Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

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For different models of how the Americas were first settled, see Models of migration to the New World.

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact describes interactions between the indigenous peoples of the Americas who settled the Americas sometime before 10,000 B.C.E., and peoples of other continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, or Oceania), which occurred before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492.

Many such contacts have been proposed at various times, based on historical accounts, archaeological finds, and cultural comparisons. However, claims of such contacts are controversial and hotly debated, due in part to much ambiguous or circumstantial evidence cited by proponents. Only one instance of pre-Columbian European contact – the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada c. 1000 C.E. – is regarded by scholars as demonstrated. The scientific responses to other pre-Columbian contact claims range from consideration in peer-reviewed publications to dismissal as fringe science or pseudoarcheology.

Contents

[edit] Confirmed trans-oceanic contact

[edit] Norse

Main article: Norse colonization of the Americas
L'Anse aux Meadows

Norse, or Viking, journeys to North America are supported by both historical and archaeological evidence. A Norse presence in Greenland apparently began in the late 10th century, and lasted until the mid 15th century. In 1961, archaeologists Helge and Anne Ingstad uncovered the remains of a Norse settlement at the L'Anse aux Meadows archaeological site in Newfoundland, Canada. A connection is frequently drawn between L'Anse aux Meadows and the Vinland sagas. These are written versions of older oral histories that recount the temporary settlement of an area to the west of Greenland, called Vinland, led by a Norse explorer, Leif Erikson. It is possible that Vinland may have been Newfoundland. Finds on Baffin Island suggest a Norse presence there after L'Anse aux Meadows was abandoned although it has also been suggested that these might be indigenous Dorset culture artifacts.[1]

Few sources describing contact between Native Americans and Norse settlers exist. Contact between the Thule people, ancestors of the modern Inuit, and Norse between the 12th or 13th centuries is known. The Norse Greenlanders called these incoming settlers "skrælingjar". Conflict between the Greenlanders and the "skraelings" is recorded in the Icelandic Annals. The Vinland sagas, recorded hundreds of years later, describe trade and conflict with Native peoples, who were also termed skraelings, but may have been an entirely different people. Archaeological evidence for contact in Greenland is limited, but seems to indicate that the Norse did not substantially affect indigenous adaptations, technologies, or cultures.

[edit] Possible trans-oceanic contact

For more details on this topic, see Models of migration to the New World.

[edit] Polynesians

Between 300 and 1200 CE, Polynesians in canoes spread throughout the Polynesian Triangle going as far as Easter Island, New Zealand and Hawaii, and perhaps on to the Americas. The sweet potato, which is native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia when Europeans first reached the Pacific. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook Islands to 1000 CE, and current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia circa 700 CE and spread across Polynesia from there.[2] It has been suggested that it was brought by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, or that South Americans brought it to the Pacific. It has been argued that it is unlikely that the plant could successfully float across the ocean by natural means.[3]

A 2007 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of chicken bones at El Arenal near the Arauco Peninsula, Arauco Province, Chile claimed to provide "unequivocal evidence for a pre-European introduction of chickens to South America".[4] Chickens originated in southern Asia and the Araucana species of Chile was thought to have been brought by the Spaniards around 1500; however, the bones found in Chile were radiocarbon-dated to between 1304 and 1424, well before the documented arrival of the Spanish. DNA sequences taken were exact matches to those of chickens from the same period in American Samoa and Tonga, both over 5,000 miles (8,000 km) away from Chile. The genetic sequences were also similar to those found in Hawaii and in Easter Island, the closest island at 2,500 miles (4,000 km), and unlike any breed of European chicken.[5][6][7] However, a later report in the same journal looking at the same specimens concluded:

A published, apparently pre-Columbian, Chilean specimen and six pre-European Polynesian specimens also cluster with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America. In contrast, sequences from two archaeological sites on Easter Island group with an uncommon haplogroup from Indonesia, Japan, and China and may represent a genetic signature of an early Polynesian dispersal. Modeling of the potential marine carbon contribution to the Chilean archaeological specimen casts further doubt on claims for pre-Columbian chickens, and definitive proof will require further analyses of ancient DNA sequences and radiocarbon and stable isotope data from archaeological excavations within both Chile and Polynesia.[8]

