The Pre-Columbian Exchange: Time to Rewrite the History Books

Travel to the Americas has a history that goes back much further than most realize. At the point in time when copper was the most valuable resource to humanity, seafaring culture were travelling as far as the West Coast of South America to obtain it.

There is evidence of visitation, even colonies, by the Chinese.

All this before 1000 BC.
As important as the migration over the Bering Strait may have been, and still speculation on that, most of the population in the Americas seem to have come by sea.

More modern traveling was St Brendan via Ireland, Iceland, Greenland to Labrador.

New discoveries in the last decade are radically changing prehistory and that of the Western Hemisphere.


Mike

reply to post by Le Colonel


Yup, aside from the water clock (during the Sung dynasty) the chinese had a compass before the world. They used it on land with a lodestone. They then adapted it to use on ships.

I think there was a period of human globalization before our current time.

The problem is that the western world has defined for the world what "science" is as well as "medicine" and "astronomy/astrogolgy". By this, we can easily see why the west is trying to play catchup to things already known by our nomadic and less technologically advanced brothers and sisters.

Take into account the Dogan (hope i spelled it correctly), the chinese vaccine for small pox (they had it WAY BEFORE the west), and the nazca lines there is alot they know that we don't. But honestly i believe that some group or organization is keep that info hush hush simply because it challenges what they were taught and know.

So from their point of view, they did and discovered everything ignoring the counter facts.

It's kinda sad thou, when both Greece and Rome fell, their languages weren't written for generations and yet the west gives them credit for so much even though hardly NO books are left behind, and i mean scarcely any.

Ugh, don't get me started on the philosophers stone, which our own government looked into, it was the DoD. Now why would they do that?

I have been telling people of the discovery of coc aine in Egyptian tombs for years now. It is funny how many people do not know this considering this was discovered in 1990?

Although I think most people now believe that Leif Ericsson discovered North America long before Columbus. I guess it takes time for information to become mainstream.

I'm glad you all agree on the evidence presented, but whom i would most like to hear from are the experts/skeptics on the topic. What can be said to help us figure out this mystery of oceanic contacts with the Americas? Is this theory justified and therefore cannot be disputed??? Skeptics and experts please give us your 2 cents!

Will comment a bit later (okay, MUCH later) after I've had a better look at the sources.

Two points, though:
* Cocaine and tobacco are only found in mummies that were taken to Europe and unwrapped. There is no coc aine/tobacco in or around any "fresh mummies" just taken out of the tombs. This has been tested frequently.
* The bit about a single "Amerind" language isn't right. Linguisitc evidence shows at least five waves of immigrants before 5,000 BC. I would have to go back and look what the genetic evidence says.

According to one expert on this subject, there is a massive amount of documentation which proves the title of his recent New York Times bestselling book:

1421: the year China discovered the world, by Gavin Menzies


Here is his website, which he started in order to includes masses of additional documentation which space did not permit including in the above book:


www.1421.tv...

I haven't looked through his entire website yet ... there's just too much there! But I looked through a sampling of its sections ... very impressive. He definitely proves his case.

Originally posted by leira7
Here is an interesting paper that brings forth valid evidence of a pre-columbian exchange between the Americas and various other parts of the world (i.e. Polynesia, India, China, Egypt, Japan). These compelling finds have yet to be contested and are undeniable. Below are highlights from the paper.
The Exchange of Cultivated Plants

The beauty of this kind of evidence is that cultivated plants are genetic entities and can be domesticated only where the appropriate wild ancestors occur; that is usually strictly limited geographically. Further, very few such plants can cross oceans or establish and maintain themselves without human help. Thus, along with the indications of human genetics described above, cultivated plants comprise the “smoking guns” of transoceanic evidence. Only a few prominent examples can be described here. One is the seedless South American sweet potato, discovered archaeologically in Polynesia shortly before the ABC Conference (Hather and Kirch 1991), and for which there is good nonarchaeological indication of presence in pre-Columbian Asia....

Click here to read why this "ex[planation is just as unsatrisfying as all the other proposed "explanations" are for the presence of sweet potatoes in Polynesia.

Originally posted by leira7

Journal and Across before Columbus are aware of Johannessen’s work (1998) on the thousands of carvings of ears of maize on temples in India, especially of Karnataka in the south. As far as I am concerned, this ends any controversy as to that plant’s pre-Columbian presence in Asia.

