An Historical Proposal to Alter the Current Clovis-First Theory and Proof of Other Ancient American Settlements and Voyages

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An Historical Proposal to Alter the Current Clovis-First Theory and Proof of Other

Ancient American Settlements and Voyages

United States History 201

Professor Daniel Gore

May 2, 2010


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The prevailing theory of which group of humans came first to the North and South

American continents, including both the initial group(s) and the first foreign immigrant(s), is

obsolete and has a critical need of re-examination. An attestation to this is the fact that there

have been numerous modern discoveries in both North and South America that challenge the

currently accepted Clovis theory. This theory, which states that at some point during the

Pleistocene period, humans came over the Bering land bridge and settled in the Americas may

have pieces of truth hidden inside it. Nevertheless, this hypothesis needs alteration in order to fit

with pieces of evidence that are being discovered in recent times. In addition, the idea that

Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas has even more dire need to be extradited to

the same people who sincerely thought the world was flat. While many people believe that it

was not Columbus, but a group of Viking Norsemen led by Leif Eriksson that were the first

foreign occupants of American continental territory, there is an abundance of new evidence that

suggests the first outsiders to reach America arrived over ten thousand years before either of

these historic voyages ever took place. There is a continually growing body of evidence that

suggests that the Phoenicians, Roman Christians, Chinese, and the people of the Mali Empire all

reached the Americas before Columbus ever set sail.

In a majority of primary education facilities across the United States, students are taught

that the first people to arrive in America were hunters from Asia that crossed the Bering land

bridge during the last ice age, called the Clovis people. However, this theory, first developed in

the 1930s does not accurately model the spread of humanity through the Americas based upon

new evidence.1

The Clovis model asserts that the Clovis culture was the first in America, and

gives a date of origin at around 9,500 years ago.2

One of the main arguments against the totality

of the Clovis theory is the existence of the Monte Verde settlement in Chile. This settlement was


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inhabited by about thirty or more people around 15,000 years ago, according to Dr. Thomas D.

Dillehay of the University of Kentucky.3 The evidence is so good that practically every

professional Americanist archaeologist now accepts this date as reliable, even though it overturns

the Clovis model.4

Some proponents of the Clovis model assert that the Clovis people rapidly

traveled down the length of the Americas, nearly ten thousand miles, and settled down there.

This notion patently contradicts three principles: these people had not invented the wheel, they

had to carry their possessions and their infants, and the only pack animals they owned were dogs.

In addition, without indigenous people available to know where water sources were and which

vegetation was fit for human consumption, it would have taken perhaps thousands of years to

migrate down the spine of the Americas safely. One other implication of this theory is that on

top of everything previously stated, the people would have had to cross great expanses of

treacherous terrain, including deserts, jungles, and mountain ranges. This combination of factors

makes the theory of Clovis people spreading rapidly a statistical near-impossibility.

Another interesting fact is that the settlement at Monte Verde is actually one of thirteen

settlements found so far in South America that either pre-date or were thought to have existed at

the same time as the Clovis people. The settlements are spread throughout the entire continent,

from the very northern tip (present day Venezuela), to the southern cape (present day Chile), and

coast to coast. (See Figure 1 in Appendix B). There is emerging data that the Clovis people

significantly differentiated from the other many peoples of the ancient Americas. In each of

these regions of settlement, there have been notable artifacts unearthed that distinguish groups of

unique people distinctly different from the Clovis. For one thing, the Clovis people had a very

specific arrowhead point associated with their culture that was long and shaped like an ovoid

leaf. (See Image 1.1 in Appendix A). On the other side of the coin, arrowheads excavated from


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the Monte Verde site were markedly different, with resemblance to a wide triangle. (See Image

1.2 in Appendix A). An interesting fact about the Clovis arrowheads is the remarkable

congruence to the arrowheads of the Solutrean peoples of ancient northern Spain and France. In

conjunction with the aforementioned similarity, the actual origin of the Clovis people has come

under fire. With emerging evidence, one of the more radical ideas is beginning to pull a

substantial amount of weight from the archaeological community.

