In the past & up to recent times there have been many theories put forth about the ‘origin’ of Mesoamerican civilizations; including African, Chinese, Egyptian, Israelite, Phoenician, to Atlantean & space aliens. A recent book by Gavin Menzies, has the date of that event at 1421. I would like to know if anyone has read any books that seem creditable & if they can post a quick summary & full title. Though I believe that the Mesoamerican peoples developed on their own, any discussion would be appreciated. Thanks Here are a few I found: ”Origin of the Olmec Civilization”, Mike Xu, University of Central Oklahoma Press, 1996 ”The Origin of Ancient American Cultures”, Paul Shao. Iowa State University Press, 1983. Links for a quick intro into these ideas: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Dojo/8740/olmecpa.htm http://www.chinakongzi.net/2550/eng/tradition12.html There are some books with other theories about who really influenced the Olmecs, Thor Hyderdahl & von Danikan’s books noted & read previously.
well, unless homo sapiens evolved on the American continents seperately from the African/European/Asian homo sapiens, then there was most likely SOME form of culture which the travelling humans brought with them here. I vote for multiple colinisation- some came across the bering straight (it have happened twice scine the first Americans came here- the Inuit and another alaskan group (I forget the name) are more closely related to Native siberians that to southern Native Maericans (via DNA testing) The olmec sculpture style certainly points to their being an Aftrican influence. And the similarities between African dress/dances and the Hopi of Arazona certainly peaks interest. The appearent influx of Norsmen, Polinesians; the presence of cocain on Egyptian mummies...America certainly doesn't seem to have been a closed off culture. However, It seems that people either tend to want to believe that the Native Americans either had help, or they were 100% cut off from everyone else. I doubt either is true. The simplest and most likely explination to me is that Native Americans, just like every other culture in the world, were a profoundly intelligent group who invented many amazing things, while occationally expiriencing an influx of people and culture from elsewhere. I find mayan and Incan culture to be really fascinating, because it in so many ways equates to European culture- big, grandeous...very different from the image of Native Americans today- living in harmony with the land. At what point did the Native American culter begin moving away from the "can's" and over to the "why's" it seems to have begun shortly after the fall of the mayan empire in the central/South American regions. It started earlier in North America, sometime during the end of the last ice age, as food resources were hunted out, and huge numbers of people died.
afrocentric - olmec Evidence of the African Migration to America and Olmec Religion African Empires of Ancient America The Decipherment of the Olmec Writing System Clyde A. Winters Nubians and Olmecs Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
"In the year 1883 B.C. an invasion of Spain took place from the confines of North Africa. Having become a civilized land and wealthy due to changes in climate and the presence of many producing gold mines, Spain aroused the greed of Egypt and other North African nations._ A king by the name of GERION or DEABUS, with a large army and many ships, conquered Spain and forced the inhabitants to dig gold for their new African overlords. Many Spanish slaves died from overwork under this tyranny" Osyris slew Gerion in 1849, upon which part of his tribe took to ship and sailed to the New World. A tradition found among the Toltecs of Mexico and preserved by Ixtlilxochitl declares there once were giants in their land. Even the date of the arrival of these giants has been preserved by the Toltec historian. It was 520 years after the flood. (Bancroft "Native Races of the Pacific States", vol. V, p. 209. )_ The year of the flood was 2370-2369. And 520 years AFTER the flood -- that is, after 2369 -- is 1849, the very year a great battle was fought in Spain during which Gerion was slain and many of the giants were expelled. http://www.carnaval.com/columbus/olmecs.htm
Van Sertima's Afrocentricity On Feb. 23, 1999, the Office of Minority Student Affairs brought Dr. Ivan Van Sertima to Ferris State University as a featured speaker for Black History Month. In order to give interested faculty and students a balanced perspective, two articles were placed on reserve at the Timme Library. Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, and Warren Barbour, "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olemcs," Current Anthropology Volume 38 #3, June 1997. Abstract: In 1976, Ivan Van Sertima proposed that New World civilizations were strongly influenced by diffusion from Africa. The first and most important contact, he argued, was between Nubians and Olmecs in 700 B.C., and it was followed by other contacts from Mali in A.D. 1300. This theory has spread widely in the African American community, both lay and scholarly, but it has never been evaluated at length by Mesoamericanists. This article shows the proposal to be devoid of any foundation. First, no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World. The presence of African or African-origin plants such as the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) or of African genes in New World cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) shows that there was contact between the Old World and the New, but this contact occurred too long ago to have involved any human agency and is irrelevant to Eygptian-Olmec contact. The colossal Olmec heads, which resemble a stereotypical "Negroid," were carved hundreds of years before the arrival of the presumed models. Additionally, Nubians, who come from a desert environment and have long, high noses, do not resemble their supposed "portraits." Claims for the diffusion of pyramid building and mummification are also fallacious. "In his 1976 book, They Came Before Columbus, Ivan Van Sertima argued that 'Negroid' Africans had come to the Americas at various times before the European discovery and had either inspired or influenced the development of the first civilizations to emerge on these continents. Like other pseudoscientific writings that had been published up until that time, the book was either completely ignored or generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians, and other academic professionals." (p. 419). Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, Gabriel Haslip-Viera, and Warren Barbour, "They were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s," Ethnohistory 44:2 (Spring 1997). Abstract: This essay responds to a theory that has been aggressively promoted as fact by an influential group of Afrocentrists in recent years -- that New World civilizations were created or were influenced by African visitors at key points in the centuries that preceded the European discovery of the Americas. As discussed in this essay, the theory is shown to have no support in the evidence that has been analyzed by specialists in various fields. The essay focuses on the methodological approaches employed by the Afrocentrists in their study of linguistics, terracotta figurines, technological development, and monumental sculpture. A concluding section briefly discusses the repercussions of this theory on ethnic relations in schools, on college campuses, and in North American society as a whole. From the conclusion: "It is quite clear from the foregoing that claims of an African presence in pre-Columbian America are purely speculative, rigidly diffusionist, and have no foundation in the artifactual, physical, and historical evidence. Nevertheless, the Afrocentric position is routinely articulated in a very forceful manner with few if any caveats. Van Sertima makes reference to the "ample," "overwhelming," "remarkable" and "indisputable" evidence, or he uses phrases such as "there is no doubt" or "there is no question whatever" to support claims (1976:23; 1992a: 24;1992b: 34,43; 1991c [1983]:61)." http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/othersrv/isar/arcade/afam/vsertima.htm
Walter Neves of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil is gathering evidence suggesting that early South Americans originated in Australia or South Asia and possibly crossed the Pacific. Erika Hagelberg, a geneticist at the University of Oslo in Norway, says the study of DNA in the Pacific has not proved Heyerdahl's theories right or wrong. "There is definitely a genetic connection between Polynesians and Native Americans, but it probably traces back to a common origin in Asia," she said. Hagelberg, who has received financial support from the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, says no genetic information indicates a strong South America influence in Polynesia. But she said that "does not rule out a connection, as there are many reasons why South American genes might not be detected in Polynesia today." Heyerdahl's Theories Draw Renewed Attention
Dr. Wallace began studying the mtDNA of Native Americans in the mid-1980s in hopes of resolving a long-raging debate over when prehistoric peoples entered the Americas. The presumption long has been that the ancestors of Native Americans came from Siberia. But anthropologists have argued for year over how many, and when, such migrations occurred. The mtDNA analyses are showing that the ancestors of the Amerinds, who comprise most Native Americans, entered the Americans in a single migratory wave 20,000 to 40,000 years ago, Dr. Wallace and his Emory colleagues ... reported last year. This puts humans in the Americas long before a fluted stone-spear point--the oldest American tool ever found--was dropped by a prehistoric dweller near Clovis, N.M., 11,000 years ago. The researchers also found that ancestors of the Navajo, Apache and other members of a Native American group, known collectively as the Na-Dene, are latecomers; they entered the continent in a second migration a mere 5,000 to 10,000 years ago, the research indicates. Polynesian Links? To their surprise, however, the researchers found that native Siberians lack one peculiar mutation that appeared in the Amerinds 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. This raises the question of where, if not from Siberia, this mtDNA originated. It turns out, Dr. Wallace says, that this particular mutation pattern is also found in aboriginal populations in Southeast Asia and in the islands of Melanesia and Polynesia. This hints at what may have been "one of the most astounding migrations in human experience," he says. A group of ancient peoples moved out of China into Malaysia where they became sailors and populated the islands of the South Pacific. Then some 6,000 to 12,000 years ago these ancient mariners made it to the Americas. "I don't know how they came," Dr. Wallace says. "They either came across the Pacific to Central and South America or they went up the east coast of Asia and across the northern Pacific to Alaska and Canada," he says. He already is examining mtDNA samples from natives of the Kamchatka Peninsula north of Japan to see if there is any mtDNA trace of these ancient sailors. http://www.chattanooga.net/cita/mtdna.html
Spookz, Great links! I'll have to copy a couple of them.........the others I already have. I tend to believe, from what all I have read, that Mesoamerica(soutern Mexico and Central America) was greatly influenced by West African cultures as well as somw others. They probably were some of the earliest and dominant influence of the area.