[edit] Material evidence of possible contact

A team of academics headed by the University of York's Mummy Research Group and BioArch,[9] while examining a Peruvian mummy at the Bolton Museum, found it had been embalmed using a tree resin. Before this it was thought that Peruvian mummies were naturally preserved. The resin, found to be that of an araucarian conifer related to the 'monkey puzzle tree', was from a variety found only in Oceania and probably New Guinea. "Radiocarbon dating of both the resin and body by the University of Oxford's radiocarbon laboratory confirmed they were essentially contemporary, and date to around AD 1200."[10]

In 1995, archaeobotanist Hakon Hjelmqvist published an article in Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift presenting evidence for the presence of chili peppers, a New World crop, in Europe in the pre-Columbian era.[11] According to Hjelmqvist, archaeologists at a dig in St Botulf in Lund found a Capsicum frutescens in a layer from the 13th century. Hjelmqvist thought it came from Asia. Hjelmqvist also claims that Capsicum was described by the Greek Theophrastus (370–286 BCE) in his Historia Plantarum, and in other sources. Around the first century CE, the Roman poet Martialis (Martial) mentioned "Piperve crudum" (raw pepper) in Liber XI, XVIII, allegedly describing them as long and containing seeds (a description which seems to fit chili peppers but could also fit long pepper, which was well known to ancient Romans), though this description is missing from at least some versions of the epigram.

[edit] Fringe theories

Several scenarios of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact have been proposed without gaining acceptance in mainstream scholarship.

[edit] Medieval

[edit] 15th century Europe

Some have conjectured that Columbus was able to persuade the Catholic Monarchs of Castile and Aragon to support his planned voyage only because they were aware of some recent earlier voyage across the Atlantic. Some suggest that Columbus himself visited Canada or Greenland before 1492, because according to Bartolomé de las Casas he wrote he had sailed 100 leagues past an island he called Thule in 1477. Whether he actually did this and what island he visited, if any, is uncertain. Columbus is thought to have visited Bristol in 1476.[citation needed] Bristol was also the port from which John Cabot sailed in 1497, crewed mostly by Bristol sailors. In a letter of late 1497 or early 1498 the English merchant John Day wrote to Columbus about Cabot's discoveries, saying that land found by Cabot was "discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found 'Brasil' as your lordship knows".[12] There may be records of expeditions from Bristol to find the "isle of Brazil" in 1480 and 1481.[13] Trade between Bristol and Iceland is well documented from the mid 15th century.

Even in Columbus' time there was much speculation that other Europeans had made the trip in ancient or contemporary times. Legends of an island called Antillia depicted a bountiful civilisation mid-way between Europe and Cipangu, or Japan,[14] and quests to discover the legendary Seven Cities of Gold drew significant attention. However, by the last decade of the 15th century the Portuguese state's official sponsorship of such exploratory voyages had ended.[15] Columbus's plans for his voyage cited Antillia as the perfect halfway house based on the authority of Paul Toscanelli's 1474 letter to the Spanish monarchy.[16] Columbus had supposedly gained charts and descriptions from a Spanish navigator, who had "sojourned... and died also" at Columbus's home in Madeira, after having made landfall on Antillia.[17]

Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés records several such legends in his General y natural historia de las Indias of 1526, which includes biographical information on Columbus. He discusses the then-current story of a Spanish caravel that was swept off its course while on its way to England, and wound up in a foreign land populated by naked tribesmen. The crew gathered supplies and made its way back to Europe, but the trip took several months and the captain and most of the men died before reaching land. The ship's pilot, a man from somewhere in the Iberian peninsula (Oviedo says different versions have him as Portuguese, Basque, or Andalusian), and very few others finally made it to Portugal, but all were very ill. Columbus was a good friend of the pilot, and took him to be treated in his own house, and the pilot described the land they had seen and marked it on a map before dying. People in Oviedo's time knew this story in several versions, but Oviedo regarded it as myth.[18]

Douglas Owsley from the Smithsonian Institution says that he examined what are alleged to be the skeletal remains of Portuguese fishermen who reached Canada before Columbus reached the West Indies.[19]

In 1925 Soren Larsen wrote a book claiming that a joint Danish-Portuguese expedition landed in Newfoundland or Labrador in 1473 and again in 1476. Larsen claimed that Dietrich Pining and Hans Pothorst served as captains, while João Vaz Corte-Real and the semi-mythical John Scolvus served as navigators.[20] Nothing beyond circumstantial evidence has been found to support Larsen's claims.[21]

