Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
The expression "
pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact" refers to interactions between
Native American peoples and peoples of other continents —
Europe,
Africa,
Asia, or
Oceania — before the
age of European exploration, which culminated with the discovery of
America by
Christopher Columbus in
1492.
Many such events have been proposed at various times, based on historical reports, archaeological finds, and cultural comparisons. Some of those claims are listed in this article. However, evidence for those claims is generally scant and circumstantial, and only a few of them are taken seriously by researchers.
The diffusionist view
Theories of pre-Columbian contact have been fairly popular in the
Western world since the 16th century. Several reasons may account for the spread of these
diffusionist theories, including political
propaganda, justification for
colonialism, and the backing of
priority claims. Proponents of such contacts often stated or implied the
ethnocentric premise that Native Americans — generally portrayed as savages — could not have developed the sophisticated technical and scientific knowledge of some
New World civilizations without outside help. These theories were also helped by certain
religious beliefs, and of course by the scarcity of data about the origins and history of the American native peoples, which until the 1970s did not have a coherent scientific model.
The isolationist view
Popular views began to change by the
1830s, as the history and character of the pre-Columbian American civilizations became better known through traveler reports (such as the books by
Stephens on
Mesoamerica), documentary research (such as
William H. Prescott's accounts of the
Spanish conquests of
Mexico and
Peru), and extensive archaeological research. This data eventually led most historians to embrace an isolationist view: namely, that the pre-Columbian civilizations had evolved gradually over several millennia, and that most (if not all) of their culture and knowledge had in fact been developed by the ancestors of the current
Native Americans.
Another strong argument for the isolationist view was provided in the late 20th century, as carbon dating and molecular genetics began to shed light on the origins of native populations. It turned out that, while the human presence all over
Eurasia is attested by
fossil finds spanning several hundred thousand years, no human remains could be found in the Americas that were older than about 13,000 years. This date roughly coincides with the last
ice age, a time when the sea level was substantially lower than it is today. This coincidence, and the great genetic similarity between the
indigenous peoples of the Americas and certain
Siberian populations, led scientists to believe that the Americas were populated by
migrations across the
Bering Strait, which would have been mostly dry land at the time.
Linguistic and genetic data indicated two or three distinct migration waves. On the other hand, if it was the Ice Age that made the migrations possible, the route must have been closed again when that cold spell ended and the sea level rose again to its present level, some 9,000 years ago. Between the 1950s and the 1980s, the
Bering Land Bridge theory came to be viewed as proved beyond any doubt. At the time, it was also widely believed that trans-oceanic travel became possible only in the 15th century, after key advances in European shipbuilding and navigation technology. Thus, most
archeologists came to believe that the native cultures of the Americas had been completely cut off from the Old World after the closing of the Bering routes, when they were still in the
Neolithic hunter-gatherer stage; and had developed without any outside influences for the next 9,000 years, until the time of Columbus. This belief was supported by the lack of any solid evidence of Old World influences on the American civilizations.
Questioning the isolationist view
The isolationist view has prevailed in the absence of evidence to the contrary. Nonetheless, some people find that historical records and/or cultural similarities provide convincing evidence for various pre-Columbian contacts. In fact, the standard single route migration model for the population of the Americas has been increasingly challenged in recent years, by claims of human artifacts that are dated between 15,000 and 50,000 years, a time period in which inland routes were blocked by massive ice sheets. Human remains from 9,000 years ago such as the
Kennewick Man have anatomical features that differ somewhat from those of modern indigenous populations. These raise the possibility that the Bering Land Bridge model may be too simplistic. For instance, intercoastal navigation along the Pacific shores of Siberia and Alaska may have provided an alternate route, independent of sea level or ice sheets. However, there is no dispute that the Bering Land Bridge was at least one of the important routes of migration into the Americas.
A growing body of recent evidence indicates that besides the Bering land bridge, another possibly equally important migration route into the Americas existed along the Pacific shoreline. This theory doesn't have people crossing the open ocean with all its hazards, but instead, gradual movement close to shore, probably in pursuit of favorable fishing areas. From coastal areas, people could have migrated inland, bypassing the vast northern ice sheet. This theory may account for the appearance of human activity well within the Americas during the time when inland migration routes were blocked by the ice sheets. Unfortunately, many of the prime sites for study are now beneath sea level on the continental shelf since, during the ice age, sea level was substantially lower than it is today. Nonetheless, some American anthropologists are currently pursuing such evidence.