the african influence, cultural or racial seems to be occur mainly in the olmec culture. since the olmec were the precursor to the rest of the civs in the region, their influence would be passed on. however, the original colonization does appear to be from asia. that is........ (1)some came across the bering straight (it have happened twice scine the first Americans came here- the Inuit and another alaskan group (I forget the name) are more closely related to Native siberians that to southern Native Maericans (via DNA testing) (river-wind) (2) A group of ancient peoples moved out of China into Malaysia where they became sailors and populated the islands of the South Pacific. Then some 6,000 to 12,000 years ago these ancient mariners made it to the Americas. river-winds "multiple colinisation" seem to be a likely scenario
Ahh, yah, some, not all of it, cause I can't get past the idea that this was written as true fact, there's no way that any of that happened, it should be relegated to the sci-fi, fantasy or pseudo-religious sections, it's hard to believe that 10 million people take it seriously. I took it seriously up to 2 months ago, thinking that Mormons were trying to steal my culture & claim it for some made up people, but when I started going to FAIR & FARM sites, I noticed 2 things; 1) no facts support the BoM, & 2) the LDS were very good at seeing any errors in logic or theory on opponents parts, but totally blind to the glaring errors in their belief system. What are those errors you ask? 1) the BoM portrays itself as the true history of the Americas * which no reputable archeologist, historian, linguist, botanist or geneticist has found evidence for 2) the BoM introduces Old World technology, foods, animals & people that totally disappeared without a trace * no germs, foods, bones, monuments, metalwork, genes have been found (BTW, after the wars; what happened to the females & children, the things, the animals, the spoils of war?) 3) the BoM was portrayed as being found by J. Smith with the help of an angel, translated with the help of magical specks & stones, by the power of god *yet that same book had over 3 thousand errors in punctuation & grammar in the first edition, that are still being corrected as soon as the LDS leadership says so 4) current LDS theory holds that the BoM events probably unfolded in southern Mexico * an area that was & is inhabited by thoroughly un-Middle Eastern peoples, that did & still do very un-Middle Eastern rituals, folkways & art, that did & still believe in very un-Middle Eastern gods (unless you take into account the recent introduction of Christianity) & who never heard of, wrote about, used any of the Old World tech, foods & animals of the BoM until old Cristobal Colon & his 3 little ships ended up at the New Worlds' doorstep. I think that mormons are the biggest cult that follows, what amounts to a novel, what any novelist would love to happen; like Ayn Rand, L. Ron Hubbard or (my favorite) Gene Roddenberry. What do you think? You crazy? nah, no way, unless you're one of them? are you?
Re: afrocentric - olmec What is this? I would like to see the global migration routes of the homo-sapien species since the beginning. I believe I could make a pretty good guess drawing a picture like this, starting in africa with groups branching off and heading in their different directions to create the races we see today. I think during the ice age asian groups migrated to alaska who became the eskimos with some heading south to make the north-american and south american indians.
