Native Americans get around

Posted 15 years ago by Evan Tishuk

If you read the Economist you'd have seen the new map that has surfaced in China that implies the Chinese discovered America decades before Columbus (but not the Vikings). Then today I read that some early Americans may have arrived from Australia, possibly throwing a wrench in the whole Alaskan land bridge theory. And the icing on the cake is the recent discovery of "Native American" artifacts in South Carolina that predate the Alaskan land bridge by about 30,000 years! What's more, these artifacts resemble ones from France and Spain. Fascinating. Perhaps Columbus was just re-claiming what was always Spain's?

UPDATE (01-23-06):
Those maps from China are likely fakes

4 Comments

Adam Gautsch ~ 15 years ago

Stephen Green has a different take on the China map. His theory, it's a fake.

Evan Tishuk ~ 15 years ago

The Chinese map probably is a fake (or a compilation of Chinese and European maps), but I think there is compelling evidence in favor of a pre-Columbian voyage to the Americas by the Chinese.

I just think it's interesting that there have been so many recent developments that challenge the leading theories--The South Carolina discovery being the most interesting.

olivier blanchard ~ 15 years ago

The French were totally here first. Here's proof. (And if you're completely lost, here's where all the nonsense comes from.)

Evan Tishuk ~ 15 years ago

Did the same artist who made Asterix also make the Smurfs? I remember watching that cartoon when I was young and thinking the same thing--"This looks a lot like the Smurfs, and both come from France."

If the French and Iberians did make it to America some 30,000+ years ago, they wouldn't likely have been very much like modern people in the same area. The people of that time would have been some proto-European homo sapien (possible Neanderthal half-breeds).

This same time period saw a lot of activity in France in the form of cave art and tool innovations.

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