The case of the
Viking trips to North America stands out as being fairly well supported by both historical and archaeological evidence. The so-called
Vinland sagas of
Icelandic and
Norse literature tell of travels by
Leif Eriksson and other
Vikings, around the year
1000, to a land called
Vinland to the west of
Greenland. The speculation that Vinland may have been North America has been fairly popular since the 19th century, and was even accepted as fact in some countries. The
shipbuilding and
navigational skills of the Viking were well-known, and the trip from Greenland to Newfoundland would have been a relatively short one. Nevertheless, this claim was strongly resisted by many scholars. Nationalistic biases definitely played a role in the controversy, which was further muddled by disputes about the authenticity of the
Vinland map and of other finds attributed to the Vikings, such as the
Kensington Runestone, the
Newport Tower, and many "
runic" inscriptions scattered all over the continent, from
Oklahoma to
Paraguay.
This controversy was largely settled in
1961, when archeologists
Helge and
Anne Ingstad uncovered remains of a Viking settlement at the
L'Anse aux Meadows site in
Newfoundland, thus proving the Vinland sagas to be true. However, they did not have much effect on the disputes about the earlier finds.
Although much scientific debate characterizes the study of early migrations into the Americas, the matter of later pre-Columbian contacts is highly speculative, except for the Vikings, whose pre-Columbian presence has been authenticated at
L'Anse aux Meadows in
Newfoundland and Labrador,
Canada. The claim that such pre-Columbian contacts initiated or significantly influenced the emergence of the American civilizations is unlikely, as the broad body of archaeological evidence suggests that indigenous societies evolved independently of Old World influences. Claims of trans-oceanic influences are often based on minor coincidences or exaggerated similarities between various Old and New World cultures. A lack of evidence of cultural influence, however, does not rule out the possibility of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contacts; it merely suggests that such contacts had no noticeable impact on New World societies.
All major
cradles of civilization have emerged on the basis of the domestication and development of wild plants. In the Americas, the principal domesticated plant was
maize, a domesticate of the Mexican wild grass
teosinte. This indigenous plant and many others were domesticated thousands of years before any of the claimed external contacts, and the evidential record of the gradual development of maize and other plants demonstrates an indigenous agriculture over thousands of years as well.
American civilizations arose, as other civilizations did similarly around the world, when the productivity of domesticated agriculture attained a certain level whereby larger populations could be sustained and organized into more sophisticated societies. The evidence shows that major agricultural development happened well before any verified external contacts occurred. Moreover, except for the very early appearance (c.7,000 BC) of the African
gourd (with its inherent ability to float, even across the ocean), there is no clear evidence of any other non-indigenous domesticated plant in the Americas. Finally, evidence has yet to be found of external genetic contributions to the genome of the indigenous Americans between the time of early migrations and the arrival of Columbus, i.e. during the time period of the emergence of the American civilizations.
Feasibility of early trans-oceanic travel
Some people continue to believe that pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact may have occurred because such voyages were technically quite possible. After all, the only essential requirements for a successful trans-oceanic trip are a boat that can withstand the open ocean weather for a few months, and means to store or obtain enough food and water to keep the crew alive for that duration. The historical and experimental evidence gathered over the last few decades shows that these requirements could have been met even in remote antiquity, millennia before Columbus's time. This circumstantial evidence includes reliable records of several maritime trips of comparable distance, and modern attempts to retrace possible contact routes with reproductions of ancient boats. While these reports and experiments are only speculative, they do open up the question of such contacts.
Historical long-range travel
Madagascar
Linguistic evidence has demonstrated that
Madagascar, for example, was settled by
Austronesian peoples from
Indonesia. Their navigators were able to cross the
Indian Ocean and large sections of the
Pacific before the year
1000.
Arab sea trading
Centuries before Columbus,
Arab merchant ships regularly traveled between
East Africa, the
Middle East,
India, and
China. This trade has been well documented with written records and archeological finds (such as Chinese pottery in
Zimbabwe).
Asian castaways
In the
19th century, a
Japanese
junk lost its
mast and
rudder in a
typhoon on its way to
Edo, was carried by sea currents across the
Northern Pacific, and reached the coast of
Washington State 14 months later. One of the survivors,
Otokichi, became a famous interpreter. Similar events may have happened to other
Chinese and Japanese sailors in previous centuries. A legend from
Hawai'i suggests that a Japanese trading vessel got stranded at
Maui around
1260.
