Chinese explore the "New World" over 4,000 years ago.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Oh I definitely agree, it's impossible to interpret emotion, tone and inflection from mere text. However, some of the statements made, such as the great flood story being strictly Christian, don't convey any expertise in my book. Since I have no knowledge of Byrd or her field of expertise, I find that type of thing to be glib and disrespectful. I'll leave it alone now.

I have very little time to research thoroughly so admittedly, some mistakes were made with the references but I do appreciate those mistakes being corrected. However, I like your idea of an influence of mindset. Seems to me that cultural influences are reflected in art, music, language and religious beliefs and practices. The artifacts in the pictures posted by Slayer69 provides more anecdotal evidence of that influence, I think.

Slayer69 - Thank you as well. The Olmec figures are fantastic. The body position and facial features of the acrobat figures are quite similar. In the 6th picture down from the top, I'm seeing two large not-so-happy "Buddhas" in the center. I would have to think that if the origins of these artifacts is accurate, the similarities to ancient Chinese artifacts and features would be hard to dismiss as mere chance.

Archeologists have been proven wrong before. A good example would be the discovery of 4,000 yr old Caucasian mummies in China. Regardless of all the political BS surrounding these new discoveries, I think it's important to explore the possibilities.

Thanks again for contributing to this thread in a positive manner.

The explorers also describe finding precious metals and gemstones such as Gold, Opal, Green Jade, Fire Agate, Quartz

all these can be found on the Calif coast.

i see no reason that ships could not and likely would have island hopped down the Aleutian island chain to main land Alaska.

Once a ship had found main land Alaska. and returned other ships would have fallowed.

if any Chinese had remained behind in north America there remains if found would look like native Americans.
this would make it very hard to prove the chinese were ever here.

reply to post by RedBird


While I agree with the spirit of your post, Yin and Yang far predate Confucius. Chinese Medicines 5 element theory predates 2200 years ago...

reply to post by 19872012


All Amerindians DO NOT share Asian DNA...check out the "x" DNA of the Cherokee I believe. Also there is circumstantial evidence within Shawnee legend, refering to eastern AND western origins of their peoples...just sayin

Originally posted by Blarneystoner

Originally posted by Byrd
"Uhm... no. There's no accurate descriptions of any geography in the books. Peanuts and maize have not been found at ancient Chinese sites."

Again, See above, the research indicates otherwise, and uhm... Yes, Maize and Peanuts HAVE been found at ancient Chinese sites dating back to 3000bce

Source: "History's Timeline, a 40,000 Year Chronology of Civilization by Jean Cooke, Ann Kramer, Theodore Rowland-Entwistle"

Well, at least it's a source.

The peanuts in question have been called into question, even by the original scientist that first reported them:

There is no indication again, that the peanuts came from undisturbed
strata. If you read the Chang quote more carefully you will see that he
doesn't say that the strata were undisturbed only that you can't figure
it out from the original site report. From a source cited in Chang, I
found this:

"Integrated evidence from a variety of sources indicates the peanut
originated as a crop in South America, where it is not at present
documented archaeologically until *after* Lungshanoid times. Furthermore,
the introduction of the peanut into China is rather well documented
historically, and there is no mention of it in Chinese literature until
the 1530s (Ho 1955). Its appearance in the Chinese Neolithic is suspect
to say the least. According to Ho (personal communication), the site
report of the Ch'ien-shan-yang indicates a stratigraphy so confused and
unreliable that there is essentially no evidence for early peanut at all.
Yet the report is repeatedly cited as if this item of evidence bore as
much weight as an integrated body of evidence." (Harlan & de Wet 1973:54).

So at least some Chinese archaeologists are claiming that the Ch'ien-shan-yang
stratigraphy *is* mixed. Also the type of mixing I mentioned due to
natural or animal action moving just a small number of small objects can
be very difficult to pick up while an excavation is in progress. So even
if there is good evidence of largescale non-mixing of a stratum the
possibility of an intrusive small object still exists.

Also:

Here's my final objection (at least so far) to Needham's conclusion. Chang
has written at least 3 revisions of "The Archaeology of Ancient China."

In version one (1968) he wrote of the peanut "At Ch'ien-shan-yang...the
peanut, a well know early American species" [was found] (p. 157).
In this draft there is no questioning the accuracy of this find.