[edit] Muslim

Main article: Pre-Columbian Andalusian-Americas contact theories

Several medieval Arabic sources can be taken to suggest that explorers from the Al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia, comprising modern Spain and Portugal) may have travelled on expeditions across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas between the 9th and 14th centuries. The earliest of these may have been the navigator Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, from Córdoba, who is claimed to have sailed from Delba (Palos) in 889, crossed the Atlantic, and returned with fabulous treasures.[22][23][24] Another navigator, Ibn Farrukh, from Granada, is alleged to have sailed across the Atlantic in February 999, landed in the Canary islands where he visited the Guanche King Guanariga, continued westward where he saw and named two islands, Capraria and Pluitana, and arrived back in the Al-Andalus in May 999.[23][25]

[edit] Irish and Welsh legend

The legend of Saint Brendan, an Irish monk, involves a fantastical journey into the Atlantic ocean in search of Paradise in the 6th century. Since the discovery of the New World, various authors have tried to link the Brendan myth with an early discovery of America. The voyage was recreated in recent times by Tim Severin.

Barry Fell claims that Ogham writing has been found carved into stones in the Virginias,[26] but grave doubts about these claims have been raised[27] and none of these finds have ever been confirmed by credible linguists, epigraphers, or archaeologists.

According to British legend, Madoc was a prince from Wales who explored the Americas as early as 1170. While most scholars consider this legend to be untrue, it was used as justification for British claims to the Americas, based on the notion of a Briton arriving before other European nationalities.[28] A memorial tablet erected at Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay, Alabama reads: "In memory of Prince Madog, a Welsh explorer, who landed on the shores of Mobile Bay in 1170 and left behind, with the Indians, the Welsh language." One tribe which was said to be Welsh-speaking was the Mandan.

[edit] Mediterranean Antiquity

See also: Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head

Evidence of contacts with the civilizations of Classical Antiquity - chiefly the Roman Empire, but sometimes also with Greece, Carthage, and other Phoenician cities, and other cultures of the age - have been based on isolated alleged archaeological finds in American sites that originated in the Old World.

The Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head

In 1933, in the Toluca Valley, 72 kilometres southwest of Mexico City, a small terracotta head, showing a beard and European-like features, was found in a burial offering under three intact floors of a pre-colonial building dated between 1476 and 1510. The artifact has been studied by Roman art authority Bernard Andreae, director emeritus of the German Institute of Archaeology in Rome, Italy, and Austrian anthropologist Robert von Heine-Geldern, both of whom stated that the style of the artifact was compatible with small Roman sculptures of the 2nd century. In 1999, the head was dated by thermoluminescence to 870 BCE–1270 CE.[29] While it is often dismissed as a deliberately planted hoax, perhaps intended as a joke,[30] if genuine and if not placed there after 1492 (the pottery found with it dates to between 1476 and 1510)[31] the find provides evidence for at least a one-time contact between the Old and New Worlds.[32]

The Fuente Magna, also known as the Fuente Bowl, is a large stone vessel, resembling a libation bowl. It is asserted to have been found in the 1950s by a worker from the CHUA Hacienda near Tiwanaku, west of La Paz, Bolivia[33] The inscription is said to resemble that on the later found Pokotia Monolith.[34][35] It resides in a small museum in Calle Jaén, La Paz, Bolivia; Museo de metales preciosos "Museo de Oro".[36]

In 1982, Brazilian newspapers reported that fragments of amphorae had been recovered by treasure hunter and underwater archaeologist Robert F. Marx, from the bottom of Guanabara Bay, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Elizabeth Lyding Will of the University of Massachusetts identified the finds as being Roman, manufactured at Kouass (Dehar Jedid) in Morocco, and dated them to the 3rd century. A bottom survey by Harold E. Edgerton, an MIT researcher, located what Marx thought to be remains of two disintegrating ships. These claims were disputed when Américo Santarelli, an Italian diver living in Rio de Janeiro, revealed in a book that he had 18 such amphorae made by a local potter, and had placed 16 of them himself at various places in the bay. He said that he intended to recover the encrusted amphorae later, to decorate his house at Angra dos Reis. Marx claimed that the Brazilian government prevented any additional research and that the Brazilian Navy dumped sand over the site in the bay to ensure that no further artefacts would ever be recovered, a charge the Navy denied. Marx was prohibited from working in Brazil due to his insistence on trying to locate the alleged Roman wrecks.[37]

Claims of contact have often been based on occurrences of similar motifs in art and decoration, or on depictions in one World of species or objects that are thought to be characteristic of the other World. Famous examples include a Maya statuette depicting a bearded man rowing, a cross in bas-relief at the Temple of the Cross in Palenque, or a pineapple in a mosaic on the wall of a house at Pompeii.[citation needed] Nevertheless, most of these finds can be explained as the result of mis-interpretation. The Palenque "cross", for instance, is almost certainly a stylized maize plant; and the Pompeii "pineapple" is more likely to be a pine cone.