Modern experiments
The Kon-Tiki
In
1947,
Norwegian writer
Thor Heyerdahl sailed for over 6,900 km across the Pacific — from
Callao in
Peru to the
Raroia atoll in
Tuamotu Islands — on the
Kon-Tiki, a
balsawood raft built after ancient
Peruvian designs.
The Ra II
In
1969, Heyerdahl turned to the Atlantic, and sailed 6,400 km — from
Safi in
Morocco to
Barbados — in the
Ra II, a
reed boat of ancient Egyptian design. The
Frenchman Alain Bombard had already done a similar trip in
1952 — starting from the
Canaries and in a modern inflatable boat, but alone and without taking any food or water reserves.
Severin's Currach
In 1977, Irish writer
Tim Severin sailed from
Brandon Creek on
Ireland's
Dingle Peninsula to
Newfoundland in a
currach made with 6th century Irish designs and materials — namely, oxhides stretched over a wooden frame. (See the section on
Saint Brendan below).
Claims of cultural and biological similarities
Polynesians
The realization that
Polynesians had been able to spread as far as
Easter Island by boat led to theories of trans-Pacific contacts with
Oceania. The presence in Polynesia of the
kumara (
sweet potato), a plant native to the Americas, has been cited as possible evidence of contacts. It is possible, however, that this plant or its seed-bearing parts simply managed to float across the Pacific without human contact ever occurring.
Over the last 20 years, the dates and anatomical features of human remains found in Mexico and South America have led some archaeologists to propose that those regions were first populated by
Proto-Polynesians, several millennia before the
Ice Age migrations. According to this theory, these
Pre-Siberian American Aborigines would have been either eliminated or absorbed by the Siberian immigrants. However, current archaeological evidence for human migration to and settlement of Remote Oceania (i.e., the
Pacific Ocean eastwards of the
Solomon Islands) is dated to no earlier than approximately 3,500
BP[Kirch, Patrick V. Background to Pacific Archaeology and Prehistory, Oceanic Archaeology Laboratory, Univ. California, Berkeley.]; any trans-Pacific contact with the Americas coinciding with or pre-dating the Beringia migrations of at least 11,500 BP is highly problematic, except for the intercoastal route hypothesis.
Recently, linguist
Kathryn A. Klar of
UC Berkeley and
archaeologist Terry L. Jones of
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo have proposed contacts between Polynesians and the
Chumash and
Gabrielino of southern
California, between
500 and
700 AD. Their chief evidence is the advanced sewn-plank canoe design, which is used throughout the Polynesian Islands, but is unknown in North America — except for those two tribes. Moreover, the Chumash word for "sewn-plank canoe,"
tomolo'o, may have been derived from
kumulaa'au, the Polynesian word for the
Redwood logs used in that construction.
Africans
Some sources claim that the facial features of the ancient
Olmecs, as seen on their statues, are more similar to those of native Africans than to other native peoples of the Americas. These observations have led some authors, such as
Ivan van Sertima and
James W. Loewen[Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your History Textbook Got Wrong. ISBN 156584100X.], to propose that the statues depict visitors from Africa; which could be either permanent (i.e. settlers), or temporary (explorers, military, traders, etc.) The origin of those hypothetical visitors has been conjectured to be the
Phoenician colonies in nothern Africa, or the ancient peoples who lived in the
Sahara before it became a desert.
However, critics argue that the faces seen in Olmec imagery resemble those of African natives only superficially, and that they are not as different from those of American natives as the proponents assume. Meso-American scholars also point out the central role of the "were-jaguar", half man, half cat, in early Meso-American religions. In any case, this African connection has not been demonstrated by
genetic studies of people or plant life.
Egyptians and Mesopotamians
The similarity between the
Egyptian Pyramids and the temples of some New World civilizations; such as the
Mayas,
Aztecs, and
Incas — has fueled many speculations that either the ancient Egyptians had traveled to the Americas, or that the civilizations on both sides of the ocean had sprung from a common source (such as the lost continent of
Atlantis). Sometimes the comparison was made with the
ziggurats of
Mesopotamia, which would imply contact with the
Sumerians or other people of the region. However, the similarities between Old and New World pyramids are not very strong, and get weaker as one recedes further into the past. The typical American pyramid was only a platform for a
temple, and was periodically enlarged with new layers; the design apparently evolved from an artificial earth mound, which was later covered with plaster and stone. In contrast, the Egyptian pyramid was just a tomb for one
pharaoh and his immediate family, with no temple proper; it was never enlarged after its completion; and its design evolved from smaller stone tomb structures.
