EVIDENCE OF CONTACT BETWEEN AMERICA AND THE OLD  WORLD BEFORE COLUMBUS

Columbus had arrived in the New World with a very old map in his mind, and consequently named it as the region which he believed he had reached - the Indies. As such, it conformed to the established doctrine of the time, that the globe consisted of one land mass with one "ocean river" running around it. It was the  Italian scholar Amerigo Vespucci, who first led Europe to suspect the momentous truth that had eluded Columbus; th at there were two oceans, and that Columbus had stumbled upon a separate continent isolated by these oceans. When these suspicions were  confirmed by the Atlantic/Pacific voyages of  Magellan in 1519-22, the debate on the origins of the inhabitants of the new continent began. Until then, there had been no difficulty in explaining how population movements had taken place. Now, land migration to the New World seemed an impossibility. Although some commentators advocated early migrations via the Atlantic, these was generally considered to be extravagant, insane, and out of the question by the more serious  scholars of the time. Also, the problems relating to why the Bible made no mention of the new continent  had to be addressed.

The first attempt at an objective analysis of American Indian origins came from Joseph de Acosta in 1589. He assumed that, if all humans were descended from Adam, the American Indians must have reached the New World from the Old World. He conceived their arrival  by way of an unknown narrow strait of land which had existed either to the north or the south of the New World. This theory has subsequently been developed by the archaeological and scientific establishment, and it is now generally agreed that the first people to inhabit the American continent migrated from Asia across Siberia to Alaska possibly about 12,000 to 25,000 years ago, although certain evidence points to a date for the migration being as early as 50,000 or perhaps even 100,000 years ago. It is believed that, during this period, the earth's oceans were locked in great glaciers that had created several areas of dry land. One such land mass, the Beringia, is believed to have linked eastern Siberia with present day Alaska. After the glaciers  melted, the Bering Strait land  bridge was severed, and the inhabitants of the American continent were  cut off from Asia, Europe, and Africa. With this model, a  different set of problems has arisen. Unlike the ancient societies of the Old World, who developed their civilizations largely through diffusion and interaction, the people who had inhabited the New World appear to have developed their civilizations in complete and total isolation from the rest of the world. This fact has started  the controversy between the "isolationists", who adhere to the concept of independent development of ancient American peoples, and the "diffusionists", who believe that post-Beringian oceanic travel was undertaken by  Old World peoples prior to the time of Columbus, and that trans-hemispheric contacts between the Old and New Worlds occurred.

The evidence for pre-Columbian oceanic contact is vast, especially so for contact via the Pacific, and stems from anthropological, biological, botanical, genetic, artistic, linguistic, calendric, and geographic disciplines. It is  complex and  hard to recover, and often ambiguous. Scholars who like easy problems avoid this area like the plague. The most competent investigators tend to be specialists who probe deeply into narrow aspects of the question. Unfortunately, they are restricted in their means of communicating with  each other, and their findings are not reinforced by those from other specialities. Therefore, each new discovery appears to stand alone as an isolated curiosity and is consequently dismissed as such. Also, "diffusionist" literature is often dismissed as the work of fanatics and extremists, whereas in fact a sizeable percentage of the corpus is the work of established scholars in their respective fields of archaeology, anthropology, and geography, such as  Kelley,  Jett, Kehoe,  Meggers, and  Carter.

It is of the utmost importance to realize that we are discussing the possibilities of interhemispheric mobility at an early date. The real question is to what extent ancient American societies were involved with  the rest of the world. As  Riley stated in his introduction to the anthology Man Across the Sea, the overriding question has  been this: were there contacts sustained enough  to  modify the culture of one hemisphere in the direction of the other? In other words, is or is not the New World a cultural "laboratory" in which the channelled developments of culture can tell us something of the nature of man? If it is, then the implications for a new cultural evolution are far-reaching. If it is not, then there are equally tremendous implications of other kinds. It would be unrealistic to attempt even an overview of the debate. Therefore, this particular presentation will concentrate on two ancient American sites which appear to display evidence of pre-Columbian contact and influence from the Old World. The two sites chosen are the Maya site of Comalcalco in Mexico, and the Rochester Creek petroglyph site (Fremont culture) in Utah. They should be seen as examples of how a narrowly focused study can add valuable evidence to the overall corpus, and how that evidence fits into the broader context of early voyaging. It is also important to realize that it is not the purpose of this presentation to state categorically that such evidence constitutes ultimate proof of such contact and influence. Indeed, it would be appreciated if participants would refrain from deciding one way or the other on the basis of the evidence presented here. Before the immensity of the context and the various issues involved can even begin to be grasped, it is necessary to study seminal works such as Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography by  Sorenson and Raish, Man Across the Sea edited by  Riley, et al., Explorers of Pre-Columbian America? The Diffusionist-Inventionist Controversy by  Fingerhut, and Ancient American Inscriptions: Plow marks or History ?  by  McGlone, et al.. Most importantly, it is hoped that this presentation will encourage and stimulate further research amongst experts in various fields into this important area of human history and development. If, ultimately, the evidence for pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact becomes overwhelming, the scholars will have to revise drastically their views regarding human mobility in the distant past.