Some contact claimants note that the Aztec word for "god", teotl, is similar to Greek theos and Latin deus.[citation needed] Linguists generally ascribe such similar words to coincidence and identify them as false cognates, a common linguistic fallacy.

The established presence of Romans and probably Phoenicians in the Canary Islands has led some researchers to suggest that the islands may have been used as a stepping-off point for such journeys, as the islands lie along the same favorable sea route taken by Columbus on his first voyage to the Americas.

Other claims of contacts between the New World and Egypt are based on reports that chemical tests run on various Egyptian mummies found traces of plant products that were thought to be native to the Americas, such as nicotine and coca. Whether this provides a proven link between the New World and Ancient Egypt is still under discussion as there are possible Old World sources.[38]

The dubious Bat Creek inscription and Los Lunas Decalogue Stone have led some to suggest the possibility that Jewish seafarers may have come to America after fleeing the Roman Empire at the time of the Jewish Revolt.[39]

[edit] Africans

Several Olmec colossal heads have features that some diffusionists link to African contact.
Main article: Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories
See also: Olmec alternative origin speculations

Proposed claims for an African presence in Mesoamerica rest on attributes of the Olmec culture, the presence of an African plant species in the Americas, interpretations of certain Arabic sources, and European accounts of early sightings of black people in the New World.

The Olmec culture existed from roughly 1200 BCE to 400 BCE. The idea that the Olmecs are related to Africans was suggested by José Melgar, who discovered the first colossal head at Hueyapan (now Tres Zapotes) in 1862 and subsequently published two papers that attributed this head to a "Negro race".[40] Authors such as Ivan van Sertima propose that these statues depict settlers or explorers from Africa.[41] Some observers believe that the stone imagery carved on Olmec and Mayan stelae depicts interactions between Africans and Native Americans. Others point out epicanthal folds and the resemblance between the statues and Asians.

The presence of one native African plant species, the bottle gourd, in Mesoamerica has been cited as possible evidence of trans-oceanic contact. The bottle gourd could have also come to the Americas by floating, or possibly as a seed in the droppings of a bird.

Arabic sources describe what some consider to be visits to the New World by a Mali fleet in 1311.[42] According to these sources, 400 ships from the Mali Empire discovered a land across the ocean to the West after being swept off course by ocean currents. Only one ship returned, and the captain reported the discovery of a western current to Prince Abubakari II; the off-course Mali fleet of 400 ships is said to have conducted both trade and warfare with the peoples of the western lands. It is claimed that Prince Abubakari II abdicated his throne and set off to explore these western lands. In 1324, the Mali king Mansa Musa is said to have told the Arabic historian, Al-Umari that "his predecessors had launched two expeditions from West Africa to discover the limits of the Atlantic Ocean."

According to van Sertima, Christopher Columbus was told by natives of Hispaniola that black-skinned visitors had preceded the Europeans. Van Sertima further claims that Columbus acquired metal spearheads left behind by these black strangers and sent them to Spain, where they were found to be of a similar composition to metals forged in Guinea, West Africa. However, alloys of gold, silver, and copper had been made in South America for at least 1400 years before the arrival of Columbus. Van Sertima additionally claims that Spanish historian López de Gomara described certain peoples as identical to Africans seen in Guinea.[43] Although an associate of Hernan Cortes, López de Gomara never traveled to the Americas, and his account of Cortes' exploits was criticized as a hagiography full of error and exaggeration.[44][45][46]

Early descriptions of Native Americans rarely referred to them as red. For instance, "a 1702 history of New Sweden, which did not describe Indians as red but as differing 'in their colour; in some places being black, and in others, brown or yellow,'" and "the earliest European explorers of the Southeast, the Spanish, described Indians as 'brown of skin'".[47] This is a possible explanation for 'blacks' seen by early European explorers and settlers.

