Post by MoMo on Feb 22, 2012 15:58:19 GMT -6
Theories of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact are those theories that propose interaction between indigenous peoples of the Americas who settled the Americas before 10,000 BC, and peoples of other continents (Africa, Asia, Europe, or Oceania), which occurred before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492.
Many such contacts have been proposed, based on historical accounts, archaeological finds, and cultural comparisons. However, claims of such contacts are controversial and debated, due in part to much ambiguous or circumstantial evidence cited by proponents. Only one instance of pre-Columbian European contact – the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada c. 1000 AD – is regarded by scholars as demonstrated. The scientific responses to other pre-Columbian contact claims range from serious consideration in peer-reviewed publications to dismissal as fringe science or pseudoarcheology.
POLYNESIAN
Between 300 and 1200 CE, Polynesians in canoes spread throughout the Polynesian Triangle going as far as Easter Island, New Zealand and Hawaii, and perhaps on to the Americas. The sweet potato, which is native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia when Europeans first reached the Pacific. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook Islands to 1000 CE, and current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia c. 700 CE and spread across Polynesia from there. It has been suggested that it was brought by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, or that South Americans brought it to the Pacific. It is unlikely that the plant could successfully float across the ocean by natural means.
In recent years, considerable evidence has emerged suggesting pre-Columbian contact between the Mapuche people of south-central Chile and Polynesians. Chicken bones found at the site El Arenal in the Arauco Peninsula, an area inhabited by Mapuche, support a pre-Columbian introduction of chicken to South America. The bones found in Chile were radiocarbon-dated to between 1304 and 1424, before the arrival of the Spanish. DNA sequences taken were matched to those of chickens in American Samoa and Tonga, and dissimilar to European chicken. However, a later report in the same journal looking at the same mtDNA concluded that the Chilean chicken specimen clusters with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America.
Furthermore, in December 2007, several human skulls with Polynesian features, such as a pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, were found lying on a shelf in a museum in Concepción. These skulls turned out to be originating from Mocha Island, an island just off the coast of Chile in the Pacific ocean, nowadays inhabited by Mapuche. Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the University of Otago and José-Miguel Ramírez-Aliaga of the University of Valparaíso hope to win agreement soon with the locals of Mocha Island to begin an excavation search for Polynesian remains on the island.
Geneticist Erik Thorsby and colleagues have published two studies in the peer-reviewed journal Tissue Antigens that evidence an Amerindian genetic contribution to the Easter Island population, determining that it was probably introduced prior to European discovery of the island.
ARCHEOLOGICAL THEORIES
A team of academics headed by the University of York's Mummy Research Group and BioArch, while examining a Peruvian mummy at the Bolton Museum, found it had been embalmed using a tree resin. Before this it was thought that Peruvian mummies were naturally preserved. The resin, found to be that of an Araucaria conifer related to the 'monkey puzzle tree', was from a variety found only in Oceania and probably New Guinea. "Radiocarbon dating of both the resin and body by the University of Oxford's radiocarbon laboratory confirmed they were essentially contemporary, and date to around CE1200."
In 1995, archaeobotanist Hakon Hjelmqvist published an article in Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift presenting evidence for the presence of chili peppers, a New World crop, in Europe in the pre-Columbian era. According to Hjelmqvist, archaeologists at a dig in St Botulf in Lund found a Capsicum frutescens in a layer from the 13th century. Hjelmqvist thought it came from Asia. Hjelmqvist also claims that Capsicum was described by the Greek Theophrastus (370–286 BCE) in his Historia Plantarum, and in other sources. Around the first century CE, the Roman poet Martialis (Martial) mentioned "Piperve crudum" (raw pepper) in Liber XI, XVIII, allegedly describing them as long and containing seeds (a description which seems to fit chili peppers but could also fit long pepper, which was well known to ancient Romans), though this description is missing from at least some versions of the epigram.