Other claims of contacts with Egypt were based on reports that some chemical tests run on Egyptian
mummies had found traces of plant products native to the Americas, such as
tobacco and
coca. However, most Egyptologists would rather ascribe those results to modern contamination or some other experimental error until they are verified by other scientists.
Phoenicians, Greek and Romans
Many claims 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 archaeological finds in American sites that were supposedly manufactured in the Old World. However, none of these finds have been sufficiently well-documented to dispel the possibility of the objects having been mis-identified, mis-dated, or placed at the site at a more recent date — either accidentally, or as a
fraud.
=The Calixtlahuaca Head
=In 1933, at
Toluca Valley (72 kilometres west of
Mexico City), a small ceramic head, showing a beard and European-like features, was found embedded in the pavement of a building that had been abandoned in 1510, nine years before the Spaniards arrived. In 1961, Austrian anthropologist
Robert Heine-Geldern studied the head, declaring that it fit Roman schools of art from the
2nd century CE. In
1999, the head was dated by
thermoluminescence to
870 BC--
1270 AD. However, as pointed out by archaeologist
Michael E. Smith, the fieldwork documentation is so poor that it is not clear whether this object was indeed excavated at Calixtlahuaca or not.
=Roman coins in the Midwest
=In
1963, what appeared to be
Roman coins were discovered in
New Albany, Indiana, across from
Louisville, Kentucky [
1]. All but two of the coins have vanished; the remaining ones appear to depict
Roman Emperors
Claudius II and
Maximinus. More recently, what appear to be Roman coins from the same period have been found on the other side of the
Ohio River. The coins were found buried in what might have been a disintegrated leather pouch.
=Amphorae in Guanabara Bay
=In
1982, Brazilian newspapers reported that fragments of
amphorae had been recovered by professional treasure hunter
Robert Frank Marx, from the bottom of
Guanabara Bay, offshore
Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil.
Elizabeth Lyding Mill of the University of Massachusetts has reportedly identified the finds as being Roman, manufactured at
Kouass (Dehar Jedid) in Morocco, and dated them to
3rd century. A bottom survey by
Harold E. Edgerton of MIT located what seemed to be remains of two disintegrating ships.
These claims however collapsed when
Américo (Amerigo) Santarelli, an Italian professional diver living in Rio de Janeiro, revealed in a book that he had 18 such amphors made by a local potter, and had placed 16 of them himself at various places in the bay. He said that his intent was to recover the encrusted amphors later, to decorate his house at
Angra dos Reis. To prove his story, Santarelli recovered 8 of the amphors. The story pretty much died there. Robert Marx, incidentally, was prohibited to work in Brazil (as in several other countries) by alleged ethical misconduct in an unrelated find.
=Language
=It has often been noted that the
Aztec word for "god",
teo, is very similar to the Greek
theos. This and other similarities have been advanced as proofs of contact. However, linguists generally prefer to ascribe such shared words to coincidence. See
mass lexical comparison for further discussion.
=Ornamentation
=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. However, most of this "evidence" can be explained away 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.
Chinese
Peanuts, native to South America, were in the early 1970s, according to unreliable Chinese reports, found at a 4,000 year old archeological site. Likewise, there are those who claim that
maize was cultivated in China well before
1492 even though the wild grass from which maize was domesticated,
teosinte, is indigenous only to Mexico and adjacent parts of Central America, and numerous intermediate forms of the domesticated maize cobs form a continuum in the archeological record in Mexico over thousands of years. While these claims are debated and questioned, no one argues against the fact that it was only after the
Columbian Exchange that these plants, in their New world versions, become widely spread and important in China's food system.
Others have pointed out stylistic similarities between the decorative motifs of ancient China and of the ancient Maya, and the great value that both placed on
jade. However, the stylistic similarities are mainly subjective, and jade may have been valued simply for its intrinsic
beauty and for its qualities as a
sculptural material.
Indians
In southern
India, there is a temple that has an image of goddesses holding what appear to be
maize, a crop native to the Americas. However, other grasses like sorghum and millet found in India bear some resemblance to maize and are probably the basis for the image.