Challenging the idea that Clovis were the first people to arrive and were Asian migrants

coming over the Bering land bridge are two central pieces of information. In accordance with

the current theory, massive waves of hunters crossed the land bridge and migrated southward

through an ice-free corridor between two giant Canadian glaciers, following the movements of

big game animals. This may be true to some extent, but the dates of total Canadian glaciation

further contradict the idea that the first presence of humanity in the Americas was of people

crossing the land bridge. According to E. James Dixon, Professor of Archaeology at the

University of New Mexico, 11,000 years ago the continental glaciers had withdrawn

sufficiently to create a wide corridor extending from eastern Beringia to interior North

America.5

Based upon this and previously mentioned evidence, the people of South America

had certainly not crossed the Bering land bridge and came down through an ice-free gap between

glaciers. Another nail in the coffin of this idea is the radio-carbon dating of the Monte Verde

settlement, which shows that humans had occupied the region (ten thousand miles south of the

Bering land bridge), four thousand years before it was even possible for over-land travel without

going over massive glacial sheets.

The second piece of information contradicts the popular idea that the Clovis people were

of Asian origin. This is of explicit importance to the course of human history, inasmuch as it


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challenges the idea that the two hemispheres were completely separate until roughly a thousand

years ago. The Clovis arrowheads were very specifically designed and shaped, and were unique

to the Clovis people. However, around six thousand years before the Clovis people existed, the

Solutrean people of Spain and France had been using identically formed arrowheads. (See

Image 1.3 in Appendix A). In fact, the method that both people used was the same, called the

overshot technique, and was only used by these two groups in all of history.6

This method was

difficult and unusual so unusual that it was possible that there was a connection between the

two peoples.7

It is not just arrowheads that link the Solutreans to the Clovis people. Recently,

geneticists have identified European genes in tribes that have lived close to the east coast of

North America, such as the Ojibwa tribe.8

With all of the emerging evidence, it is of vital

importance to history that the current theory is altered in order to be as accurate as possible. To

reconcile this data, a proposed theory is that in much the same way the ancient peoples of Asia

migrated to Australia by island hopping in small boats, perhaps the Solutreans did as well.

Another popular idea taught in schools is that Christopher Columbus discovered the

Americas in 1492. This is incorrect for numerous reasons, the greatest of which is

archaeological and paleontological evidence of previous external voyage and settlement in the

Americas. With the most recent evidence, the first group of humans documented to have visited

the New World was the Phoenicians. This interesting notion is supported by many artifacts

found in both North and South America. One of the most peculiar artifacts is called the Los

Lunes Decalogue Stone located in New Mexico, which has the Ten Commandments carved into

it. (See Image 2.1 in Appendix A). The stone weighs between 80 and 100 tons.9

The

inscription is carved in a combination of Hebrew and Phoenician lettering, which was used

throughout the Phoenician Empire. The significance comes from the dating of the writing on the


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rock: 500-2000 years ago.10

This means there was at least some presence of Semitic people in

America before Columbus arrived. This was a feasible undertaking for the Phoenicians, as they

are considered the most advanced seamen of their day. They had circumnavigated Africa and

sailed to Spain, Iceland, Britain, and Scandinavia and established camps and settlements in

many of these places.11

There is evidence of two waves of Phoenicians that made it to North

America, the first group landed in what is now New Hampshire, and the second sailed into

present-day Chesapeake Bay and up the Susquehanna River to what is now Harrisburg,

Pennsylvania.

Some of the most important pieces of documentation of the presence of Phoenician

people in the Americas are the hundreds of small stones found in both North and South America

that have the Phoenician alphabet carved into them. (See Image 2.2 in Appendix A). At first,

the markings were considered the result of geological processes and were overlooked. It was not

until Dr. George Radan, an expert in Middle Eastern Languages, recognized the symbols as

letters of the Phoenician alphabet.12

Similar stones were also found in caves in Brazil, and in one

of the caves, the stones were actually arranged in such a way as to convey a message. The

message was a documentation of a great and dangerous ocean journey that resulted in the

settlement in the cave and the finding of many ores and jewels.13

There are also inscriptions

carved directly into some of the caves that have been dated to be after this initial message. The

messages become slowly more pessimistic and tell of death and hostile local people. Furthering

the idea of a Semitic presence in the Americas is the work of geneticists who have discovered a

link between the Phoenicians and the Cherokee.14

This is also evident in the noticeably distinct

Semitic features exhibited by the Cherokee tribe.