Probably not the case. See below:

The muktā-phala (so spelled in the Encyclopaedia Indica, p. 132) 'liberating fruit' (figuratively, a 'pearl', though this latter is also spelled /mukta-hala/-- Linda Beth Hess : The Bijak of Kabir. Oxford U Pr, 2002. p. 179, n. 34.2)', and the name of a commentary by Bopadeva) can be identified with the Arisaema utile (Sikkim cobra lily), described (with a photograph of its fruit) on p. 164 of Christian Rätsch et al. : Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas. Rochester (VT), 2002. Somewhat similar in appearance to a husked maize-ear, this berry is strongly psychoactive, and is highly favored in Nepal as a means of visionary visiting to heaven. The rhizome of Arisaema utile is "used against cancer", possessing "anti-proliferative activity ... to prevent cancer".

SOURCE

Originally posted by leira7
I decided to put all of this up because I frequently hear the same argument that there has been no substantial evidence to prove that a pre-columbian transaction actually occurred.

And you will continue to hear this until "substantial" evidence is found and presented.

Harte

[edit on 4/23/2009 by Harte]

Originally posted by Uphill
According to one expert on this subject, there is a massive amount of documentation which proves the title of his recent New York Times bestselling book:

1421: the year China discovered the world, by Gavin Menzies

Here is his website, which he started in order to includes masses of additional documentation which space did not permit including in the above book:

You have a strange conception of the derinition of "proof."
Menzies lacks the credentials to be called an "expert" in this area, and most "experts" pretty much don't even consider him worth listening to.

Harte

okay so the skeptics have had their way with some of the finds, but perhaps a link to what your saying might help me to see that what your saying is a bit more credible. If you can, try to find something that disproves or minimizes this article that I posted on this thread earlier:

Two issues long debated among Pacific and American prehistorians are (i) whether there was a pre-Columbian introduction of chicken (Gallus gallus) to the Americas and (ii) whether Polynesian contact with South America might be identified archaeologically, through the recovery of remains of unquestionable Polynesian origin. We present a radiocarbon date and an ancient DNA sequence from a single chicken bone recovered from the archaeological site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula, Chile. These results not only provide firm evidence for the pre-Columbian introduction of chickens to the Americas, but strongly suggest that it was a Polynesian introduction.

If you cannot disprove this evidence, then I believe that you cannot say pre-columbian exchange is impossible.

[edit on 23-4-2009 by leira7]

[edit on 23-4-2009 by leira7]

Originally posted by Harte

Originally posted by leira7
Here is an interesting paper that brings forth valid evidence of a pre-columbian exchange between the Americas and various other parts of the world (i.e. Polynesia, India, China, Egypt, Japan). These compelling finds have yet to be contested and are undeniable. Below are highlights from the paper.
The Exchange of Cultivated Plants

The beauty of this kind of evidence is that cultivated plants are genetic entities and can be domesticated only where the appropriate wild ancestors occur; that is usually strictly limited geographically. Further, very few such plants can cross oceans or establish and maintain themselves without human help. Thus, along with the indications of human genetics described above, cultivated plants comprise the “smoking guns” of transoceanic evidence. Only a few prominent examples can be described here. One is the seedless South American sweet potato, discovered archaeologically in Polynesia shortly before the ABC Conference (Hather and Kirch 1991), and for which there is good nonarchaeological indication of presence in pre-Columbian Asia....

Click here to read why this "ex[planation is just as unsatrisfying as all the other proposed "explanations" are for the presence of sweet potatoes in Polynesia.

Originally posted by leira7

Journal and Across before Columbus are aware of Johannessen’s work (1998) on the thousands of carvings of ears of maize on temples in India, especially of Karnataka in the south. As far as I am concerned, this ends any controversy as to that plant’s pre-Columbian presence in Asia.

