Online Encyclopedia
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
The expression pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact usually refers to possible interactions between the Native American peoples and the cultures of other continents — Europe, Africa, Asia, or Oceania — before the historically recorded European discovery of America by Christopher Columbus.
Most archeologists believe that, apart from their original Ice Age migrations across Beringia and the Bering Strait, the native cultures of America developed in complete isolation from the rest of humanity until the voyages of Columbus. They interpret the archaeological record to show in situ, original cultural development through that period, with people interacting across local regions but not with other continents. The sole generally accepted exception are the visits by the Vikings to Newfoundland at the L'Anse aux Meadows site. These are presumably the basis of the Vinland Sagas, but apparently did not have any lasting effect on the native cultures.
The opposite of the "Landbridge Theory", that American cultural development was either derived or affected by trans-oceanic contacts, was widely believed until the early 19th century; today, however, it is only a minority opinion. While some advocates of these diffusionist theories are compelled by their religious beliefs or influenced by ethnocentrism, there is a significant minority of scholars who see enough cultural parallels to justify them.
Opponents of the Landbridge Theory argue that this would require that at the height of an ice age that turned enormous areas of water into impassible ice, land bridges would have managed to cut through the ice and allowed for safe passage to the "New World". Instead, they put forward a new theory of ancient boat travel from the other side of the Pacific into South America, and the southern parts of North America. In support of this theory, it is claimed that the earliest human settlements in America were in the south, not the north. Similarities between Asians and Native Americans are also cited in support of the theory.
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Early proponents
In the 18th century and early 19th century many writers and antiquitarians believed that various Old World cultures were responsible for the ancient monuments found in the New World. Part of this was due to ethnocentrism, for they did not believe that Native Americans — generally portrayed as uncivilized savages — could be capable of such feats.
The isolationist "dogma"
Popular opinion began to change by the 1830s due to more detailed books such as the travels of Stephens in Mesoamerica and Prescott's accounts of the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru. Gradually, those reports convinced historians that the ancient monuments of the Americas were indeed built by the ancestors of the current Native Americans.
The reversal of the consensus was so complete that, for about a century, any suggestion of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contacts was automatically dismissed by most mainstream historians. It became a dogma that no trans-oceanic voyages to the Americas could have occurred before the age of European exploration, which culminated in Christopher Columbus's voyage of 1492. The presumed technical impossibility of such trips was supposedly confirmed by the lack of any solid evidence of cultural influences.
Possibility of ocean voyages
Over the last few decades, however, this dogma has seen several challenges, and been somewhat weakened by various developments. For one thing, historians have found many reports and evidence of long ocean voyages prior to the European explorations. Ironically it seems that the Eurocentrism that the Western scientific community has been trying to cast off — which was largely the logic behind the belief in Old World culture as the source of culture in the New World — may also have caused, and is continuing to cause, many scientists to dismiss theories of ancient non-Western contact with the New World.
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 1000 CE.
The Vikings
Some ancient Viking chronicles talked about a land called Vinland to the west of Greenland. Historians debated the meaning of these chronicles, and whether the Vikings had ever visited the New World in Pre-Columbian times. These debates were settled by archeological evidence in 1961. In that year Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad discovered the remains of a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. This was clear proof that the Vikings had crossed the Atlantic by way of Iceland and Greenland around 1000 CE. According to some historians, Polish sailor John of Kolno, serving for Denmark reached the shores of America before Columbus. However, this is not clear, whether it really happened and whether John was really Polish.
Modern experiments
In the mid-20th century, several attempts were made to demonstrate the possibility of long survival on ocean voyages, like that of Alain Bombard . Norwegian writer Thor Heyerdahl used light reed boats (named Rá and Kon-Tiki), similar to those used in North Africa and Bolivia. By successfully crossing both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with these craft, Heyerdahl demonstrated that there was no technical reason why the Americas could not have been settled from Africa, or the Pacific Islands from South America. The archeological significance if any of such voyages is debated, but these demonstrations made many of the general public curious about Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.
Conjectured contacts
Religious dogmas and speculation
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 Israelite s migrated from the Middle East to ancient America around 700 BC. Others have speculated that one of the lost tribes of Israel may have ended up in America.
Legendary trips
The Medieval legend of Saint Brendan claims that an Irish monk and a few companions crossed the Atlantic in a leather boat to a "blessed land" of many wonders. A 1977 Expedition (National Geographic Volume 152, Number 6 - December 1977) has reenacted this crossing in a leather boat thereby proving the feasibility of such a voyage. In a similar vein, although apparently unrelated to any such legend, followers of epigrapher Barry Fell claim that Irish Christian missionaries visited the Americas in the sixth century AD. These claims have been widely discredited in the academic community, although its proponents are still undeterred.[1]
Historically-based claims
Since the early 19th century, some scholars have tried to use historical records to prove that several Old World civilizations could have been capable of a trans-oceanic voyage to the Americas. Candidates included Egyptians, Sumerians, Afro-Phoenicians, Romans, Islamic West Africans, the Knights Templar, Venetians, and more.
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, an hypothesis that Thor Heyerdahl proved possible by experiment.
Only recently have the Western scholars become aware of the navigational exploits of the Chinese, such as the voyage of Zheng He's fleet. This awareness has led to proposals of Chinese-American contacts, e.g. by off-course Shang Dynasty ships. The possibility of Muslim trips from Asia (see Sung Document) were also discussed.
The presence of Basque cod fishermen and whalers in North America, just a few years after Columbus, has been well established. It has therefore been conjectured that they may have made such trips earlier.
In 1474, the Portugal navigator João Vaz Corte-Real was granted the title “discoverer of the land of the codfish”. There are evidences suggesting he visited Newfoundland.
In 1999 thermoluminescence (TL) tests carried out on a small ceramic head,'The Calixtlahuaca Head' (found in 1933 at a site in the Toluca Valley, 72 kilometres west of Mexico City), appeared to prove that it was Roman in origin. However, the significance of this find is disputed (and it should be noted that the accuracy of the TL dating is also disputed). Of course, even if this did prove that a Roman ship was blown off course and ended up in Mexico, it would not prove that they managed to find their way back.
Others have conjectured that Columbus was able to convince the Catholic Monarchs of Castile to back up his proposal only because they were aware of some earlier trip. Some suggest that Columbus himself visited Canada or Greenland before 1492, because he wrote he had visited Thule once.
Lost continents and flying saucers
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.
Other species
Some have even proposed that a human species distinct from Homo sapiens sapiens had lived in the continent in a period overlapping with the Native Americans. Irrespective of the validity of that proposal, such contacts do not appear to have left any trace.
Contested evidence
Various artifacts which some think suggest other Pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic contact have been found, but in no case — other than the discovery of L'Anse aux Meadows — have these presented clear enough evidence to convince mainstream archeologists and historians.
External links
Bibliography
- Wauchope, Robert. Lost Tribes & Sunken Continents. University of Chicago Press. 1962.
- Fagan, Brian M. The Great Journey. Thames and Hudson. 1987.
- 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
- Helge Ingstad, Westward to Vinland(New York: St. Martins, 1969).
- Man across the sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian contacts (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1971);
- William Howgaard, The Voyages of the Norsemen to America (New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1914, Kraus Reprint Co., 1971);
- E. Harry Gerol, Dioses, Templos y Ruinas;
- 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);
- 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);
- Geoffrey Ashe, The Quest for America (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971).