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TRANSOCEANIC DIFFUSION

Evidence found in the Americas and on the European continent indicate that interaction took place between the cultures in the Americas and the people of Europe long before Christopher Columbus. There is also evidence of direct interactions between Polynesian cultures and those in the Americas.

To prove that such interactions were possible, anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl made his famous crossings of the Pacific in 1947 and the Atlantic in 1970 using primitive craft known to be used by those cultures. It is known that over two thousand years ago the Chinese had sailboats that could sail into the wind. The magnetic compass was in use by the Chinese 1,600 years ago. The Polynesians were also known as expert navigators and did not fear the sea , rather they viewed it as a highway for traveling between the islands flung across the South Pacific. They colonized the islands of the South Pacific including Hawaii.

Clearly, the capability was there and Heyerdahl's voyages proved it could be done. More convincing still is the hard evidence that exists. The earliest examples of pottery in the Western Hemisphere have been found at the site of a village in Ecuador. This is not crude pottery such as one might make accidentally by playing with clay. It reflects a developed craft tradition. It also is almost identical to pottery then being made in Japan.

The Olmecs are considered the "mother culture" of Central America and the Mayas inherited much from this culture. Some of the cultural traditions of the Olmecs were very similar to those of the Chinese of the same time period. These included placing a piece of jade in the mouth of a dead person to ensure eternal life. Another example of Chinese influence is the pottery of Teotihuacan, which is very similar to that found in China of the same centuries.

Most scholars accept the influence of Asian and Polynesian cultures on pre-columbian American cultures but many are skeptical of African or European influence even though there is intriguing evidence which cannot be easily explained away. The Olmecs carved huge statues of heads with distinctly Negroid features. West African myths tell about people going west across the ocean on rafts. Is it possible that the Olmecs were West African in origin? There is no specific evidence for this theory, however, other than the features of the carved heads.

Evidence of European influence includes Roman coins found in Venezuela. On a wall in the once-buried Roman city of Pompeii is a painting of a pineapple, a plant native to the Western Hemisphere! In a twelfth-century tomb in Mexico, archeologists found a clay head that was made in third-century Rome. There is not a lot of evidence but that which exists is inexplicable by any means other than pre-columbian interaction.