Carthaginians
According to the 16th century Spanish historian
Oviedo, who relies on Brother Theophilus of Cremona, who in turn cites
Aristotle, the ancient
Carthaginians had discovered an abundant land beyond the
Pillars of Hercules, and guarded their secret so that no other nation could conquer that land. Oviedo goes on to argue that the
Hesperides of ancient myth were not the
Canary Islands, as was the contemporary interpretation, but actually the West Indies.
Saint Brendan
Several
Medieval documents claim that
Irish monk Saint Brendan (
c. 478â€"578) and seventeen fellow monks crossed the Atlantic in a leather boat to a "Land of the Promise of the Saints" (which had been previously visited by another monk, Father Barinthus). This land of wonders has often been conjectured to be some part of the New World.
The earliest surviving record of the tale dates from the 9th century, some 300 years after the time of St. Brendan. The document describes Brendan's boat as "a light vessel, with wicker sides and ribs… covered it with cow-hide, tanned in oak-bark" — i.e., a
currach — with tarred joints. The trip is said to have lasted seven years. The report contains many descriptions that are obviously fantasies, and some that are hard to understand:
* An immense "crystal column" with a "silver canopy" rising from the sea (an
iceberg?);
* An island covered with slag, with no trees but full of smiths' forges, inhabited by giants who threw masses of "burning slag" at the ship (
volcanos in
Iceland?),
* And huge fishes spouting foam, which they mistook for an island (
whales?). These details, as well as geographical constraints, would suggest a route across the North Atlantic; but the fantastic description of the "blessed land" hardly matches the reality of Greenland or of the American Northeast. Thus, while the feasibility of the trip was confirmed in
1977 by
Tim Severin, the actual destination and even the reality of St. Brendan's trip are still uncertain.
Culdee monks
It is known that
Culdee monks were persecuted by the
Vikings in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries. The Culdee originated in Ireland and Scotland; however, there is some evidence of a pre-Norse presence in Iceland, this has lead to speculation of a Culdee migration to Greenland, thence to Labrador and Nova Scotia to flee the Vikings. The evidence to support this theory is the existence in the Maine and New Hampshire areas of approximately 275 beehive stone huts. Further evidence exists in the discovery of
Ogham writing in the Virginias
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1189/is_v256/ai_3410276. These stone structures are seen by some as similar to those found in Ireland and Scotland, where they were built in the Early
Middle Ages or earlier. The structures are unlike pre-historic buildings found in North America, and do not fit any of the living use patterns of Native Americans. However, they are usually considered to have been built in the historic, colonial era. (Olsen, 2003). For an example of this, see
America's Stonehenge.
Prince Madoc of Wales
Another Medieval legend says that the Welsh prince
Madoc (Madawg ab Owain Gwynedd) sailed to the west in
1170, fleeing from a succession war, and found an unknown, fertile land. He left 120 men there, and returned to Wales to get more people. In
1174 he had collected more ships and people, including women, and sailed to the unknown land again. No one ever heard of him again.
The story first appeared in writing in
1583. It has been suggested that Madoc was in fact of mixed Viking and Welsh parentage, which may add weight to the story. It has been claimed that the
Mandans and many other Native American tribes are descendants of Madoc's settlers.
[ Madoc1170.com [2] ]However, this claim has not been supported by any reliable evidence, and it is quite possible that Madoc's legend is just a myth.
Zichmni, aka Henry Sinclair
A
1558 book published in
Venice by a
Nicolò Zeno claimed that his ancestors, the brothers
Nicolò and
Antonio Zeno, had crossed the North Atlantic in
1398. The expedition was allegedly commanded by a certain Prince
Zichmni, and went as far as the coast of North America.
In the 19th century, some historians have speculated that Zichmni was the
Scottish nobleman
Henry Sinclair, 1st Earl of Orkney. The identification was based on the
coat of arms and the inscription on the
Westford Knight, an allegedly pre-Columbian rock carving in
Massachusetts. However, most historians consider Zeno's book (or the letters on which it puports to be based) to be a hoax; and analysis of the Westford Knight have concluded that most of the "drawing" consists of natural scratches, while the inscription and some details were added in fairly recent times.
Abubakari II
Abubakari II was the
mansa of the
Mali Empire in western Africa from 1310â€"1312, when he abdicated in order to explore the Atlantic. His expedition never returned, leading
Malian scholar Gaoussou Diawara to speculate he may have reached the New World. Diawara says Abubakari may have reached the coast of
Brazil and may have even returned to Mali, but the
griots found his abdication shameful, and did not record his adventures fondly.