[edit] Chinese

Fresco of woman holding flower similar to Frangipani from Sigiriya, 5th century

A group of Chinese Buddhist missionaries led by Hui Shen before to 500 C.E. claimed to have visited a location called Fusang. Although Chinese mapmakers placed this on the Asian coast, more recently some have argued, by selecting elements which are similar to some elements of the California coast, that this was America.[48]

In his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World the British author Gavin Menzies made the controversial claim that the fleet of Zheng He arrived in America in 1421.[49] Menzies' assertions have been found to be unconvincing by professional historians.[50][51][52][53] Menzies sees stylistic similarities between the decorative motifs of ancient China and those of the ancient Maya, and the high value that both placed on jade.[49]

[edit] Indians

An image in a temple in southern India depicts a goddess holding what is claimed by some to be maize,[54] a crop native to the Americas; the image is usually taken to be a native grass like sorghum or pearl millet, which bear some resemblance to maize, or a mythical fruit bearing pearls known in Sanskrit as "Muktaphala".[55]

[edit] Japanese

Pottery associated with the Valdivia culture of coastal Ecuador dated to 3000–1500 BCE was said by Smithsonian archaeologist Betty Meggers to exhibit similarities to pottery produced during the Jomon period in Japan. Chronological and other problems have led most archaeologists to dismiss this.[56][57] The suggestion has been made that the resemblances (which are not complete) are simply due to the limited number of designs possible when incising clay.

Alaskan anthropologist Nancy Yaw Davis claims that the Zuni people of New Mexico exhibit linguistic and cultural similarities to the Japanese.[58] The Zuni language is a linguistic isolate, and Davis contends that the culture appears to differ from that of the surrounding natives in terms of blood type, endemic disease, and religion. Davis speculates that Buddhist priests or restless peasants from Japan may have crossed the Pacific in the 13th century, traveled to the American Southwest, and influenced Zuni society.[58]

[edit] Theories on trans-oceanic travel from the New World

Túpac Inca Yupanqui, the tenth Inca emperor, is said to have led an expedition lasting between nine months to a year into the Pacific Ocean around 1480, which discovered two islands.[59] It has been suggested that the islands he visited are the Galapagos,[59] or possibly Polynesian islands.[citation needed] The story says that he brought back gold, brass, and the skin and jaw of a horse, none of which would have been found on islands in the south Pacific.

According to Bartolomé de las Casas, two dead bodies that looked like those of Indians were found on the Portuguese Flores Island in the Azores. He said he found that fact in Columbus' notes, and it was one reason why Columbus presumed that India was on the other side of the ocean.[60]

In Ferdinand Columbus' biography of his father Christopher, he says that in 1477 his father saw in Galway, Ireland two dead bodies which had washed ashore in their boat. The bodies and boat were of exotic appearance, and have been suggested to have been Inuit who had drifted off course.[61]

According to the Portuguese seafarer Antonio Galvão,[citation needed] "certain Indians" (certos Indios) were picked up at sea in 1153 and sent to Lübeck. Galvão said they were probably from Bacalao, a mythical island.[citation needed]

Pomponius Mela writes,[62] and is copied by Pliny the Elder,[63] that Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer (died 59 BCE), proconsul in Gaul, received "several Indians" (Indi) who had been driven by a storm to the coasts of Germania as a present from a Germanic king:

Metellum Celerem adjicit, eumque ita retulisse commemorat: Cum Galliae proconsule praeesset, Indos quosdam a rege [Suevorum] dono sibi datos; unde in eas terras devenissent requirendo, cognôsse, vi tempestatum ex Indicis aequoribus abreptos, emensosque quae intererant, tandem in Germaniae litora exiise. Restat ergo pelagus; sed reliqua lateris ejusdem assiduo gelu durantur, et ideo deserta sunt.

Metellus Celer recalls the following: when he was proconsul in Gaul, he was given people from India by the king of the Sueves; upon requesting why they were in this land, he learnt that they were caught in a storm away from India, that they became castaways, and finally landed on the coast of Germany. They thus resisted the sea, but suffered from the cold for the rest of their travel, and that is the reason why they left.[62]

