Pre-Columbian contact hypotheses

Fiction over fact Pseudohistory

How it didn't happen

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Pre-Columbian contact hypotheses relates to a series of claims that the Americas were visited by people from other parts of the world before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Conventionally, this excludes the arrival of early populations over the Bering Straits, the initial peopling of the Americas, and subsequent movements of aboriginal people around the Arctic. But, includes ocean-going voyages by Asians, Africans, Europeans, and Oceanians. Most of these theories exist in pseudohistory or pseudoscience and are often based on superficial similarities between Old World and New World art, architecture, and linguistics. Some of these proposed events may be true, but were simply unrecorded, or of such little impact they can't be definitely proven. Most of these claims are probably not true.

At present there are three instances in historical times in which contact was made between Old World and New World peoples supported by robust archeological, genetic, and even written evidence.

Recognized Pre-Columbian contacts

A few instances of Pre-Columbian contact in historic times are now generally acknowledged as having happened. The most well established were those of the Norse around 1000 AD which were considered more legendary than factual until archeological digs in the 1960s showed otherwise. There are a few primary sources that mention islands called "Markland" and "Vinland" in old Norse documents. Likely, sometime after the Norse abandonment of North America Polynesian and Siberian people made contact with people in the Western hemisphere. Because none of those cultures involved had written languages little can be said about under what circumstances they met, other than that they did indeed meet somewhere somehow. In pre-historic times there now appears to have been a separate peopling of the Americas that occurred from the South Seas around 20,000 years ago. Modern Amazonian peoples have a degree of Austronesian (though not necessarily Polynesian) ancestry.

People	Explorer	When	Where	According to	Evidence	Likelihood
Norsemen (Vikings)	Canada: Bjarni Herjólfsson spotted North America (or forested islands near it) in 986, Leif Eriksson, Thorvald Eiriksson, Thorfinn Karlsefni, Freydís Eiríksdóttir, and Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir Greenland: Gunnbjörn Ulfsson found Greenland by accident around 900 CE, Snæbjörn Galti tried and failed to settle it in 978, Erik the Red then established the first successful settlement in 982.	986 - 1021 CE based on carbon dating at L'Anse Aux Meadows and Von Bremen's The Deeds Of The Bishops Of Hamburg.	Greenland and Newfoundland, Canada; possibly Labrador and Baffin Island	Corroborating Inuit and Norse folktales: The Saga Of The Greenlanders and The Saga Of Erik The Red (Norse) is widely known, but also The Tale of Ungortok, Chief Of Katortok and Meeting The Ancient Kavdlunait (Inuit). Also see Adam of Bremen's The Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg.	Smoking Gun: Ingstad found the ruins of a settlement in 1965 at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. It included a smithy, carpentry workshop, and possibly weaving looms. L'Anse Aux Meadows was recognised by UNESCO as one of its proclaimed World Heritage Sites in 1978. Possible: Patricia Sutherland's multiple Baffin Island/Tanfield Valley discoveries, most significantly whetstones that contained streaks of smelted iron (in 2012) and woven yarn (in 1999). There is further circumstantial evidence such as Deborah Sabo's discovery of a pre-Columbian Inuit carving on Baffin Island that depicts a European-like figure. Total Bullshit: The Stone Tower in Rhode Island, the Dighton Rock petroglyphs, and the Narragansett Runestone are bullshit. Also the Vinland map (a hoax map), as well as the idea that the lexicon of the Algonquian languages is substantially Old Norse in origin.	Confirmed. What is under contention is to what extent and for how long the Norse presence was maintained. Outside of Greenland the only proven Norse settlement in the Americas is L'Anse Aux Meadows. All other locations are disputed.
Polynesians		~1200-1300 CE	South America/ Western Pacific	An increasing number of historians, linguists and geneticists	Smoking Gun: Recently, genetic tests have revealed that contact did happen between the southern Marquesas Islands and Colombia, and thereby indirectly between Rapa Nui and Colombia, though the direction of contact has not been firmly established. Possible: The sweet potato seems to have arrived in the South Pacific islands before 1492; assertions that it floated across the Pacific have been disproven. The similarity of the words for sweet potato in Quechua (k'umara) and the hypothesized Proto-Polynesian (kumala) may be evidence of linguistic borrowing. Unlikely: There are claims about pre-Columbian chickens in South America, although more recent research makes that unlikely.	Confirmed. Where exactly and how this/these encounters happened is probably unanswerable.
Siberians		1100-1500 CE. Possibly much earlier, even dating back to the formation of the Bering Strait itself.	The Bering Strait Region either in or between modern Alaska and Siberia. The close proximity of Asia and North America here along with the numerous islands in between allows many possible places to meet.	Modern archeologists researching in Alaska.	Smoking Gun: Bronze and obsidian artifacts found in Alaska. The Alaska natives were not in the bronze age and chemical analysis shows the obsidian pieces to have come from a river in Russia's far northeast. It is highly unlikely that these items were produced by Alaskans. Possible Oral traditions relating to trade and travel around the Bering Sea.	Confirmed. The exact details of how these interactions took place is impossible to say with precision although some very rough dates have been proposed. Both regions were historically lightly populated and only a few artifacts have ever been found but it's likely contact occurred with some frequency given the short distances involved.