[ Joan Baxter, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1068950.stm "Africa's 'greatest explorer'". BBC, December 13, 2000. ]There are many historically-based claims of trans-oceanic contacts in the 15th century — before Columbus, but too late to have had any influence on the development of the New World civilizations.
Zheng He
The achievements of Chinese navigation have been widely known in the West at least since the work of
Joseph Needham and
John King Fairbank in the
1950s.
Gavin Menzies, in his book
1421: The Year China Discovered The World, popularized the further and highly controversial thesis that the fleet of
Zheng He arrived at America in
1421. Menzies'
presentation of this idea has been found unconvincing by most historians, but it is intriguing enough that it has led to proposals of other Chinese-American contacts, e.g. by off-course
Ming Dynasty ships. The possibility of Muslim trips from Asia (see
Sung Document) has also been discussed.
Spanish
Even in Columbus' time there was much speculation that other Old Worlders had made the trip in ancient or contemporary times;
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés records several 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 disregarded it as myth.
Portuguese
In
1472, the
Portuguese navigator
João Vaz Corte-Real was granted the title "discoverer of
the Land of the Codfish". It is conjectured that he visited
Newfoundland. The presence of
Basque cod fishermen and
whalers in
North America, just a few years after Columbus, has also been cited. Others have conjectured that Columbus was able to convince the
Catholic Monarchs of
Castile to support his planned voyage only because they were aware of some earlier voyage. Some suggest that Columbus himself visited
Canada or
Greenland before
1492, because he wrote he had visited
Thule once. In the first half of the 16th century, the
Tupinambá people in the
Rio de Janeiro region cut their hair in a monk-like fashion. According to
Hans Staden, a 16th century German sailor who was their prisoner for several years, they attributed the style to an European monk who had visited them some time before the official Portuguese discovery of Brazil (1500).
German and Polish
Didrik Pining, with
John of Kolno as his navigator, is said to have landed on the coast of Labrador in
1473.
English
From at latest the reign of King
Henry VII (r.1485-1509), English fishermen were catching cod off of the coast of New England. King Henry was recorded as having threatened the captain of the fishermen with imprisonment if he would not reveal the location of this great cache of cod.
While most claims of trans-oceanic contact are about non-Americans traveling to the Americas, there are a few reports of trips in the other direction.
Caecilius Metellus
Pomponius Mela (Lib.III,Chap.5) writes, and is copied by
Pliny the Elder, that
Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer,
proconsul in
Gaul received 'several Indians' (
Indi) as a present from a
Germanic king. The Indians were driven by a storm to the coasts of
Germania (
in tempestatem ex Indicis aequoribus).
"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." (
Pomponius Mela (Book III,Chap.5)).
"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."
It is unclear whether these castaways may have been people from
India or Eastern Asia, or possibly Native Americans.
Edward Herbert Bunbury suggested they were Finns. This account is open to some question, since Metellus Celer died just after his consulship, before he ever got to Gaul.
Antonio Galvano
According to the Portuguese seafarer
Antonio Galvano "certain Indians" (
certos Indios) were picked out of sea in
1153 and sent to
Lübeck. Galvado said they were probably from
Bacalao, a mythical island often believed to be
Newfoundland.
Bartolomé de las Casas
According to
Bartolomé de las Casas there were two dead bodies that looked like Indians found on
Flores (
Azores). He said he found that fact in Columbus' notes, and it was one of the reasons for Columbus to assume India was on the other side of the ocean.
Tupac Inca Yupanqui
Tupac Inca Yupanqui, the tenth
Inca emperor, is said to have led a 10 month expedition into the Pacific Ocean around 1480. The islands he visited are sometimes identified with the
Galapagos, but more usually with western
Polynesia, possibly the
Tuamotus,
Marquesas, or
Easter Island. Being a seafaring people the Polynesians would not have been surprised by visitors from far across the sea, and oral tradition from
Mangareva in the Tuamotus mention a light-skinned visitor from the east. Additionally Easter Island genealogies mention a king Tupa who reigned briefly before leaving by boat, and South American microorganisms have been identified there from a date comparable to Tupac's reign.