Traces of coca and nicotine found in some Egyptian mummies have led some to speculate that Ancient Egyptians may have traveled to the New World. The initial discovery was made by a German toxicologist, Svetlana Balabanova, after examining the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui. Follow-up tests of the hair shaft, performed to rule out contamination, gave the same results. The significance of these finds lies in the fact that both coca and tobacco plants are indigenous to the Americas and thought not to have existed in Africa until sometime after the voyages of Columbus. Subsequent examination of numerous Sudanese mummies undertaken by Balabanova mirrored what was found in the mummy of Henut Taui. Balabanova suggested that the tobacco may be accounted for since it may have also been known in China and Europe, as indicated by analysis run on human remains from those respective regions. Balabanova proposed that such plants native to the general area may have developed independently, but have since gone extinct. Other explanations include fraud, though curator Alfred Grimm of the Egyptian Museum in Munich disputes this. Skeptical of Balabanova's findings, Rosalie David Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum had similar tests performed on samples taken from the Manchester mummy collection and reported that two of the tissue samples and one hair sample did test positive for nicotine. Sources of nicotine other than tobacco and sources of cocaine in the Old World are discussed by the British biologist Duncan Edlin. Mainstream scholars remain skeptical, and do not see this as proof of ancient contact between Africa and the Americas, especially as there may be possible Old World sources. Two attempts to replicate Balbanova finds of cocaine failed, suggesting "that either Balabanova and her associates are misinterpreting their results or that the samples of mummies tested by them have been mysteriously exposed to cocaine."
A re-examination in the 1970s of the mummy of Ramesses II revealed the presence of fragments of tobacco leaves in its abdomen. This became a popular topic in fringe literature and the media and was seen as proof of contact between Ancient Egypt and the New World. The investigator, Maurice Bucaille, noted that when the mummy was unwrapped in 1886 the abdomen was left open and that "it was no longer possible to attach any importance to the presence inside the abdominal cavity of whatever material was found there, since the material could have come from the surrounding environment." Following the renewed discussion of tobacco sparked by Balabnova's research and its mention in a 2000 publication by Rosalie David, a study in the journal Antiquity suggested that reports on both tobacco and cocaine in mummies "ignored their post-excavation histories" and pointed out that the mummy of Ramesses II had been moved five times between 1883 and 1975.
Another discovery in the mummy of Ramesses II also led to suggestions of early contact. This was an adult Lasioderma serricorne, a beetle also known as the 'tobacco beetle'. It was first described in American dried plants in 1798 but not recorded as a species until 1886. It may be of tropical origin and has been found in Tutankhamun's tomb, Bronze Age Akrotiri and Amarna
Many such contacts have been proposed, based on historical accounts, archaeological finds, and cultural comparisons. However, claims of such contacts are controversial and debated, due in part to much ambiguous or circumstantial evidence cited by proponents. Only one instance of pre-Columbian European contact – the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada c. 1000 AD – is regarded by scholars as demonstrated. The scientific responses to other pre-Columbian contact claims range from serious consideration in peer-reviewed publications to dismissal as fringe science or pseudoarcheology.
POLYNESIAN
Between 300 and 1200 CE, Polynesians in canoes spread throughout the Polynesian Triangle going as far as Easter Island, New Zealand and Hawaii, and perhaps on to the Americas. The sweet potato, which is native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia when Europeans first reached the Pacific. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook Islands to 1000 CE, and current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia c. 700 CE and spread across Polynesia from there. It has been suggested that it was brought by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, or that South Americans brought it to the Pacific. It is unlikely that the plant could successfully float across the ocean by natural means.
In recent years, considerable evidence has emerged suggesting pre-Columbian contact between the Mapuche people of south-central Chile and Polynesians. Chicken bones found at the site El Arenal in the Arauco Peninsula, an area inhabited by Mapuche, support a pre-Columbian introduction of chicken to South America. The bones found in Chile were radiocarbon-dated to between 1304 and 1424, before the arrival of the Spanish. DNA sequences taken were matched to those of chickens in American Samoa and Tonga, and dissimilar to European chicken. However, a later report in the same journal looking at the same mtDNA concluded that the Chilean chicken specimen clusters with the same European/Indian subcontinental/Southeast Asian sequences, providing no support for a Polynesian introduction of chickens to South America.
Furthermore, in December 2007, several human skulls with Polynesian features, such as a pentagonal shape when viewed from behind, were found lying on a shelf in a museum in Concepción. These skulls turned out to be originating from Mocha Island, an island just off the coast of Chile in the Pacific ocean, nowadays inhabited by Mapuche. Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith of the University of Otago and José-Miguel Ramírez-Aliaga of the University of Valparaíso hope to win agreement soon with the locals of Mocha Island to begin an excavation search for Polynesian remains on the island.
