb for themselves. The satire is heavy-handed at times, but The Mouse That Roared contains several unforgettably hilarious moments, including one startling "false ending."

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/the-mou...z1xXEAt6v3;):D

[Epictetus]

The reference is inadequate. It really doesn't answer the question, just simply gives definitions.

How different are the languages? Are they different genetically?

Look. I am no expert; just trying to help out. As far as language goes, without really knowing any facts, I would have to guess that on a tiny island together for a thousand years the language (of any one island) would have become a single language. Meanwhile the Malay-Polynesian language group cover all the area in the maps above, plus present-day Indonesia, Malaysia the Philippines and -can you believe it?- Madagascar!? Then consider, that on the island of Java, for example, there is a different dialect every few miles. And on Papua they have 1/3 of all the human languages right there on that one large island! So it's rather hard to answer your question. Yes, they are all variations, dialects and even separate languages but they are closely related from Madagascar over to Easter Island. Some words are exactly the same (I wouldn't know which) but the 'dialects of distant islands may be as mutually unintelligible as Greek and Apache...
I also know that Javanese people are fascinated by Fijian cuisine because it's basically the same ingredients used in entirely different ways.

So, as I said, I am no expert, but here's a few links if you want to sort it all out:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...8172151AAvB1hq

http://www.ask.com/questions-about/D...and-Melanesian

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...1084647AASIngO

http://130.102.44.246/login?auth=0&t...&url=/journals

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0118093728.htm
/human_biology/v074/74.3lum.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0118093728.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1106122244.htm

Pardon, if I made any mistakes copying the links. Aloha!

[Fraggle Rocker]

Which country has no prehistoric artifacts, no human fossils, and in fact no human prehistory whatsoever? That is, the very first human habitation is recorded in historical documents.

At the level of a country, I'm not sure how we'd figure that out. Most countries are amalgamations of previous smaller countries and/or pieces of previous larger ones.

Madagascar was first settled around 350BCE. That surely puts it in the running. People came to Hawaii about 50 years later. And in both cases the settlers were Polynesians.

And BTW, your reference to "historical documents" muddles the issue. The prehistory (meaning all eras before the invention of the technology of written language) of virtually all human groups was not well-known until modern archeological methods, comparative linguistics, etc., were brought to bear on the subject. We probably know much more about the people who first invented the technology of agriculture 12KYA in Mesopotamia than the Canaanites or Babylonians did. We absolutely know a great deal more about the first humans to migrate to the Western Hemisphere than the pre-Columbian peoples did who met the first European occupiers.

Grand Fenwick?

Heehee. I see someone has read The Mouse That Roared or seen the movie. "The best way to enrich our country is to go to war with the United States and lose. Just look at Germany and Japan!"

How different are the languages? Are they different genetically?

They're all in the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. It's very likely that the Urheimat of this family is Taiwan, which has the most diverse group of Austronesian languages.

Austronesian is one of the four or five most well-established language families, with about 400M speakers.

[quadraphonics]

Madagascar was first settled around 350BCE. That surely puts it in the running. People came to Hawaii about 50 years later. And in both cases the settlers were Polynesians.

Yeah, island countries are sure to take all the top spots when it comes to this topic.

BTW, supposedly Iceland wasn't settled until 874AD, although Norsemen had been visiting there for a long time before that.

[geomancer]

Madagascar, Iceland, and New Zealand are all among the countries with the shortest histories. But we don't have a record of their first discovery (though Iceland comes close). Is there another island country discovered in more recent, historical times?

[geomancer]

All right, here are the best answers I've found. These three countries have no evidence of human habitation or visitation before the 15th century:

Mauritius: Discovered ca. 1500, first settled 1638.
São Tomé and Príncipe: Discovered ca. 1470, first settled 1493.
Cape Verde: Discovered ca. 1456, first settled 1462.