In version two (1977) he wrote, "At the P'ao-ma-ling site, four peanut
seeds were reported..." (p. 167), and "At Ch'ien-shan-yang"...the peanut,
a well know early American species" [was found] (p. 181). But now he
also adds the footnote "The stratigraphy of the remains of the peanuts
has been questioned - rightly it now seems from the radiocarbon
disconformity - by a number of scholars who are skeptical of the early
date of peanuts in China....But see the earlier discussion of peanuts at
P'ao-ma-ling in Kiangsi." (p. 181)
So now Chang seems to be quibbling with the accuracy of the find, although
he's not out-and-out rejecting it.

In version three (1986) I couldn't find any mention of the peanut in the
index or in the body of the text. The only mention of the peanut is now
in a footnote: "the original report [of Ch'ien-shan-yang] lists, in
addition, the peanut, sesame, and beans. The provenance of these finds,
as well as the remains of silk, has been questioned; see..." (footnote
on p. 254).
You can draw your own conclusions but to me it appears that as more time
passes, without the appearance of more corroborating evidence, Chang is
becoming much more equivocal of his acceptance of the idea of an early
peanut introduction.

Admittedly this last objection is not real strong, but it looks like
Needham is relying on Chang for his data on this topic but Chang is does
not appear to have the same strong convictions as Needham. Given that
Chang seems to have read the original reports and followed the discussion,
he appears (IMO) to be in a better position to judge its quality than
Needham.

source
Not likely, IOW.
There's more info, from which you could start your own investigation should you care to, at that link.

Originally posted by Blarneystoner
Granted, the conjecture that the "bearded White Man" was an ancient Chinese explorer, is some pretty far fetched speculation but consider this:

Quetzalcoatl was described as a white man, with a beard, who wore long robes, and who gave a message of love, forbidding the blood sacrifice, teaching of the One Supreme God, and giving the Toltecs many material things of their culture, such as the calendar. He left the Toltecs because of the enmity and persecution of powerful religious leaders, but promised one day to return, as he had left, from the East, over the ocean.

Source: Source: "Prophetic Dates Given by Toltecs and Mayas" by Olin Karch

Originally posted by Blarneystoner

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of your rebutals, at this point I'm a little bit disgusted. Honestly, I expect more from an ATS Super Moderator than just outright dismisal based up limited knowledge of the subject without so much as providing a source or even bothering to look up the inofrmation.

HA!

Now, that's rich.

Byrd is not just recognized as an expert here at ATS, she is actually an anthropologist with some expertise in this very area!

And she has to put up with this hooey, from a person quoting "Olin Karch" and going on as if this "book" actually exists, and is not just a pamphlet from the Baha'i faith!

Rude?

I have PM'd Byrd on several occasions asking her how she manages to be so kind to the ignorant fools that post here.

You need to toughen up, or go back to your old Manga forum.

Harte

Originally posted by Shadowfoot
reply to post by RedBird

 

While I agree with the spirit of your post, Yin and Yang far predate Confucius. Chinese Medicines 5 element theory predates 2200 years ago...

The yin and yang form the basis of most ancient religions. The monad and duad. Something and nothing. Self and other. The great juxtaposition that is the underlying mystery of...

Confucius only found another way to describe it.

Originally posted by Blarneystoner
reply to post by Byrd

Thanks for spurring me on to further research:

Always an excellent idea! I find that people who explore the side issues often come up with true (and somewhat startling) information. That said, the book does appear to be the result of a number of people writing about geography and possibly compiled by one person. The military would certainly be interested in them.

In the book there were recorded a total 447 mountains in 26 mountain ranges; 258 water systems; all kinds of physiognomy in 348 places; diverse of minerals in 673 different locations, various plants in 525 different locations; all kinds of animals in 473 different places and also the human activity in 95 different places. All these record were based on the results coming from the exploration campaign carried in the “Yu” Dynasty."

They are described... they're just not WELL described enough to accurately identify them (as I understand it.) The "maize and peanuts" issue (covered elsewhere) is dubious because nobody ever photographed or measured these and the story about them gets revised with every publication.

What I *suspect* is going on is actually a real conspiracy -- Mao had the scientists and scholars locked up and put to hard labor, and many of them died. When China discovered (after Mao's death) that it was falling behind the rest of the world, they no longer had this intellectual resource and sort of changed their tune with "reeducation." After that, the notion of "publish or perish" became an awful truth and there were a number of frauds committed by Chinese scientists to make their country look prominent.

I'm most familiar with the ones in the paleontology field because the museum where I volunteer ended up with some rather dubious Chinese material which they decided to take off display.

However, no scientist reports a find and keeps modifying the story of the find.

Quetzalcoatl was described as a white man, with a beard, who wore long robes, and who gave a message of love, forbidding the blood sacrifice, teaching of the One Supreme God, and giving the Toltecs many material things of their culture, such as the calendar. He left the Toltecs because of the enmity and persecution of powerful religious leaders, but promised one day to return, as he had left, from the East, over the ocean.

You really have to be careful with these sources -- historians digging around in old documents discovered that the texts were often created to give a legitimacy to the colonial viewpoint and after the Spaniards came in, there was at least one "we'll make any Codex say anything you like" www.public.asu.edu..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">workshop set up to please the Spanish.

But it's a myth that has gone through many interpretations. The Aztecs took the original deity and made him theirs, and when the Spaniards came to the Americas they took some similarities and sort of forced the comparison between Christianity and Christians because it made the people feel "legitimized" (I'm summarizing some of the stuff in this and several other papers and translations, so feel free to look those up if the notion seems vague.)

"One goes forth as ambassador. Another awakens Itzamna Kauil (God of the Heavens) in the west."
Also, on the same page, it says:

"The temple receives its guests, the bearded ones from the lands of the Sun (the east). They are bringers of a sign from our Father God: blessings in abundance!"

Well,, there we're mixing cultures -- Itzamma is actually Mayan... not the same as Incan/Aztec/Olmec. People tend to treat those as all the same when they're very different. His name is translated as "Iguana House Bountiful Harvest" (or "Bountiful Harvest Lizard) and he is a creator god known as "God D" -- he is a deity of bounty (apparently.)

I'm not totally satisfied with those sources (they don't come directly from people who are directly reading the original material) but I'm tired in a hurry.

Where do you find this "indication" that the Spanish "came up with" the Bearded White Man? According the research I've found, the legend originates from the Toltecs who were conquered by the Aztecs well before the Spanish arrived.

See above links.

As far as your "definite No" is concerned, Id like to point out that any one who claims to be definitively certain about events as they occurred in the ancient past must be naive or a time traveler. Are you a time traveler?

No, but I do know a bit about the material that's out there and has been translated. I usually go directly to translated sources (original ones) and look at the glyphs for myself (I can read TINY amounts but it's generally enough to see if someone's making stuff up.)

It'll have to do till I get a time machine!

Flood stories are one of the most prevalent themes in ancient mythologies, widespread among many cultures, dating well before the time of Christ.

Have you ever looked at the lists of "Flood stories?" I have -- there was (at one time) links on talk.origins.org among others. Things like "flooding the fields with beer to get Hathor drunk" were considered "Flood stories" by some. There ARE a number of "the gods drown practically the whole world" stories, but there are many cultures without them. There's also a bunch of cultures that very clearly are reworking Christian myths.

But... go check out the big lists of Flood stories for yourself and then go look up when and where they were recorded. Many were recorded AFTER the group had been "civilized" by missionaries.

By the way, Buddhists and Chinese are not the same... one's a religion, and the other is a culture. Not all Chinese are/were Buddhists and not all Buddhists are/were Chinese.

If the Chinese had been here 4,000 years ago they would have made vast and sudden changes to the cultures AND they would have brought their own goods and food over here. This is the sort of thing we see when cultures collide. There's an exchange of ideas and we see civilizations suddenly developing things that take generations of technology to do (the Egyptians getting chariots after the Hittites...err... "came to visit.") The dominant civilization insists on the same luxuries and foods (so we'd see Chinese animals, for instance... and the emperors would have had exotic animals from the Americas.)

Some people promote ideas based on things they believe are true after viewing a small selection of artifacts. They don't bother to spend time browsing museums and sites (as my husband and I did in Costa Rica) and never bother learning to read the language of the people or read about the history... or the timeline, either. It's the timelines that get folks in trouble (and most don't stop to say "okay... so when did these people live?")

In any case, in 2,000 BC (over 4,000 years ago) you don't have Mayas or Aztecs or Olmecs. You do have the "Archaic cultures" which is a real mish-mash of tribal and regional art and artifact assemblages. Those would be the ones you have to look at for "Chinese contact" and I think (having seen some of the material myself) you will find it very difficult to connect ANY Chinese culture with what's out there for that time period.
www.metmuseum.org...

But... there's some interesting stuff out there, as I said, and I encourage you to learn more about those cultures until you can gently correct people who try and put Olmec artifacts in the same time and place and culture as Aztec artifacts.

reply to post by Byrd

Excellent! Thank you for taking the time to explain. I do appreciate the opportunity to learn more as I am no expert in this field or any field of science.

reply to post by Harte

Originally posted by Harte

Rude?

I have PM'd Byrd on several occasions asking her how she manages to be so kind to the ignorant fools that post here.

You need to toughen up, or go back to your old Manga forum.

Harte

Thanks for your input, but I don't need to do anything. What the hell is a Manga anyway?

Originally posted by Blarneystoner
reply to post by Byrd

 

Excellent! Thank you for taking the time to explain. I do appreciate the opportunity to learn more as I am no expert in this field or any field of science.

Always glad to explain. I hope this does inspire you to look more into these cultures. I love the beautiful Olmec art, and the shamanistic concept of their origins (that they came from jaguars... okay... it's more complicated than that but I'm just giving you a nice "teaser" for your curiosity) has always delighted me. It's a complex culture -- and one that rises from a number of cultures that we only have scraps of artifacts from.

The bits about tweaking Quetzalcoatl are fascinating because part of some of the "new" legends seem to be taken from the story of a real ruler named, Nezahualcoyotl: en.wikipedia.org...

He's a compelling sort of figure -- I can just imagine him as a kind of "new age hippie" to the bloodthirsty conservative traditionalist Aztecs. He's amazing... I hope you will enjoy reading about him, too!

reply to post by Byrd


thats a fair assesment, however lack of physical evidence of cross culture exchange isnt proof of noncontact. whose to say that a large ancient chinese junk didnt sail along the coast only to shipwreck, having used up all their supplies on the journey?

having shipwrecked they could have settled in and only slightly influenced the local populous: never to return...

i'm not saying i agree with the op, i'm just saying is all.

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by Byrd

 

thats a fair assesment, however lack of physical evidence of cross culture exchange isnt proof of noncontact. whose to say that a large ancient chinese junk didnt sail along the coast only to shipwreck, having used up all their supplies on the journey?

But not in 2,400 BC. There were no Olmecs, Incas, Mayas, Aztecs, etc... no large-scale civilizations. Central America is awfully far from China... and if they'd done that, how did they get back to China to report on all this?

In addition, the crew on a junk (or any other transport vessel) is usually made up of sailors and a few soldiers and some merchants... not teachers and stonecarvers. If they landed in a strange land, how could they talk to people and why would anyone copy their art style (which would look weird and possibly ugly to the inhabitants -- who had their own distinctive art style.) Study of the art shows that it was developed and at the time (2,000 BC), Chinese art and New World art were very different and continued to be very different (if you look at EVERYthing; not just a few selected objects.)

Originally posted by Byrd
But not in 2,400 BC. There were no Olmecs, Incas, Mayas, Aztecs, etc... no large-scale civilizations. Central America is awfully far from China... and if they'd done that, how did they get back to China to report on all this?

I never said they made it back to China, Somebody else did. I said it was possible for some Chinese to have been ship wrecked in the Americas and stayed. Again I never said they made it back. Having landed they could have been acclimated into the small tribal states at a crucial development stage. Yes preOlmec. It's just as possible as any other scenario I think.

Originally posted by ANNED

The explorers also describe finding precious metals and gemstones such as Gold, Opal, Green Jade, Fire Agate, Quartz

all these can be found on the Calif coast.

i see no reason that ships could not and likely would have island hopped down the Aleutian island chain to main land Alaska.

Once a ship had found main land Alaska. and returned other ships would have fallowed.

if any Chinese had remained behind in north America there remains if found would look like native Americans.
this would make it very hard to prove the chinese were ever here.

You make a great observation here. The fact that those particular minerals were found in the areas described in the literature was what piqued in the first place.

Most recent evidence of ancient Chinese exploration of the Americas.....

DailyMail (UK)

Mr Ruskamp said: 'Although only half of the symbols found on the large boulder in Albuquerque, New Mexico have been identified and confirmed as Chinese scripts, when the four central pictogram-glyphs of this message - Jie, Da, Quan, and Xian - are read in the traditional Chinese manner from right to left we learn about a respectful man honoring a superior with the sacrificial offering of a dog.
'Notably, the written order of these symbols conforms with the syntax used for documenting ancient Chinese rituals during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and dog sacrifices were very popular in the second part of the second millennium B.C. in China.'

For centuries, researchers have been debating if, in pre-Columbian times, meaningful exchanges between the indigenous peoples of Asia and the Americas might have taken place.
'Here is "rock solid" epigraphic proof that Asiatic explorers not only reached the Americas, but that they interacted positively with Native North American people, on multiple occasions, long before any European exploration of the continent.

His views are also beginning to be taken seriously by other academics and they echo some theories put forward by researchers such as Dr Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution, who believed North America was first populated by people from Asia during the last ice age.
According to the Epoch Times, one of Mr Ruskamp's staunchest supporters has been Dr David Keightley, an expert on Neolithic Chinese civilization at the University of California, Berkley.
He has been helping to decipher the scripts found carved into the rocks.
Dr Michael Medrano, chief of the Division of Resource Management for Petroglyph National Monument, has also studied the petroglyphs found by Mr Ruskamp.
He told the Epoch Times: 'These images do not readily appear to be associated with local tribal entities.
'Based on repatination, they appear to have antiquity to them.'

a reply to: Blarneystoner

Take a look at these similarities if you want more evidence of Asian contact:

Kali the goddess of destruction in Hinduism

She was recently projected onto the Empire State building.

The Mayan calendar featuring Tonatiuh in the center.

I know the word Tian refers to the heavens. I don't know if there is a Chinese name or god with a name near Tonatian that was the source of the Mayan god's name or not.

I think there are some very interesting links just with the images themselves.

originally posted by: Bleeeargh
a reply to: Blarneystoner

Take a look at these similarities if you want more evidence of Asian contact:

Kali the goddess of destruction in Hinduism

She was recently projected onto the Empire State building.

The Mayan calendar featuring Tonatiuh in the center.

I know the word Tian refers to the heavens. I don't know if there is a Chinese name or god with a name near Tonatian that was the source of the Mayan god's name or not.

I think there are some very interesting links just with the images themselves.

It helps to use references from qualified people. Yours is a blogger that thinks the Aztecs were Mayan, judging by the calendar and the god Tonatiuh.

Harte

originally posted by: SLAYER69
reply to post by JohnnyCanuck

 

I'll look into the book. Thanks again. I believe there is enough circumstantial evidence that the Chinese may have visted. It sounds like the book has convinced you otherwise. I say there was plenty of time for all sorts of visits from many cultures both from the Atlantic as well as the Pacific.

Those images you posted in your earlier post DO look very Asian to me too.

While we're talking about circumstantial evidence...isn't there supposedly a series of underground tunnels and large rooms discovered in the Grand Canyon, containing what appears to be hieroglyphics based writing (Chinese script) and Oriental looking statuary that was said to resemble Buddha complete with Lotus blossoms, along with pretty sophisticated copper alloy tools and weapons?

Very circumstantial i know, so much so there's no evidence for it other than hearsay and a few newsprint stories from the late 19th century.

Just thought since the OP was talking about how those volumes of ancient Chinese writings, has descriptions of what is thought to be about the Grand Canyon, it may have some tenuous relevance?

If the Chinese made it to North America, it almost certainly was not with the famously gigantic treasure fleet ships.

Those gigantic ships are simply not sea worthy, and that includes 'sticking to the coast' all the way. They are strictly showpieces that could barely move around in the rivers they were made for.

The coastline is no easier for a ship than the open ocean. A 30ft wave is a 30ft wave whether it's near the coast or out in the open ocean. The only difference is that you can only go out in calm seas, stay near the coast, and can then hopefully get them back to port in time if you see bad weather and big waves coming.

So again, a 30ft wave in the open ocean is the same as that 30ft wave within sight of shore. It's still a moving hill that can lift and drop your ship. On a long voyage of exploration there is no ready made network of safe harbors the giant treasure ships could always run to. Thus they soon enough encounter these conditions, can not run from them, and are destroyed.

The first time they had to deal with not much more than calm seas, the ship would be subject to forces which would certainly be their doom; either boards would bend/twist so much that it would take on water and sink or the thing would break up and sink, probably just like the Titanic or Edmund Fitzgerald (across the middle i.e. bow separating from stern).

On top of that, the crew requirements are insane for exploring ships. They would have been impossible to maintain and provision. They moved slowly so that just makes the problem even worse. You'd be doing scouting missions from launch craft all the time and there are huge sections of landscape even on a coastal route that wouldn't so easily cough up the wood and water and game to keep them stocked.

a reply to: Byrd

So it's horse #? Or plausible?

originally posted by: Hyperia
a reply to: Byrd

So it's horse #? Or plausible?

Here's a hint.
One of the quotes Byrd was responding to: "The temple receives its guests, the bearded ones from the lands of the Sun (the east). They are bringers of a sign from our Father God: blessings in abundance!" comes from the Chilam Balam, written in the 17th or 18th century.

From this you can see that people that prattle on about bearded gods haven't done their homework.

Do you think they've done their homework on Chinese explorations and the evidence for or against?

Harte