Geneticist Erik Thorsby and colleagues have published two studies in the peer-reviewed journal Tissue Antigens that evidence an Amerindian genetic contribution to the Easter Island population, determining that it was probably introduced prior to European discovery of the island.
ARCHEOLOGICAL THEORIES
A team of academics headed by the University of York's Mummy Research Group and BioArch, while examining a Peruvian mummy at the Bolton Museum, found it had been embalmed using a tree resin. Before this it was thought that Peruvian mummies were naturally preserved. The resin, found to be that of an Araucaria conifer related to the 'monkey puzzle tree', was from a variety found only in Oceania and probably New Guinea. "Radiocarbon dating of both the resin and body by the University of Oxford's radiocarbon laboratory confirmed they were essentially contemporary, and date to around CE1200."
In 1995, archaeobotanist Hakon Hjelmqvist published an article in Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift presenting evidence for the presence of chili peppers, a New World crop, in Europe in the pre-Columbian era. According to Hjelmqvist, archaeologists at a dig in St Botulf in Lund found a Capsicum frutescens in a layer from the 13th century. Hjelmqvist thought it came from Asia. Hjelmqvist also claims that Capsicum was described by the Greek Theophrastus (370–286 BCE) in his Historia Plantarum, and in other sources. Around the first century CE, the Roman poet Martialis (Martial) mentioned "Piperve crudum" (raw pepper) in Liber XI, XVIII, allegedly describing them as long and containing seeds (a description which seems to fit chili peppers but could also fit long pepper, which was well known to ancient Romans), though this description is missing from at least some versions of the epigram.
Traces of coca and nicotine found in some Egyptian mummies have led some to speculate that Ancient Egyptians may have traveled to the New World. The initial discovery was made by a German toxicologist, Svetlana Balabanova, after examining the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui. Follow-up tests of the hair shaft, performed to rule out contamination, gave the same results. The significance of these finds lies in the fact that both coca and tobacco plants are indigenous to the Americas and thought not to have existed in Africa until sometime after the voyages of Columbus. Subsequent examination of numerous Sudanese mummies undertaken by Balabanova mirrored what was found in the mummy of Henut Taui. Balabanova suggested that the tobacco may be accounted for since it may have also been known in China and Europe, as indicated by analysis run on human remains from those respective regions. Balabanova proposed that such plants native to the general area may have developed independently, but have since gone extinct. Other explanations include fraud, though curator Alfred Grimm of the Egyptian Museum in Munich disputes this. Skeptical of Balabanova's findings, Rosalie David Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum had similar tests performed on samples taken from the Manchester mummy collection and reported that two of the tissue samples and one hair sample did test positive for nicotine. Sources of nicotine other than tobacco and sources of cocaine in the Old World are discussed by the British biologist Duncan Edlin. Mainstream scholars remain skeptical, and do not see this as proof of ancient contact between Africa and the Americas, especially as there may be possible Old World sources. Two attempts to replicate Balbanova finds of cocaine failed, suggesting "that either Balabanova and her associates are misinterpreting their results or that the samples of mummies tested by them have been mysteriously exposed to cocaine."
A re-examination in the 1970s of the mummy of Ramesses II revealed the presence of fragments of tobacco leaves in its abdomen. This became a popular topic in fringe literature and the media and was seen as proof of contact between Ancient Egypt and the New World. The investigator, Maurice Bucaille, noted that when the mummy was unwrapped in 1886 the abdomen was left open and that "it was no longer possible to attach any importance to the presence inside the abdominal cavity of whatever material was found there, since the material could have come from the surrounding environment." Following the renewed discussion of tobacco sparked by Balabnova's research and its mention in a 2000 publication by Rosalie David, a study in the journal Antiquity suggested that reports on both tobacco and cocaine in mummies "ignored their post-excavation histories" and pointed out that the mummy of Ramesses II had been moved five times between 1883 and 1975.
Another discovery in the mummy of Ramesses II also led to suggestions of early contact. This was an adult Lasioderma serricorne, a beetle also known as the 'tobacco beetle'. It was first described in American dried plants in 1798 but not recorded as a species until 1886. It may be of tropical origin and has been found in Tutankhamun's tomb, Bronze Age Akrotiri and Amarna