It is unclear whether these castaways may have been people from India or Eastern Asia, or possibly American Indians. Edward Herbert Bunbury suggested that they were Finns.[citation needed] This account is open to question, since Metellus Celer died just after his consulship, before he ever got to Gaul.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Vikings visited Canadian Artic" Canada.com May 27 2009
  2. ^ VAN TILBURG, Jo Anne. 1994. Easter Island: Archaeology, Ecology and Culture. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press
  3. ^ http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Ipomoea/index.html
  4. ^ Storey et al., p. 10335.
  5. ^ Whipps, Heather (June 4, 2007). "Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas Before Columbus". Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/history/070604_polynesian_chicken.html. Retrieved 2007-06-05. 
  6. ^ "Polynesians beat Spaniards to South America, study shows" by Thomas H. Maugh II, Los Angeles Times, 5 June 2007
  7. ^ Storey et al., "Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 10.1073/pnas.0703993104, 7 June 2007
  8. ^ Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA. Jaime Gongora, Nicolas J. Rawlence, Victor A. Mobegi, Han Jianlin, Jose A. Alcalde, Jose T. Matus, Olivier Hanotte, Chris Moran, J. Austin, Sean Ulm, Atholl J. Anderson, Greger Larson and Alan Cooper, "Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA" PNAS July 29, 2008 vol. 105 no 30[1]
  9. ^ 28801_April08.indd
  10. ^ From the University of York Magazine, page 9, April/May 2008
  11. ^ Hjelmqvist, Hakon. "Cayennepeppar från Lunds medeltid". Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift, vol 89: pp. 193-. 
  12. ^ Seaver (1995) p.222
  13. ^ Seaver, K.A.(1995) The Frozen Echo Stanford University Press ISBN 0 8047 3161 6 p.221
  14. ^ Paul Toscanelli's 1474 letter to the Spanish Court, 'Toscanelli and Columbus', H. Vignaud, 1902
  15. ^ RA Skelton, "Explorers' Maps: Chapters in the Cartographic Record of Geographical Discovery" http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=61480298
  16. ^ Paul Toscanelli's 1474 letter to the Spanish Court, RA Skelton, "Explorers' Maps: Chapters in the Cartographic Record of Geographical Discovery"
  17. ^ Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, De Orbe Novo, 1511-25 http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12425
  18. ^ Columbus, Christopher; Cohen, J. M. (translator) (May 5, 1992). The Four Voyages, pp. 27–37. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044217-0.
  19. ^ Benedict, Jeff. No Bone Unturned: The Adventures of a Top Smithsonian Forensic Scientist and the Legal Battle for America's Oldest Skeletons. New York: HarperCollins (2003) at 250.
  20. ^ Soren, Larsen. (1925) The Pining voyage: The Discovery of North America Twenty Years Before Columbus.
  21. ^ Thomas L. Hughes, The German Discovery of America: A Review of the Controversy over Didrik Pining’s Voyage of Exploration in 1473 in the North Atlantic in: German Historical Institute Bulletin, No. 33 (Fall 2003)
  22. ^ Tabish Khair (2006). Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing, p. 12. Signal Books. ISBN 1904955118.
  23. ^ a b Dr. Youssef Mroueh (2003). Pre-Columbian Muslims in the Americas. Media Monitors Network.
  24. ^ Ali al-Masudi (940). Muruj Adh-Dhahab (The Book of Golden Meadows), Vol. 1, p. 138.
  25. ^ ;Abu Bakr Ibn Umar Al-Gutiyya.
  26. ^ Sisson, David (September 1984). "Did the Irish discover America?". The Saturday Evening Post. Retrieved July 23, 2006.
  27. ^ Oppenheimer, Monroe; Wirtz, Willard (Spring 1989), "A Linguistic Analysis of Some West Virginia Petroglyphs", The West Virginia Archeologist 41 (1), http://cwva.org/ogam_rebutal/wirtz.html, retrieved 2007-08-08 
  28. ^ Williams, Gwyn A (1979): Madoc: The Making of a Myth. London: Eyre Methuen
  29. ^ Hristov and Genovés (2001).
  30. ^ See Michael E. Smith for doubts on the find.
  31. ^ Forbes, Jack D. The American Discovery of Europe University of Illinois Press; 16 April 2007 ISBN: 978-0252031526 p.108
  32. ^ Hristov and Genovés (1999).
  33. ^ .Pontificio Istituto biblico, Pontificio Istituto biblico. Facoltà di studi dell'antico oriente (1987). Orientalia, Volume 56. University of Virginia. 
  34. ^ Alberto Marini (1985). "A Sumerian Inscription of the Fuente Magna, La Paz, Bolivia". Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers 13: 9. http://epigraphy.org/volume_13.htm. [unreliable source?]
  35. ^ Fuente Magna Bowl on Flickr (side view)
  36. ^ Museo de Or