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Although the Phoenicians may have been the first outsiders to reach the Americas, they

were not the only popularly unknown groups to arrive here. The next wave of discoverers were

Roman Christians fleeing the murderous rule of the Roman Emperor Nero. Nero had a specific

hatred of Christians, and had many of them killed in public and humiliating ways. They created

a symbol called a chrismon and carved them into their doors in order to protect themselves from

the Roman anti-Christian sects. Because of this religious persecution, many of the Roman

Christians desperately wanted to flee. It is important to document the incredible seaworthiness

of Roman vessels, which had hulls covered in sheets of lead below the waterlinethey also had

a layer of tarred fabric between the wood and lead skin.

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All of this meant it was very hard to

sink one of these incredible ships. Since the Roman Empire at the time covered most of Europe,

North Africa, and England, the Christians would have had only one direction in which they could

flee: west. Even though many people were under the impression that the Earth was flat, they

also believed in a large landmass somewhere to the west.

To prove that the Romans made landfall in North America, there have been several major

archaeological finds that support this theory. James Howe stumbled upon some of the greatest

evidence for this theory found so far. While planting some vegetables on his large farm in

Virginia, his shovel hit something hard. As he pulled it out of the ground, he noticed it was a

piece of iron that appeared to be handmade and very old. This intrigued him and he began to dig

around the area of the original find, and found a total of 400 pounds of iron.16

Since no Native

American had ever worked with iron, he knew the iron artifacts were not made by them. He

thought that perhaps they had been made in colonial times there had been a forge on his land.

This turned out to be untrue as he researched the history of his farm. The documentation of

history for it was quite extensive, including newspaper and magazine articles, books, pamphlets,


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and official records.17

His farm had not been developed, and was in much the same state then

as it was during the American Revolution. A metallurgist examined the metal and determined

that it was smelted using a process that was very old and primitive and used exclusively by the

Romans.18

Howe dug more around his farm and eventually found many more artifacts, including

a bronze cup and a device invented by the Romans for making nails. The cup was among the

most important finds linking the Romans to America. The specific alloy of bronze was made of

copper, tin, and 1-2% silver, the formula most commonly used by the metalworkers of ancient

Rome.19

As if to confirm this find, researchers found six cups in Pompeii that were almost

exact duplicates of Howes within a few years of his discovery. The evidence becomes more

powerful a year later when a natural draft furnace with a design of those used by Roman

blacksmiths for centuries, was found sixty miles from his farm.20

Also, around the same time,

two rocks with strange symbols carved into them were found on a neighboring farm twenty miles

away. The symbols were thought to be an unknown language until a linguistic expert finally

realized the symbols were actually chrismons. This was the icing on the cake that proved the

Romans and Christianity had a presence in the Americas long before Columbus arrived.

The next group of humans that came to the Americas was the Chinese. There is more

evidence of the Chinese arriving in America than any other pre-Columbian voyage known to

date. There were two main Chinese voyages that are thought to have reached the Americas: the

Buddhist missionary Hoei-Shins journey and Admiral Zheng Hes great treasure ship

expedition. Hoei-Shin departed China in A.D. 458 with twelve followers and sailed across the

Pacific Ocean to spread the religion of Buddhism.21

He returned to China forty years later with

an incredible story of his trip to a land he called Fusang. A scholar and historian named Yao

Silian recorded Hoei-Shins tale, sometimes directly quoting Hoei-Shins personal diary in his 56


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volume workHistory of the Liang Dynasty.22

What makes Hoei-Shins story so remarkable is

the level of detail of which he describes the Mayan civilization. He also accurately described

how far away Mexico was from China, which was told as twenty thousand li, which is the

equivalent of 7,500 miles; this is indeed roughly the distance from China to Mexico. The reason

he called the land Fusang was because of the Fusang trees, which are described as having the

same properties of an agave cactus. Hoei-Shin also described Mayan culture and architecture

with a high level of detail, including the tradition of using adobe to build houses and the lack of

walls surrounding the cities.23

Many of the things Hoei-Shin described are verified by modern

historians that specialize in the Mayan culture. Also, a panel in one of the Mayan temples in the

city of Palenque depicts what appears to be a Chinese man exchanging gifts with a local ruler.

(See Image 3.1 in Appendix A). The man on the right has his hair in a ponytail at the back of his

head, a style that is uniquely Chinese. Mayan males never wore their hair in this fashion, which

further bolsters the notion of Chinese involvement.24

Furthermore, stone monuments from

Mayan cities seem to have suddenly been influenced by Buddhism. (See Image 3.2 in Appendix

A). The evidence is quite convincing that Hoei-Shin made it to Mexico and back again a

thousand years before Columbus.