Probably not the case. See below:

The muktā-phala (so spelled in the Encyclopaedia Indica, p. 132) 'liberating fruit' (figuratively, a 'pearl', though this latter is also spelled /mukta-hala/-- Linda Beth Hess : The Bijak of Kabir. Oxford U Pr, 2002. p. 179, n. 34.2)', and the name of a commentary by Bopadeva) can be identified with the Arisaema utile (Sikkim cobra lily), described (with a photograph of its fruit) on p. 164 of Christian Rätsch et al. : Shamanism and Tantra in the Himalayas. Rochester (VT), 2002. Somewhat similar in appearance to a husked maize-ear, this berry is strongly psychoactive, and is highly favored in Nepal as a means of visionary visiting to heaven. The rhizome of Arisaema utile is "used against cancer", possessing "anti-proliferative activity ... to prevent cancer".

SOURCE

Originally posted by leira7
I decided to put all of this up because I frequently hear the same argument that there has been no substantial evidence to prove that a pre-columbian transaction actually occurred.

And you will continue to hear this until "substantial" evidence is found and presented.

Harte

[edit on 4/23/2009 by Harte]


And WHOA Harte!!!!!, I give you peer reviewed journal GOLD and you give me crappy wikepedia!? An article that is cited as having insufficient data!? Do we have true experts and skeptics who provide evidence of equal caliber or do we have DISINFO agents who only seek to pacify thread readers with shoddy half-arsed material?

The crappy link Provided to you by Harte

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/files/63692512b6c3bb1b.png[/atsimg]

If you search on the word muktā-phala, you'll find no end to the info on this plant that looks (superficially) like maize.

I provided the wiki link to explain what muktā-phala is, not to verify that it is this plant which is carved in the statues in question.

What did you want? Me simpl;y to say "It ain't corn, it's muktā-phala?"

I figured that would be somewhat unsatisdfying, so I linked wiki in order that you might know that the plant actually exists.

Your link pretends it's an imaginary construct of the Hindu religion. It's not.

Or, did you not read your own source?

Harte

reply to post by cenpuppie


Could you get over yourself with the western bashing? I was enjoying the thread until I stumbled upon your racism. The Eastern civilizations were every bit as violent, brutal, and oppressive as the Western civilizations, and certainly practiced the art of war as eagerly. Nobody lays claim to have developed all of the worlds technology. All Cultures have contributed.

The ancient Western Europeans were Goddess worshipers, and thereby less obsessed with war. When Rome conquered England, they stole a great deal of their technology, and claimed it as their own. Finally the Roman Catholic church destroyed the last of the Druids, and throughout the dark ages, worked to wipe out the history, and knowledge of the people. All of the medical technologies were labeled as witchcraft, and thereby eliminated. Where did Christianity come from? The middle East of course, were oppression of women and slavery have been major staples for millenniums.

ukirishhistory.suite101.com...

English legend tells us that Pontius Pilate attended these Druidic Universities, as well as many of Rome’s greatest historical generals. J. O. Kinnaman,D.D., in his work on Archaeology said that "Pilate was not a Roman by nationality, but by citizenship. He was born a Spaniard… Then he went to Britain to study in the universities … under the administration of the Druids … it was Pilate's ambition to become a Roman lawyer and the future governor of Palestine…”

Later after the invasion of the Romans, one Roman general by the name of Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, destroyed the Druids largest and most precious centers of learning and its library at Anglesey in AD 60.

Once the Druids centers of learning were ruined, then came the beginning of one of the most famous of all historical spins. With so many records and histories lost in the destruction of these schools, Rome could make any claim, put forth any statement of “fact”, and they did. Sadly they are still in play today.

Although in fact they were the destroyers of it all.

Finally in one last historic push, the end of the Druids came in the fourth century. Rome accused them of horrendous acts of violence and murder at Stonehenge, in England, Scotland and Ireland.

Then the remnants of the Druids were attacked in their last stronghold. St. Fiacc records the work of St. Patrick in Britain. "St. Germanus, with a group of priests that included St. Patrick, traveled through Britain convincing people to turn to God, throwing out the false priests of Pelagius known as snakes." The same would hold true in Ireland. Their symbol, the serpent, was the symbol of the Tribe of Dan. There they were murdered and destroyed by St. Patrick, who is remembered today, as having driven the snakes out of Ireland.

The ancient Druids were supposed to have magical powers, which may be another way of saying, technology that others didn't understand. The mythology of the era that survives tells some amazing stories that sound like advanced technology. One of the things they wrote about is being able to travel to other worlds or dimensions, not spiritually, but physically. Also, these other worlds were not the underworld, like hell, or going up into the skies to heaven, but worlds that mostly looked like Earth as we know it.