  37. ^ Simons, Marlise (June 25, 1985). "Underwater Exploring is Banned in Brazil". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9402E2DA1139F936A15755C0A963948260&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/S/Salvage. 
  38. ^ Edlin, Duncan The Stoned Age? A look at the evidence for cocaine in mummies [2]
  39. ^ Biblical Archaeology Review, July-August, 1993.
  40. ^ Stirling, p. 2, who cites Melgar, Jose (1869) "Antigüedades mexicanas, notable escultura antigua", in Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, época 2, vol. 1, pp. 292–297, Mexico, as well as Melgar, Jose (1871) "Estudio sobre la antigüedad y el origen de la Cabeza Colosal de tipo etiópico que existe en Hueyapan del cantón de los Tuxtlas" in Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística, época 2, vol. 3, pp. 104–109; Mexico.
  41. ^ Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong. ISBN 1-56584-100-X.
  42. ^ Joan Baxter (13 December, 2000). ""Africa's 'greatest explorer'"". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1068950.stm. Retrieved 2008-02-12. 
  43. ^ Ivan van Sertima, They Came before Columbus, p. 23–24.
  44. ^ "Francisco Lopez de Gómara". New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06632a.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-13. 
  45. ^ Paul Lokken (July 2007). "review of Cristian A. Roa-de-la-Carrera. Histories of Infamy: Francisco Lopez de Gomara and the Ethics of Spanish Imperialism". http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=326691191169548. Retrieved 2008-02-12. 
  46. ^ Prescott and His Sources: A Critical Appraisal James D. Cockcroft The Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Feb., 1968), pp. 59–74.
  47. ^ How Indians Got to be Red, Nancy Shoemaker, The American Historical Review, Vol. 102, No. 3. (Jun., 1997), pp. 625–644.
  48. ^ Feder, Kenneth L., Frauds, Myths and Mysteries, Third Edition, Mayfield Publishing Company, 1999 pp. 103-104
  49. ^ a b Menzies, Gavin. 1421: The Year China Discovered the World (Transworld Publishers, 2003).
  50. ^ "The 1421 myth exposed". http://www.1421exposed.com/. Retrieved 2007-03-22. 
  51. ^ "Zheng He in the Americas and Other Unlikely Tales of Exploration and Discovery". http://www.csicop.org/sb/2004-09/tales.html. Retrieved 2007-03-22. 
  52. ^ "1421: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies". http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/arb/article.php?article=201. Retrieved 2007-03-22. 
  53. ^ Finlay, Robert (2004). "How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America". Journal of World History 15 (2). 
  54. ^ J. Huston McCulloch (2/7/01). "Maize in Pre-Columbian India". Archaeological Outliers. http://econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/maize.html. Retrieved 2008-08-13. 
  55. ^ Payak, M.M., and Sachan, J.K.S. 1993 "Maize Ears Not Sculpted in 13th Century Somnathpur Temple in India." Economic botany. APR 01 1993, vol. 47 no. 2, P. 202-
  56. ^ Valdivia, Jomon Fishermen, and the Nature of the North Pacific: Some Nautical Problems with Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) Transoceanic Contact Thesis Gordon F. McEwan, D. Bruce Dickson American Antiquity, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul., 1978), pp. 362–371.
  57. ^ Prehistory of the Americas By Stuart J. Fiedel pp 188–189.
  58. ^ a b Davis, Nancy Yaw (200). The Zuni Enigma. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0393322300, ISBN 9780393322309
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  60. ^ De Las Casas, Bartolomé; Pagden, Anthony (September 8, 1999). A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indias. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-044562-5.
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  62. ^ a b Pomponius Mela. De situ orbis libri III, chapter 5.
  63. ^ In Pliny's Natural History.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Ashe, Geoffrey, The Quest for America (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971);
  • Fagan, Brian M. The Great Journey. Thames and Hudson. 1987);
  • Feder, Kenneth L. (1999) "Frauds, myths, and mysteries: science and pseudoscience in archaeology" (3rd ed., Mountain View, Calif. : Mayfield Pub. Co., 1999)
  • Fell, Barry (1984) America B.C. : Ancient Settlers in the New World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984)
  • William J. Hamblim Archaeology and the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 1993), Volume 5, Issue 1, pp. 250–272, Text ;
  • Gerol, E. Harry Dioses, Templos y Ruinas.
  • Guernsey, Julia (2006) Ritual and Power in Stone: The Performance of Rulership in Mesoamerican Izapan Style Art, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, ISBN 978-0292713239.