Alleged "discoverers" of the Americas

The following claims are all considered much more dubious. This is not a complete list. A large number of other fringe theories on this topic exist including persecuted Roman Christians, ancient Greeks, Marco Polo, Basque fisherman, Japanese sailors, and basically everyone who ever existed except Christopher Columbus finding their way to the Americas before 1492. Interestingly, they all waited until after his voyages to let us know they had already done it. Many theories appear to be born out of cultural pride (We were there first!), rather than genuine fact.

Art historian Alexander von Wuthenau claimed a wide range of pre-Columbian contacts based on his view of facial similarities between pre-Columbian stone artwork and people originating from outside the Americas: Africans, Semitic (Jews and Arabs), Japanese, Polynesians, and Phoenicians. His analysis amounts to an pseudoscientific/pseudohistorical comparison because of convergent evolution.

People	Explorer	When	Where	According to	Evidence	Likelihood
Paleolithic Europeans (Solutrean culture)		c. 20,000 BCE	Across pack ice in the north Atlantic to eastern Canada and USA	The Solutrean hypothesis proposed by Dennis Stanford, Bruce Bradley, and others.	Alleged similarity between Solutrean and Clovis spear points; there is also some genetic evidence.	Very unlikely; although some mainstream scientists do seem to believe it, it has largely been dismissed as a crackpot hypothesis.
Ancient Egyptians		2nd millennium BCE	Meso-America or the Andes, presumably	Thor Heyerdahl	Heyerdahl built a raft out of papyrus and sailed with it from Morocco to Barbados. Apparently that's proof. Oh, also both ancient Egypt and ancient Mexico built pyramids, so there you go.	No
Semitic peoples		ca. 600 BCE	Various sites in the northern USA	Mormon scripture and stories British Israelism Atlantis woo-peddlers	Unfortunately the golden plates bearing the scriptures "mysteriously" disappeared, though even they wouldn't actually be evidence of contact necessarily. Los Lunas Decalogue Stone — a likely hoax	No
Phoenicians		Around 4th century BCE		Cyrus H. Gordon, a scholar of the near east.	Allegedly Phoenician maps show North America. Phoenician coins have been found in North America but are believed to have been hoaxes left in modern times.	Unlikely
Irish	Saint Brendan	6th century	Supposedly sailed the Atlantic in search of paradise.	Legends	There are claims of Ogham (Celtic) writing in West Virginia which may be Welsh or Irish (but isn't). In 1976 Tim Severin successfully crossed the Atlantic in a replica boat, proving it might have been possible.	Very unlikely
Arab	Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad	889 CE	Various stories exist: Old Chinese accounts of the Arabs refer to a mysterious land called Mulan Pi, which may or may not be connected but cannot be identified. Others have suggested an Atlantic crossing.	10th century Arab historian Al-Masudi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.	The treasures which Ibn Aswad supposedly returned with have disappeared. Columbus compared a landmark in Cuba to a Mosque in his logbook.	Unlikely
Welsh	Madoc	12th century	Various sites across Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, etc., including Devil's Backbone, near Louisville, Kentucky.	Vague stories which may have been spread by the British to enhance their territorial claims.	There are claims of Ogham (Celtic) writing in West Virginia which may be Welsh or Irish (but isn't); also the alleged presence of Welsh Indians.	Very unlikely
West Africas	Sultan of Mali (possibly Abubakari II).	c. 1300s CE	Sailing across the Atlantic to the Americas	Claimed by Harold G. Lawrence Writers Gaoussou Diawara and Khadidjah Djire have advanced the theory.	A 14th century Egyptian historian, Al Omari, mentioned an attempted oceanic voyage by an unnamed West African king to find the edge of the world. Others have claimed as early as the 4th millennium BCE West Africans brought civilization across the Atlantic. Supposedly ancient Olmec statues show African facial features and that Central American natives used African religious symbolism and African linguistics.	Very Unlikely
Scots	Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney	Late 14th century	Greenland and North America	Various vague stories	None	Unlikely
Chinese	Hui Shen	c. 5th century CE	The unidentified region of Fusang	Texts forming Classic of Mountains and Seas and other volumes of Chinese legend.	None	Unlikely (not least because the texts say he found horses, which by then were extinct in the Americas).
	unspecified	pre-Incan (<1476 CE)	northwestern Peru	Francisco A. Loayza	Pseudoarchaeological comparisons of pottery, and pseudolinguistic comparison of Chinese with Peruvian toponyms and indigenous words.	Unlikely (see Zheng He below)
	Zheng He	1421		Gavin Menzies in his book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World.	None, basically, although Menzies claimed the Piri Reis map is proof.	Most historians reckon Menzies was talking rubbish. See also 1421 Theory.
Portuguese	João Vaz Corte-Real and others	Late 15th century	Newfoundland and/or Caribbean	A few historians	The Portuguese navigator Corte-Real was granted land on the Azores for his reported discovery of the 'land of the codfish' in 1472. Portuguese fishermen are known to have fished off the banks of Newfoundland in the 1490s.	Possible, but lacking evidence.
French	Jean Cousin	1488	Brazil	French tradition	Only stories. It is claimed that Cousin sailed to Brazil in 1488; one of his alleged crew members, Alonzo Pinzón, is said to have later sailed with Christopher Columbus and been able to show him the way across the Atlantic. There are claims that Binot Paulmier de Gonneville, who visited Brazil in 1504, found French traders already there.	Possible, but lacking evidence.

The other way

Occasionally it has been suggested that New World populations visited the Old World. These theories tend to be dismissed as lacking credible proof.

It has been claimed that Egyptian mummies show traces of cocaine, which originated in South America. However, these theories are far more popular with the producers of wacky TV programs than with actual Egyptologists.

There are also suggestions of Inuit children or adults being brought back from North America or Greenland by Norsemen. This might have actually happened, with certain Icelander families possessing the C1 haplotype, one of the four haplotypes associated with the original peopling of the Americas. Given the fact that a Norse colony existed in Greenland for several centuries, and it's known that at least one, albeit short-lived, Norse settlement existed in Newfoundland, the most probable origin of this specific haplotype lay with Native Americans brought over to Iceland. However, a European or Asian origin cannot be conclusively ruled out, so this conclusion is at most a tentative one.

American Indian historian Jack Forbes argued in The American Discovery of Europe that American Indians traveled to Europe in the 1^st century.

The elephant in the room: The Columbian exchange

Corn, which could not be found anywhere in the Eastern hemisphere prior to 1492

The reconnection of two continents which had virtually no contact or knowledge of each other for more than 10,000 years changed the world's ecology, economy, and overall state of knowledge. Although Columbus wasn't the first to make contact with the New World, his voyages are correctly regarded as the most historically important because he stayed and permanently triggered two-way exchange between both hemispheres. Within about one century of 1492, 75-90 per cent of all indigenous Americans had died of diseases previously unknown in the Americas including smallpox, plague, measles, mumps, yellow fever, typhus and whooping cough. Syphilis was originaly thought to have come from the Americas to the Old World. Newer evidence indicates that the Columbus and syphilis connection is unlikely since medieval DNA suggests Columbus didn't trigger a syphilis epidemic in Europe. Wheat, oats, barley, cabbages, lemons, sugarcane, truffles, horses, cows, sheep, cats, pigs, and other lifeforms were introduced to the Americas. European, Asian, and African agriculture were all radically changed in the 16th century with the introduction of maize (Zea mays), peanuts, potatoes, tobacco and squash. Invasive species like rats traveled on ships along with their human companions.

If there had been any intensive contact between the Old World and the New World before 1492, it would have been followed by a similar exchange of technologies, ideas, people, plants, animals, fungi, and diseases. The fact that it didn't happen is extremely strong evidence for the absence of any far-reaching outside influence on Pre-Columbian America and suggests any prior voyages would have been one-offs.

If you think a piece of pottery in Mexico that looks faintly Roman proves Roman colonization of Mexico, you'd have to explain why the Romans only exported ceramics, and not measles, horses, carrots, iron smelting, some genetic markers in modern Mexicans, and the Latin alphabet. The same goes for Egyptian, Chinese, or Phoenician failure to bring along oxen, plow cultivation, wheeled transportation or their own writing systems.

Historical maps

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  A map constructed from the writings of ancient Greek historian Herodotus.

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  A 12th century map made by geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi. Note this image is flipped upside down.

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  A 14th century Arabic map depicting the known world.

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  A Chinese map from about 1400 not depicting the Western Hemisphere.

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  A map from 1459 showing the entire "known" world.

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  Almost there (1489).

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  What's that in the distance?

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  It's finally all coming together.

See also

• Hyperdiffusionism
• Pseudoarchaeology
• Solutrean hypothesis
• Tucson artifacts
• Juan Moricz

External links

• See the Wikipedia article on Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories.