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| '''Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories''' propose direct contact or actual migrations by peoples from the continent of ] with the ] at some stage during the ] history of ]– that is, earlier than the late ]. | |||
| A subset of broader ], these claims generally contend that one or more expeditions or migrations from Africa crossed the ] to arrive somewhere in the Americas, where their African cultures combined with or influenced the indigenous pre-Columbian cultures. The proponents of these theories claim to detect evidence of this African cultural influence among a variety of artifacts, historical documents, native mythologies and supposed linguistic similarities. | |||
| Less commonly, theories concern contact or influence going in the other direction, from the ] to African civilizations (such as ]). | |||
| Currently, the ] is that there is no compelling evidence that such trans-Atlantic contacts ever took place and that there are no generally accepted artifacts of African ] in the Americas. Nonetheless, many Africanists and alternative historians maintain their convictions regarding the historicity of these exchanges. | |||
| ==Physical evidence or artifacts== | |||
| ===Cocaine Mummies of Ancient Egypt=== | |||
| Some have advocated that ] may have traveled to the New World. Evidence for such claims involves the mystery of the "Cocaine mummies", mummies reported to have contained substantial quantities of ] and ].<ref> New Dawn Magazine, by RAND & ROSE FLEM-ATH (1998)</ref> The initial discovery was made by a German ] by the name of Dr. Svetla Balabanova, after examining the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui. She states: | |||
| :''The first positive results, of course, were a shock for me. I had not expected to find nicotine and cocaine but that's what happened. I was absolutely sure it must be a mistake. | |||
| Follow up tests by way of the hair shaft - performed to rule out contamination - offered the same results. The significance of these finds lie with the fact that both coca and tobacco plants are indigenous to the Americas and thought not to have reached Africa until after the voyage of ], in 1492.<ref> - Encyclopedia.com (2007) </ref><ref> - Encyclopedia.com (2007)</ref> Subsequent examination of numerous ] 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 since have gone extinct.<ref> - Druglibrary.org, Transcript</ref> This view is strongly disputed by ] due to the lack of evidence to support it. Other explanations were that of possible fraud<ref> </ref> or transportation of seeds by way of an ], with the former hypothesis being discarded by curator Dr. Alfred Grimm of The Egyptian Museum in ], after carefully reviewing the evidence. Sources of nicotine other than tobacco and sources of cocain in the Old World are discussed by the British biologist Duncan Edlin in | |||
| Most mainstream scholars remain skeptical, seeking more conventional explanations, while many alternative historians see this as proof of ancient contact between Africa and the Americas, well before Columbus. | |||
| ===Olmec sculptures=== | |||
| ] Monument 1, an Olmec colossal head]] | |||
| {{Main article|Olmec alternative origin speculations}} | |||
| The ] civilization of Central America, based along the Gulf Coast of south-central Mexico, existed roughly from 1200 to 400 BC. Some Olmec sculptures appear to represent faces with ] features. Seventeen monumental basalt stone heads, each weighing ten to forty tons, have been unearthed in Olmec sites along the Mexican Gulf Coast. José Melgar, who discovered the first colossal head at Hueyapan (now ]) in 1862, subsequently published two papers that attributed this head to a "Negro race".<ref>Stirling, p. 2, who cites Melgar (1869) and Melgar (1871).</ref> The great majority of scholars who specialize in Mesoamerican archaeology and history regard these speculations as incorrect. | |||
| === African vegetation in the Americas === | |||
| Although several examples of African plants in Pre-Columbian America have been suggested, the only unequivocal example of a native African plant found in the Americas prior to Columbus is the African ] (''Lagenaria siceraria''). Skeptics of human transference from Africa point to the gourd's ability to float, the fact that birds are common agents of seed dispersal, and also to the lack of evidence of any human involvement (Whittaker and Carter, 1954, 1961). A recent paper suggests that domesticated ''Lagenaria siceraria'' was present in the new World 10,000 B.P. and its DNA showed it was introduced from Asia. <ref>D. L. Erickson, et al. “An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas,” ''Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. (USA)'' 102: 18315-18320, 2006,</ref>. | |||
| Other claims have been made for certain types of bananas, cotton, beans and yams. However, these claims have been refuted by ]s. There were no ]s in the Americas prior to Columbus. The jack ], which is claimed as an African introduction, is actually native to South America. The term "]" is actually applied to two entirely unrelated plants, one of which is native to the Americas (the ]), the other of which is native to Africa, and neither of which was found prior to Columbus in the other's continent. Finally, ] includes a number of species, some of which are native to the Americas, others which are native to other parts of the world. There is no evidence at all of any African species of cotton in the Americas prior to Columbus. There is conclusive evidence, on the other hand, that the two principal native American species of cotton ('']'' and '']'') were cultivated by indigenous Americans long before any of the claimed contacts occurred. | |||
| ==Evidence from historical records== | |||
| In the book, ''They Came Before Columbus'', Professor ] of ] assembled what he viewed as a large array of evidence that supported a pre-Columbian African presence in the Americas. His research has found little to no support in mainstream historical or archaeological communities, but remains widely popular among proponents of ] contact models. | |||
| According to van Sertima, the first evidence of a black presence in the America was given to Columbus by the natives, who allegedly indicated to the Spanish that they were trading with black people. <ref name="vansertima1">''They Came Before Columbus'', Ivan Van Sertima, Random House Trade, 2003. ISBN 0812968174</ref> His book claims Columbus later recorded that “The Indians of this Española said there had come to Española a black people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they called gua-nin". In his book, Columbus sent samples of this to Spain to have them examined, where it was later found that of 32 parts, 18 were of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper; similar in composition to comparable metals of West African origin.<ref name="vansertima1"/>. However, alloys of gold, silver, and copper of a range of different proportions had been made in South America for 1400 years before the arrival of Columbus<ref>Lechtman, H., A. Erlij, and E. J. Barry. “New Perspectives on Moche Metallurgy: Techniques of Gilding Copper at Loma Negra, Northern Peru.” ''Antiquity''. 47: 3-30, 1982.</ref>. And in Africa, Africans had been smelting iron and steel for well over a thousand years by this time. Van Sertima claims the origin of the word gua-nin can be traced to the ] of West Africa. <ref name="vansertima1"/><ref name="vansertima2">''African Presence in Early America'', Ivan Van Sertima, Transaction Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0887387152</ref>. However, the word guanin for these alloys is also used in a number of Arawak languages<ref>Rivet, P. and H. Arsandaux. '' La Métallurgie en Amérique Précolombienne.'' Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie, Musée de l’Homme.1946</ref> | |||
| In 1513, ] is alleged to have encountered a group of black war captives in an Indian settlement.<ref name="vansertima1"/> The Indians are said to have told Balboa that they were at war with a nearby settlement of these "dark men". This was 3 years after the settlement of San Sebastian near the current Panama border and Santa Maria de la Antigua del Darien in Panama. According to Van Sertima, Friar Gregorio Garcia wrote an account of another encounter in a book suppressed by the ]: “Here we found prisoners of war - Negroes - who were the first our people saw in the Indies.”<ref name="vansertima1"/> What Van Sertima does not mention is that this would have been written in either 1607 or 1625, the dates of his two publications, generations after the first Africans were brought to the New World by the Spanish. | |||
| In his ''De Orbe Novo'', ] mentions the presence of blacks in Panama. His theory is that these were “negro pirates of established themselves after the wreck of their ships in these mountains.”<ref> , Project Gutenberg. D'Anghiera uses the term ''Ethiopia'' as a reference Africa south of the Sahara</ref> | |||
| ===Emperor Abubakari II's voyage=== | |||
| {{Main article|Abubakari II}} | |||
| {{see|Pre-Columbian Islamic contact theories}} | |||
| The ], traditional historians and masters of oral literature in ], have stories about the King ], grandson of ], the founder of the ]. Abubakari II is said to have abdicated the throne in A.D. 1311 so as to set out on an expedition to explore the Atlantic Ocean, an expedition that never returned to Mali. Abubakari's ambition is supposed to have been to determine whether the Atlantic Ocean, like the River Niger of Mali, had another 'bank'. | |||
| This story was also recorded by the 14th century historian ]. Al-Umari states that Abubakari left with around 2,000 large boats,<ref name="diawara">''The Saga of Abubakari II'', Gaoussou Diawara</ref><ref name="vansertima2"/> loaded with men, women, livestock, food, and drinking water, which departed from the coast of present-day Gambia. | |||
| Ibn Fadlullah al-Umari (1300-1348), in his encyclopedia ''Masalik Al-Absar'', quoted Sultan ] Ibn Amir Hajib as saying: | |||
| {{quote|"We belong to a family where the son succeeds the father in power. The ruler who preceded me did not believe that it was impossible to reach the extremity of the ocean that encircles the earth (meaning Atlantic), and wanted to reach to that (end) and obstinately persisted in the design. So he equipped two hundred boats full of men, as many others full of gold, water and victuals sufficient enough for several years. He ordered the chief (admiral) not to return until they had reached the extremity of the ocean, or if they had exhausted the provisions and the water. They set out. Their absence extended over a long period, and, at last, only one boat returned. On our questioning, the captain said: 'Prince, we have navigated for a long time, until we saw in the midst of the ocean as if a big river was flowing violently. My boat was the last one; others were ahead of me. As soon as any of them reached this place, it drowned in the whirlpool and never came out. I sailed backwards to escape this current.' But the Sultan would not believe him. He ordered two thousand boats to be equipped for him and for his men, and one thousand more for water and victuals. Then he conferred on me the regency during his absence, and departed with his men on the ocean trip, never to return nor to give a sign of life."<ref>Professor Mohammed Hamidullah (Winter 1968). "Muslim Discovery of America before Columbus", ''Journal of the Muslim Students' Association of the United States and Canada'' '''4''' (2), p. 7-9.</ref>}} | |||
| Abubakari never returned to his empire and it is claimed that he and his fleet landed in Brazil in around 1312, in the place now called Recife. ] is allegedly an aberration of the Mande name for the rich gold fields of the Mali Empire.<ref></ref><ref> - by Joan Baxter (2000)</ref> | |||
| However, no concrete evidence of any African artifacts, let alone the remains of even one of the 2,000 ships, has ever been found in the Americas. <ref></ref> | |||
| ==Criticism of contact claims== | |||
| Claims of pre-Columbian contacts with Africa are rejected by the vast majority of archeologists and others who have examined them. <ref>Davis, N. "Voyagers to the New World" University of New Mexico Press, 1979 ISBN 0-8263-0880-5</ref><ref>Williams, S. "Fantastic Archaeology"University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991 ISBN 0-8122-1312-2</ref><ref>Feder, K.L. "Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries. Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology" 3rd ed., Trade Mayfield ISBN 0-7674-0459-9</ref> Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, for example, has written: "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." <ref> (Haslip-Viera et al., 1997a)</ref> | |||
| Genetic and immunological studies over the past two decades have failed to yield evidence of precolumbian African contributions to populations in the Americas. Additionally, the huge mortality associated with the spread of Old World diseases introduced by Europeans suggests long-term immunological isolation. | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| ==Notes== | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| ==References== | |||
| *Melgar, Jose (1869) "Antigüedades mexicanas, notable escultura antigua", in ''Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística'', época 2, vol. 1, pp. 292-297, Mexico. | |||
| *Melgar, Jose (1871) "Estudio sobre la antigüedad y el origen de la Cabeza Colosal de tipo etiópico que existe en Hueyapan del cantón de los Tuxtlas" in ''Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística'', época 2, vol. 3, pp. 104-109; Mexico. | |||
| *Stirling, Matthew (1967) "Early History of the Olmec Problem", in ''Dumbarton Oaks Conference on the Olmec'', E. Benson, ed., Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. | |||
| *Whitaker, T. W. and G. F. Carter. 1954. "Oceanic Drift of Gourds: Experimental Observations". ''''American Journal of Botany'' '''41'''(19): 697-700. | |||
| *Whitaker, T. W. and G. F. Carter.1961. "Note on the Longevity of Seed of Lagenaria siceraria (mol.) Standl. After Floating in Water." ''Torrey Botanical Club Bulletin''''' 88''': 104-106. | |||
| ==External links== | |||
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