  • Hey, J. (2005). "On the number of New World founders: A population genetic portrait of the peopling of the Americas" Public Library of Science Biology, 3, e193.
  • Holst, Sanford (2005) Phoenicians - Lebanon's Epic Heritage, Cambridge & Boston Press, Los Angeles, California.
  • Howgaard, William (1971) The Voyages of the Norsemen to America (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1914, Kraus Reprint Co., 1971);
  • Hristov, Romeo H. and Santiago Genovés T. (2001) "The Roman Head from Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca, Mexico: A Review of the evidence", Paper prepared for the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, New Orleans (2001).
  • Hristov, Romeo H. and Santiago Genovés (1999) "Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Contacts", Ancient Mesoamerica, Vol 10, pp. 207–213 ( abstract here).
  • Huyghe, Patrick (1992) Columbus was Last: A Heretical History of who was First (New York: Hyperion, 1992; Anomalist Books, 2005)
  • Ingstad, Helge Westward to Vinland (New York: St. Martins, 1969);
  • Jairazbhoy, R. A. Ancient Egyptians and Chinese in America (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1974);
  • Johnson, Adrian America Explored (New York: The Viking Press, 1974);
  • Jones, Gwyn A History of the Vikings (Oxford University Press, 1984);
  • Jones, Peter N. American Indian mtDNA, Y Chromosome Genetic Data, and the Peopling of North America. Boulder: Bauu Press. 2004;
  • Lawrence, Harold G. (1962). African Explorers of the New World. John Henry and Mary Louisa Dunn Bryant Foundation. ISBN B0007HV7US. 
  • Arlington Mallery and Mary Roberts Harrison, The Rediscovery of Lost America (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979);
  • Marcus, G. J., "The Conquest of the North Atlantic" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980);
  • Mowat, Farley (1998) The Farfarers (Toronto, Key Porter Books, 1998) ISBN 1-55013-989-4;
  • Frederick J. Pohl, The Lost Discovery (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1952);
  • Frederick J. Pohl, The Viking Explorers (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1966);
  • Gary A. Rendsburg, "'Someone Will Succeed in Deciphering Minoan': Minoan Linear A as a West Semitic Dialect," Biblical Archaeologist, 59:1 (1996), pp. 36–43, esp. p. 40.
  • Seaver, K.A.(1995) The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America ca A.D. 1000-1500 Stanford University Press ISBN 0 8047 3161 6
  • Simon, Soltan A. Atlantis: The Seven Seals (Vancouver, 1984);
  • Smith, Michael E. "The 'Roman Figurine' Supposedly Excavated at Calixtlahuaca", accessed December 2007.
  • Sorenson, John L. and Johannessen, Carl L. (2006) "Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages." In: Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. Ed. Victor H. Mair. University of Hawai'i Press. Pp. 238–297. ISBN 978-0-8248-2884-4; ISBN 0-8248-2884-4
  • Sorenson, John L.; Raish, Martin H. (1996) Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography. 2v. 2d ed., rev., Provo, Utah: Research Press, ISBN 0-934893-21-7.
  • Stirling, Matthew (1967) "Early History of the Olmec Problem", in Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec, E. Benson, ed., Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C.
  • Storey, Alice A.;Ramırez, Jose Miguel; Quiroz, Daniel; Burley, David V.; Addison, David J.; Walter, Richard; Anderson, Atholl J.; Hunt, Terry L.; Athens, J. Stephen; Huynen, Leon; Matisoo-Smith, Elizabeth A. (2007) "Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile", in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, June 19, 2007, v. 104, n. 25, pp. 10335–10339.
  • Van Sertima, Ivan (1976). They Came Before Columbus. Random House. ISBN 0-394-40245-6. 
  • Von Wuthenau, Alexander (1975). Unexpected Faces in Ancient America: The Historical Testimony of Pre-Columbian Artists. Crown Publishers. ISBN 0-517-51657-8. 
  • Wauchope, Robert (1962) Lost Tribes & Sunken Continents. University of Chicago Press.
  • Williams, Stephen (1991) "Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory", Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0-8122-8238-8/0-8122-1312-2.
  • Man across the sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian contacts (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1971).
  • Brazilian newspaper O Globo, September 23, 1982.
  • Article on Robert Marx in the online agazine Naufrágios (in Portuguese).
  • Report of Severin's trip in the National Geographic Magazine, Volume 152, Number 6 (December 1977).

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact"