The excavations at Meadowcroft rock shelter by Professor James Adovasio on July 13, 1974, then of the University of Pittsburgh, proved that an ancient culture lived in southwestern Pennsylvania in at least 14,000 BC, some 5,000 years before people were believed to have set foot in this hemisphere. His first word on receiving the radio-carbon dating report of his artifacts was, “Damn!” because he knew this would create a firestorm in the archeological establishment. The dominant paradigm at the time was that Clovis hunter/gatherers were the first to reach North America by crossing the Bering Strait land bridge around 9,000 BC. They supposedly followed herds of game south from Siberia to present-day Alberta and then spread across the Americas in a very short time. This outdated thesis has been thoroughly dismantled in the past few years.
Other historians believe that the continent of Australia was settled via sea routes from Asia about 45,000 years ago which led to the hypothesis that early immigrants to North America also sailed from Asia and were not dependent on an ice free corridor between the glaciers. Their boats could have sailed along the west coast of North America when sea levels were much lower and their ancient encampments may now be under hundreds of feet of water off of the shoreline.Accepting either of these two possibilities, the common belief was that no one followed until the Vikings about 1,000 AD. This 10,000 to 15,000 BC period of isolation is illogical. The new evidence [amazon asin=158394446X&template=*lrc ad (right)]proves that, once “discovered,” the Americas became a destination for habitation, trade, colonization and escape.Many cultural remains or lack thereof offer clues. There are no artifacts resembling North American projectile point in Siberia but spear-heads from 13,000 BC in France are very similar. Some American skeletons date to 9,000 BC and are not typically Asian. DNA analyses now prove the early entry of European people to the Americas by 18,000 BC. DNA evidence also shows later arrivals during the so-called “isolation” period.
Ancient cultures clearly had the technology to navigate and cross the seas. Prehistoric maps with sailing directions are carved into boulders on the coast of France. Olmec heads in Mexico prove that ancient Africans made the trip and they are also illustrated on Mayan wall murals in the Yucatan. Extensive inventories of ancient artifacts indicate that other cultures came and went. New World plants in the Old World, and vice versa, prove that trade and travel routes existed long before the present paradigm says they did.
The copper mines of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula produced copper ore that contained 98% copper and 2% silver, making Michigan copper easily identifiable in European, Central and South America artifacts. Millions of pounds of this copper, which required no smelting, were mined and removed to Europe during the period of 3,000 to 1,200 BC. Had it not been for Michigan copper and, Bolivian tin (according to Professor Hugh Fox), there would have not been a Bronze Age in Europe. Fred Rydholm states that early Scandinavians traded textiles and clothing for copper ingots from the native Algonquians ca 1700 BC. Traces of their script can still be found in the area. The trans-Atlantic traffic ceased when the Bronze Age in Europe came to a sudden and violent end. But that is another story. The copper mines were re-opened for a brief period by Nubians, who conquered and occupied Egypt ca 760 to 656 BC and who needed copper for their bronze weapons.
Around 2,500 BC, four separate Chinese expeditions explored and mapped North America from what is now Canada to present-day Mexico. The Chinese sent a scientific expedition to western Arizona in 2,200 BC with the expressed purpose of making celestial observations from the Grand Canyon, which means they already knew it was here. They documented the journey in the 39 volume Sjan Hai Jing and illustrated the route on maps. These materials were used in Chinese schools for 2,000 years and are still taught as history today. But not in the U.S.A.! Chinese monks spent the last 25 years of the 5th century in the American southwest and Mexico and their influence is seen in pottery, cultural practices and (perhaps) Mayan calendars.
The Algonquian Indian language is almost certainly Old Norse, brought by the colonists and traders over the past 1-5 millennia. Seafaring was second nature to the Norse and they penetrated North America via the Hudson and James Bays and reached the Great Lakes by rivers and portages. Their presence is attested by artifacts, place names, DNA and blue-eyed Indians. The Heavener Runestone and other artifacts would indicate that they penetrated the country at least as far as Oklahoma.
The foregoing is a brief excerpt of my Power-Point presentation, “Columbus Was Last,” on June 1, 2013 at the Midwest Epigraphic Society in Columbus. In it, I showed that Columbus did not discover America, never knew where he had been and thought that the land he had discovered was the easternmost portion of India or China. Never has anyone been praised so highly for being so wrong. He did, however, know that the Earth was round and used maps and a navigator from previous voyages to guide him. The lineage and nationality of Columbus is suspect and his real name is uncertain. Also, Queen Isabella did not sell her jewels to finance his expedition!
Countless artifacts prove the reality of ancient cultural diffusionism before Columbus. African influence in Central America (pottery, skeletons, sculptures, etc.) can be correlated with events in African history. Pottery and rocks displaying writing in Mediterranean languages (Ibero-Cyprian, Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew and Phoenician) appear throughout North America and can be dated to periods long preceding 1492!
Edited from the works of Dr. Myron Paine (personal correspondence), Dr. Hugh Fox (Home of the Gods), Fred Rydholm (Michigan Copper – The Untold Story), Dr. Ivan Van Sertima (They Came Before Columbus – The African Presence in America), Dr. James Adovasio (The First Americans) and Patrick Huyghe (Columbus Was Last).
Reprinted with permission from Ancient America.
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