Intensive trade develops in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, allowing the exchange of goods between Mesoamerica, North America and South America from 2nd Century BCE and 6th Century CE.
Events in Europe, Africa and Asia follow on schedule. The rise of the Roman Empire, Christianity and Islam develops as OTL.
598 CE some American explorers reach Africa and come back. By 700 CE Americans have circumnavigated the world skipping Europe and China.
Low intensity trade follows and except for some minor butterflies, major historical events in Europe happen on schedule up to 1050.
Note: most names will use OTL names while the ATL names are available.
The Rise of the Caribbean
Ca. 200 BCE chief in Borinquen makes a decision to focus on the sea. He built a port city in southern Borinquen (OTL Ponce) and had his engineers focus on building better ships.
The Tainos began founding port cities all over the Caribbean as trade outposts. In 160 BCE they reached the Mississippi and founded a city in its mouth (OTL Baton Rouge).
By year 80 BCE the Tainos had a singular nation in Borinquen and had founded colonies in OTL Barranquilla, Baton Rouge, Cartagena, Colón, Cumaná, Havana, La Guaira, Port-O-Spain, Mobile, Santiago de Cuba, and Veracruz, among others. The Tainos trade crops, gold, fabrics, salt, etc.
Trade by the Tainos inspires local populations to compete. By 100 CE, the trade network extends as far south as Rio de la Plata, and as far north as the Hudson River, and had expanded to the Pacific also, from Valparaiso to the Sea of Cortes. Trade networks included land networks from the Caribbean to the Pacific, the most important being the Kuna-controlled Isthmus of Panama.
Technology increased, and by 300 CE, the model of port cities was being replicated far inland. Brick technologies, discovered by chance in Mexico ca. 150 CE and been spread by trade networks ranging from the Andes Mountains to the Mississippi Plains, were becoming the preferred material for laying down cities, while stone was used, when available, for temples and palaces, and uncooked mud and wood for villages.
Africa
Year 598 CE, a small fleet of ten ships, navigating to Rio de la Plata to the Trinidad, get lost while dealing with a storm near Recife. Two ships are lost, and the remaining eight head eastward until they reach the west coast of Africa.
Impressed by some goods like ivory, the fleet (now with a new ninth ship built in Africa), comes back to Trinidad before hurricane season 599 CE.
By 650 CE the Americans had founded several trading colonies in Africa, and discovered the Azores. Americans are exploring the west coast of Africa northward, but near Casablanca, they encounter pirates from the Mediterranean.
After three consecutive incidents between American traders and Mediterranean pirates, Americans halt northward exploration. The pirates never found out where these American explorers came from. None of them had unique goods from the Americas as they had already exchanged goods in sub-Saharan Africa before exploring northward.
The American traders not only brought ivory and other goods from Africa. They also brought some diseases, which attacked mainly the port cities that had attempted trade with Africa. From ca. 620 to 740, disease and pirates had reduced the pace of the exploration of Africa.
But as population began to recover ca. 740, the exploration continued. 756 CE, the Americans reached Cape of Good Hope, and 765 CE the Kuna financed a very large exploration to explore far beyond the Cape.
By this time, some iron goods had reached the Americas, but no iron had yet been discovered in the Abya Yala.
In 765 CE a fleet of 120 blue water ships depart from Kuna Yala eastward to Recife and Africa, crossing Good Hope and then northward. They discover Madagascar (767), Somalia (767), India (768), Indochina (769), the Philippines (770), Japan (772), and Hawaii (774) and arrive in California in late 775 CE. Recognizing they had reached the Americas, they travel south and reach Kuna Yala in 776. Only 22 ships are left. The remaining ships had either wrecked, been sent back or were left for founding trading posts.
For the following 250 years, the Kuna, among other parties, concentrate in establishing permanent trading posts. Cotton, sugar and rice reach the Americas, as well as water buffaloes.
By year 900 water buffaloes and pigs are being raised on most of the Americas.
American sailors had discovered Australia and Aotearoa but nobody had ever come back to Hawaii.
Ca 820, iron was discovered in the Great Lakes area. By 840, iron items were being cast, and they made their way south down the Mississippi and to the Caribbean and Central America.
Iron and buffaloes begin changing the face of the Americas. In agriculture and warfare they are decisive factors.
Europe up to 1000 CE
Up until year 1000 CE European history had been pretty much the same as OTL, at least when referred to major events.
There were a few tales about a sailing people in the South. A few people that lived in OTL did not exist in the ATL and vice versa but none were kings or other key historic figures.
Christianity and Islam arose on schedule. The Roman Empire fell in the West. Soon the Franks would begin the Christianization of Eastern Europe. The Moors conquered Spain, and the Norse expanded.
Any history book based on wars and kings would be indistinguishable to OTL in Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa.
In the year 1000, history began to change.
The Norse had been expanding westward to Iceland and Greenland, and in 1000, a Christian expedition lead by Eric the Red, reached Newfoundland.
In Newfoundland, Eric encountered some villages built of wood and brick. The natives were not hostile, and let the Norse stay and build their own village.
Europeans meet Americans
In the year 1002, Eric and his men had explored southward and near Cape Breton, they found a trading vessel with goods including silk and gold, they intended to trade iron in exchange for these in the St Lawrence area.
They heard histories about richer kingdoms in the South but did not go south to investigate.
In 1002 news reached back to Greenland and Iceland. A Viking raid was organized.
The Vikings mounted the St Lawrence up to the Niagara Falls, where a trading city with important deposits of iron and gold was raided. Then they continued southward to the Hudson, destroying and raiding four other coastal towns.
The Vikings came back to Iceland and stories of their adventures soon reached Norway and Denmark.
From 1003 to 1006 eight more Viking raids hit the North American coast, one of them reached the Chesapeake in 1005. The Viking bounties included great amounts of gold, but also some silk, emeralds, ivory, diamonds, silver, iron, pottery, slaves, etc.
Americans were unprepared. When the raiding season of 1007 began, however, villages and cities in the Hudson-St Lawrence area had asked for help, and received re-enforcements.
Eric's settlements had disappeared when their villages were attacked in 1005 in retaliation for their raids. Now, in 1007, two Viking raids were successfully beaten. A third raid managed to get a bounty near Massachusetts bay. However, on their way back, the longboats met a fleet of vessels, of the kind used to go to India by the Atlantic and Good Hope.
The Americans followed the Vikings back to Norway, where they realized that they had no way to retaliate.
The Norse, being Norse, soon changed the Viking raids into conquest and settlement parties. They began exploring the St Lawrence up to the Great Lakes, and by 1010 they had reached the Mississippi, conquering the peoples and replacing their rulers with Norsemen. On the other hand, they also allowed American ships access to Norse ports to trade with them.
The discovery of the Norse, and realization that they were not invincible, was enough to raise an implicit banning the exploration of North Africa.
In 1008 a fleet of Americans explored the African coast up to the Strait of Gibraltar reaching Arab-dominated Cadiz and Seville, before coming back.
In the year 1012 a first exploration reached Norway from Africa and came back to the Americas using the Northern Path. In the year 1011 the Americans had reached Constantinople.
Trade between America and Europe was minimal, however, except for the Northern Path. Americans had very little demand for European products, compared to products from Africa and Asia, but soon Europeans developed a demand for American products.
World situation in 1020
In 1020 there were several sea-trading peoples, mainly in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Sea of China.
The Mediterranean peoples controlled most of the inter-European trade, as well as North African, Middle Eastern and were expanding to West Africa, North America and the Caribbean.
The Caribbean peoples traded throughout whole Americas, but focused mainly on the East coast, from Rio de la Plata to the St Lawrence, but they also had some networks extending to West Africa and China.
The Sea of China and Japanese peoples traded throughout all of Southeast Asia but also traded regularly with the peoples of the West coast of the Americas, as well as India and West Africa.
As complement, the Norse had expanded to all of Northern Europe, but focused mainly on Scandinavia, Denmark, Scotland, Normandy, and were beginning to expand through the Volga in the East, and the Mississippi in the West.
Christian faith was also expanding. As most Scandinavian kings had been Christianized. They were bringing their religion to both Eastern Europe and North America.
In the Iberian Peninsula, the Spanish peoples were beginning to displace the Muslims from Andalusia.
World situation in 1022
The Genoese land on OTL Andros Island, which they call Santo Basilio, because they landed on it on St Basil's Day. The Carib revolt against the Taino because they feel downtrodden and the Genoese aid them, which leads to a nine year war between the two sides.