The
19th century saw the spread of several "lost continent" theories such as the
Atlantis of
Rosicrucians and
Theosophists, and
James Churchward's proposals of
Mu and
Lemuria. In the 20th century,
extra-terrestrial civilizations have been added to the long list of conjectural visitors to the Americas. According to popular writers like
Erich von Däniken, these celestial visitors were the real builders of the ancient monuments of the Americas, or at least the masters who taught the natives how to build them. The
La Merika theory claims that some old graveyards in
Nova Scotia use an ancient measuring system of
Rods and which contain grave stones which incorporate Masonic devices such as Crusader Crosses and
Pentagrams. None of these 'theories' enjoy any support from serious historians or achaeologists.
A number of diffusionist theories involving ancient visitors are mandated by or inspired on religious beliefs. The
Book of Mormon, for instance, holds that a number of
Israelites migrated from the
Middle East to ancient America around
600 to 700 BC. Others have speculated that one of the
lost tribes of Israel may have ended up in America.
In the
comic book
Asterix and the Great Crossing, one of the latest of the books written by
René Goscinny, the invincible
Gauls
Asterix and
Obelix and their dog
Dogmatix are trapped in a storm when they are trying to fish. After the storm, the three arrive by accident at the island of
Manhattan and interact with an Indian tribe (that successively is erroneously identified as a tribe of
Cretans,
Hispani and
Thracians) but they are forced to escape when the native chief tries to marry his daughter to Obelix. The trio reach
Ellis Island just in time to meet a Viking boat whose crew mistakes them for "
New World people" and later returns to
Denmark with Asterix, Obelix and Dogmatix on board. However, the Viking monarch identifies them as Gauls and scolds the Viking sailors, thinking that they were on vacation in modern
France all the time.
* Barry Fell,
America B.C. : Ancient Settlers in the New World (New York: Simon & Schuster , 1984);
* Gavin Menzies,
1421 : The year China discovered America ( ? , 2003);
*
Geoffrey Ashe,
The Quest for America (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971);
* Fagan, Brian M.
The Great Journey. Thames and Hudson. 1987);
* E. Harry Gerol,
Dioses, Templos y Ruinas;
* William Howgaard,
The Voyages of the Norsemen to America (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1914, Kraus Reprint Co., 1971);
* Patrick Huyghe,
Columbus was Last: A Heretical History of who was First (New York: Hyperion, 1992)
* Helge Ingstad,
Westward to Vinland (New York: St. Martins, 1969);
* R.A. Jairazbhoy,
Ancient Egyptians and Chinese in America (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1974);
* Adrian Johnson,
America Explored (New York: The Viking Press, 1974);
* Arlington Mallery and Mary Roberts Harrison,
The Rediscovery of Lost America (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1979);
* Farley Mowat,
The Farfarers (Toronto, Key Porter Books, 1998) ISBN 1550139894;
* Kenneth L. Feder, "Frauds, myths, and mysteries : science and pseudoscience in archaeology" (3rd ed., Mountain View, Calif. : Mayfield Pub. Co., 1999)
* Brad Olsen,
Sacred Places North America, CCC Publishing, Santa Cruz, California (2003)
* 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);
* Zoltan A. Simon,
Atlantis: The Seven Seals (Vancouver, 1984);
* Michael E. Smith,
The 'Roman Figurine' Supposedly Excavated at Calixtlahuaca. http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/tval/RomanFigurine.html
* John L. Sorenson & Martin H. Raish,
Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography. 2v. 2d ed., rev. (Provo, Utah: Research Press, 1996) ISBN 0934893217;
* Robert Wauchope,
Lost Tribes & Sunken Continents. (University of Chicago Press. 1962);
*
Man across the sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian contacts (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1971).
* 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.
* Brazilian newspaper
O Globo, september 23, 1982.
* Article on Robert Marx in the online agazine
Naufrágios (in Portuguese).
*
* Stephen Williams, "Fantastic Archaeology: The Wild Side of North American Prehistory" (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991) ISBN 0-8122-8238-8/0-8122-1312-2
* Report of Severin's trip in the
National Geographic Magazine, Volume 152, Number 6 (December 1977).
*
Diffusion (anthropology)*
Viking colonization of the Americas*
Kensington Runestone*
Westford Knight*
Newport Tower*
Vinland map*
Models of migration to the New World*
Timeline of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact*
Paper given at the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (2001) on The Calixtlahuaca Head*
Interpreting the Clovis Artifacts from the Gault Site by
Michael B. Collins and
Thomas R. Hester, at the University of Texas.
*
African Presence in the Americas Before Columbus*
The Mystery of the Cocaine Mummies (Transcript of television broadcast)
*
Olmec head photo at Michigan State University.
