<P> Through the Roman period and the Middle Ages, a few writers took the Isthmus of Suez as the boundary between Asia and Africa, but most writers continued to consider it the Nile or the western border of Egypt (Gibbon). In the Middle Ages, the world was usually portrayed on T and O maps, with the T representing the waters dividing the three continents . By the middle of the 18th century, "the fashion of dividing Asia and Africa at the Nile, or at the Great Catabathmus (the boundary between Egypt and Libya) farther west, had even then scarcely passed away". </P> <P> Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to the West Indies in 1492, sparking a period of European exploration of the Americas . But despite four voyages to the Americas, Columbus never believed he had reached a new continent--he always thought it was part of Asia . </P> <P> In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci and Gonçalo Coelho attempted to sail around what they considered the southern end of the Asian mainland into the Indian Ocean, passing through Fernando de Noronha . After reaching the coast of Brazil, they sailed a long way further south along the coast of South America, confirming that this was a land of continental proportions and that it also extended much further south than Asia was known to . On return to Europe, an account of the voyage, called Mundus Novus ("New World"), was published under Vespucci's name in 1502 or 1503, although it seems that it had additions or alterations by another writer . Regardless of who penned the words, Mundus Novus credited Vespucci with saying, "I have discovered a continent in those southern regions that is inhabited by more numerous people and animals than our Europe, or Asia or Africa", the first known explicit identification of part of the Americas as a continent like the other three . </P> <P> Within a few years the name "New World" began appearing as a name for South America on world maps, such as the Oliveriana (Pesaro) map of around 1504--1505 . Maps of this time though, still showed North America connected to Asia and showed South America as a separate land . </P>

Who discovered the fact that south america was a separate continent