Powerful evidence exists to assert that Admiral Zheng He beat Magellan around the

world a century before Ferdinand Magellan was born. There is so much proof of this that an

entire book was written by British Navy Commander Gavin Menzies that contains many maps

and explanation of this. In 1421, Admiral Zheng He was commissioned by the emperor to gather

treasures from all the ends of the Earth, and a massive fleet, perhaps the largest ever assembled

in the history of mankind was launched. The fleet contained around 250 ships and 28,000 crew

members; some of the vessels were over four hundred feet long and held hundreds of men.25


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These ships were called treasure ships. Documentation exists for Zheng Hes voyages as far as

the west coast of Africa, but there is warrant to believe he made it to the Americas and that

record was lost due to political upheavals in China that destroyed many of the documents from

that time period. Despite this, there have been numerous Chinese vessels found off the coasts of

both North and South America, including one ship that is buried in the Sacramento River that

had medieval Chinese armor in its hold.26

There is also a host of other potent evidence that the

Chinese arrived at least seventy years before Columbus. On the eastern coast of North America,

the first European settlers came across plants and trees that are native to China. More evidence

arises when the discovery ofchickens of a breed once exclusive to Asia [were] found in

abundance in many South American countries.27

One of the most compelling facts about the

South American-Chinese relations is that the name Peru is Chinese for white mist, and until

one hundred years ago, people in villages in Peru could communicate in Chinese; furthermore,

over a hundred of these villages have Chinese names.28

Also, numerous pictures of horses,

which are not native to the Americas, have been found on stone walls throughout Central

America, along with Chinese inscriptions and pottery. As if to add fuel to the fire, thousands of

ancient Chinese coins have been found in Canada.29

There is no lack of evidence to support the

claim of Chinese presence in the Americas long before any of the famous explorers set sail.

There were many people of the medieval era that believed the world was flat. One young

king had grown up hearing this, and sought to disprove it. This king was named Abubukari II of

the Empire of Mali in West Africa. In 1310, he commissioned a grand fleet to sail west until

they ran out of food and water, at which point they were supposed to turn around and head home.

A few months after they left, one ship returned with surprising news: the other ships had all

gotten swept out to the west by a powerful surface current, and his was the only ship to avoid it.


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Upon hearing this news, Abubukari II decided to build another fleet that was faster and larger to

go after the first party, and he would travel with them. Just as the captain had said, they got

swept off by a quick-moving surface current, and they are believed to have landed in Central

America near present-day Panama, right at the heart of the Olmec Empire.30

There are a few

things that seem to correlate this account. The first is the appearance of spearheads made of gold

in the Olmec Empire right around this time, a Mali trademark weapon. Columbus himself even

brought back some of these golden spearheads, which were eventually melted down and smelted

into gold bars.31

The Olmecs also tell of two large convoys of black people coming to their land.

In corroboration, Spanish explorer Vasco Balboa spoke of seeing Africans in Central America in

the early 1500s.32

One of the most famous reminders of the Olmecs are the giant stone heads,

which seem to have very African-like features including big lips, wide noses, and tightly curled

hair and beards.33

(See Image 4 in Appendix A). This was important because the Olmecs

reviled facial hair. It is entirely plausible that Abubukari II traversed the distance between Africa

and Central America; it would have taken much less time than Columbus voyage since the

distance is much less.

Columbus was perhaps the first Spaniard to discover the Americas, but was definitely not

the first outsider. With voyages from the Phoenicians, Romans, Chinese, Mali, the Vikings, and

others, Columbus can be considered the last in a long line of discoverers of the Americas.

Furthermore, historical texts should be updated and given to education facilities in order to teach

students the most up-to-date material instead of historically impossible theories, such as the

Clovis-First theory. Many of the most intriguing theories bear no weight, but all of the voyages

and settlements aforementioned have substantial physical evidence of existence. The current

theories of first American settlement and first American discovery have an urgent need to be re-


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examined to fit with this growing body of evidence. As any decent archaeologist would say:

knowledge of the past exists, it just has to be dug up.


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Endnotes

1Patricia Lauber, Who Came First? New Clues to Prehistoric Americans (Washington,

D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2003), 12.2

Robert M. Schoch, Voyage of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids,

from Lost Egypt to Ancient America (New York: Putnam Books, 2003), 86.3

Lauber, 27.4

Schoch, 87.5

E. James Dixon, Quest for the Origins of the First Americans (Albuquerque: University

of New Mexico Press, 1993), 22.6

Valerie Wyatt, Who Discovered America? (Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2008), 31-32.7

Ibid.8

Ibid.9

J. Huston McCulloch, The Los Lunes Decalogue Stone, Ohio State Archaeology

Program, http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/loslunas.html (accessed April 30, 2011).10

Ibid.11 Don L. Wulffson,Before Columbus: Early Voyages to the Americas (Minneapolis:

Twenty-First Century Books, 2008), 6-15.12

Ibid.13

Ibid.14

Ibid.15

Wulffson, 23.16

Wulffson, 25.17

Ibid.18

Ibid.19

Wulffson, 26.20

Ibid.21Wulffson, 28-39.22

Ibid.23

Ibid.24

Ibid.25

Russell Freedman, Who Was First: Discovering the Americas (New York: ClarionBooks, 2007), 20-38.

26Ibid.

27Wulffson, 38.

28Ibid.

29Ibid.

30Freedman, 69.

31 Wulffson, 95.32

Wulffson, 94.33

Ibid.


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Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Clovis Arrowhead. InBefore Columbus: The Americas of 1491 by Charles C. Mann. New

York: Downtown Bookworks Book, 2009.

Los Lunes Decalogue. In The Los Lunes Decalogue Stone by Huston J. McCulloch. Ohio

State Archaeology Program (2004): http://www.econ.ohio-

state.edu/jhm/arch/loslunas.html (accessed April 30, 2011).

Mayan Panel Depicting Asian Man. InBefore Columbus: Early Voyages to the Americas by

Don Wulffson. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2008.

Mayan Statue with Seemingly Buddhist Robe. In Who Was First: Discovering the Americasby

Russell Freedman. New York: Clarion Books, 2007.

Monte Verde Arrowhead. In Who Came First? New Clues to Prehistoric Americans by

Patricia Lauber. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2003.

Olmec Stone Head. InBefore Columbus: Early Voyages to the Americas by Don Wulffson.

Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2008.

Phoenician Symbol Rock. In Who Was First: Discovering the Americasby Russell Freedman.

New York: Clarion Books, 2007.

Solutrean Arrowheads. In Who Came First? New Clues to Prehistoric Americans by Patricia

Lauber. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2003.

Some Early South American Sites. In Who Came First? New Clues to Prehistoric Americans

by Patricia Lauber. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2003.


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Secondar y Sources:

Dixon, E. James. Quest for the Origins of the First Americans. Albuquerque: University of New

Mexico Press, 1993.

Freedman, Russell. Who Was First: Discovering the Americas. New York: Clarion Books, 2007.

Lauber, Patricia. Who Came First? New Clues to Prehistoric Americans. Washington, D.C.:

National Geographic Society, 2003.

Mann, Charles C.Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491. New York: Downtown Bookworks

Book, 2009.

McCulloch, J. Huston. The Los Lunes Decalogue Stone. Ohio State Archaeology Program,

(July 2004): http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/loslunas.html (accessed April 30,

2011).

Schoch, Robert M. Voyage of the Pyramid Builders: The True Origins of the Pyramids, from

Lost Egypt to Ancient America. New York: Putnam Books, 2003.

Wulffson, Don L.Before Columbus: Early Voyages to the Americas. Minneapolis: Twenty-First

Century Books, 2008.

Wyatt, Valerie. Who Discovered America?. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 2008.


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Appendix AArtifacts

Image 1.1 Clovis Arrowhead

Image 1.2Monte Verde Arrowhead


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Image 1.3 Solutrean Arrowheads

Image 2.1Los Lunes Decalogue

Image 2.2Phoenician Symbol Rock


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Image 3.1Mayan Panel Depicting Asian Man

Image 3.2Mayan Statue with Seemingly Buddhist Robe


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Image 4 Olmec Stone Head


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Appendix BMaps

Figure 1 Some Early South American Sites

Documents

An Historical Proposal to Alter the Current Clovis-First Theory and Proof of Other Ancient American Settlements and Voyages