I would have to wonder what knowledge was destroyed, or taken away and hidden in the Vatican.

Edited to correct my script mistake.


[edit on 24-4-2009 by poet1b]

reply to post by leira7


I'd say at this point the Polynesian chicken idea is DOA.

It is coincidental that a regular Anthropology.net commenter, Terry, just posted a comment about last year’s study on the origins of early American chicken because PNAS published a new paper on this topic today. Razib pointed out the link to the new paper, “Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA.” This current study challenges claims of last year’s paper, the one that suggested that chickens were first introduced into South America by way of seafaring Polynesians, before the arrival of Spanish chickens in the 15th century.

After sampling the mtDNA from 41 native Chilean chickens and comparing the sequences to over 1000 modern domestic chickens from around the world, including the previously published sequences from Polynesian and Chilean chicken bones, the researchers concluded that ancient chickens from Easter Island may represent mtDNA signatures (haplotypes 145 and 148) of early Polynesian chicken transport, but ancient Chilean chickens do not. In fact, the pre-Columbian chickens have haplotype 8, which is the single most common chicken haplotype found around the world.

This indicates that pre-Columbian chickens were not exclusive to Polynesian peoples. Alan Cooper, one of the authors of this paper and the director of the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, said,

“This sequence would undoubtedly have been common in the early Spanish chickens, and therefore provides no evidence of Polynesian contact. So while we can say the [haplotype 8] chicken was popular amongst early Polynesian voyagers, we certainly can’t use it as evidence for trade with South America.”

Ancient Chilean Chicken May Not Be Of Polynesian Origin

To Hanslune: This one's for you buddy. Thanks again!

cormac mac airt

reply to post by leira7


that map seems to have a coast partially mapped on the left side...interesting!

Originally posted by Uphill
According to one expert on this subject, there is a massive amount of documentation which proves the title of his recent New York Times bestselling book: 1421: the year China discovered the world, by Gavin Menzies

For a refutation of Menzies, you might want to see Hall of Ma'at:
www.hallofmaat.com...

This site has a lot of interesting pictures of found rune stones and other stuff, also features the Vinland map and has a lot of text about Leif Ericsson's discovery's in America.

www.sjolander.com...

Don't know how trustworthy the site is but had some interesting stuff anyway.

I think it seems very plausible for different cultures to have travelled all over the world long before Columbus and his compadres. Man has always been exploring and it would be weird if everyone would just have travelled around their own coastlines before Columbus.

As proven, it doesn't have to take a grand fleet of ships or one huge vessel to travel across the Atlantic, so the technology was certainly there long time before Columbus.

Ceramic figures found in Mexico(Jalisco) have what we would call Polynesian dress and ornamentation as well as representations of thatched homes that are Polynesian as well. Also in Jalisco state are the only shaft graves found in Mexico. The only similar shaft grave I know of where found in the grave circles of Mycenae. Evolutionary history as we were taught is bunk. Early man was certainly sophisticated and well travelled.

People made it to Easter Island, why not all the way to S. America? Does anyone have any idea how long people have been crossing oceans?

Also, wasn't someone going to provide some links about how the mummies with tobacco might have been contaminate?

American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies

Try this one. It also tackles some of the criticisms over the findings.

The recent findings of coc aine, nicotine, and hashish in Egyptian mummies by Balabanova et. al. have been criticized on grounds that: contamination of the mummies may have occurred, improper techniques may have been used, chemical decomposition may have produced the compounds in question, recent mummies of drug users were mistakenly evaluated, that no similar cases are known of such compounds in long-dead bodies, and especially that pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages are highly speculative. These criticisms are each discussed in turn. Balabanova et. al. are shown to have used and confirmed their findings with accepted methods. The possibility of the compounds being byproducts of decomposition is shown to be without precedent and highly unlikely. The possibility that the researchers made evaluations from faked mummies of recent drug users is shown to be highly unlikely in almost all cases. Several additional cases of identified American drugs in mummies are discussed. Additionally, it is shown that significant evidence exists for contact with the Americas in pre-Columbian times. It is determined that the original findings are supported by substantial evidence despite the initial criticisms.

Some researchers absolutely refuse to accept evidence or facts if they conflict with their theories.