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Chapter Two

Colonization in the Ancient World

          Regarding the establishment of nations, two factors need to be understood.  One is that there have been changes in the location of the races in different places, at different times, in the history of the world. The second factor is that the people who now inhabit the various regions of the earth are not generally the original people.

          What should be realized is there have been vast changes that have brought about the establishment of various civilizations.  As we shall see in a later chapter, climatic and weather conditions have certainly been factors.  The problem with the modern approach to understanding the great racial migrations of the past is that scholars look at slow-working social changes.  The idea that cataclysms produced either by humans or geographical means were responsible for the sudden changes of the past, has been replaced by the idea of slow-moving causes we see about us today.  These are causes which act as a constant yet imperceptible force just as profound as the sudden changes of the past (Ripley, 237).  A look at Old Stone Age remains indicates that climatic changes and physical conditions made areas of the earth uninhabitable, which could not be permanently settled (Minns, 131).

          As far as trade and travel are concerned, the influence of weather changes has been phenomenal.  There was continual sea traffic between Scandinavia and Ireland from around 1200 to 1000 BC, which indicates a long period of favorable weather.  The weather was dry and storms were infrequent.  This resulted in a high civilization during what is called the Bronze Age.  However, near the end of the pre-Christian era, the weather changed.  There were heavy rains, and in northern Europe excessive cold. There were centuries of great storminess.  In France, peat bogs formed on a large scale.  Civilization began to recede, and movements of tribes such as the Cimbri and Teutons began to take place.  In the Mediterranean region a great pattern of dry weather and drought brought devastation from about AD 150 to 750.  The effect was the opposite in Europe.  It led to the golden age of the Irish, while the Mediterranean region suffered from intermittent dry weather until the twelfth century.  A shift took place in civilization.  The result was that French and German cities successively became part of the Roman Empire.  By the time the Dark Ages came to a close, the rainfall increased and a cycle of wet and cold returned.  It reached its peak in about AD 1350.  Ice floes and pestilence swept away the civilization in Iceland and the outposts in Greenland.  What should be clear is that the rise and fall of civilizations have been conditioned by prolonged climatic factors.  In northern Europe, for example, the dry warm weather pattern was beneficial to civilization as the forests retreated and the soil could be farmed.  On the other hand, in the Mediterranean, the hot centuries led to famine and cultural regression.  The fact that Europe took the lead with respect to civilization was due largely to the weather (Weyl and Possony, 70–75).

          Prolonged rainfall and moisture did affect the history of Europe.  There was a golden age of plenty in the south, while wet spells led to disaster in the north.  In the fifth century BC, when the Greeks reached the pinnacle of civilization, the impact in central and northern Europe was just the opposite.  The level of Lake Constance, for example, rose more than 30 feet and the villages there were abandoned. The cold and rain during this period led to catastrophic results on populations that had been drifting toward a sedentary civilization (Weyl and Possony, 69).  For a long period of time settlements in Greenland carried out a thriving trade with Norway.  Then permanent frost and cold came, which still remains to this day.  These settlements were abandoned and completely forgotten, disappearing from history until the discovery of America by Columbus (Menzel, 273).

          For some unknown reason the climate of the earth became colder around the end of the Bronze Age.  Ships traveling west by the northern route found sailing hazardous.  Not until the climate warmed again did the Viking period begin (Fell, 1982, 33–34).  Changes in vegetation indicate there were three successive periods of climatic change on the northern coast of Europe (Taylor, 62).  A North Sea flood drove out a torrent of wandering hordes, from the Danube to the Styrian Alps in Austria, looking for land (Menzel, 68).  The indications are that climatic conditions in Greenland were better in the tenth century than they are today.  Apples ripened in a good year, and birds and fish were plentiful (N. Davies, 224). The lowering water level in Sweden increased the inhabitable area that favored the establishment of the Svionic power.  Farming increased, as did smelting and working bog iron.  The result was military superiority for Svionic expansion (Schütte 2:406–409).  Climatic changes are believed to be responsible for the location of the summer ranges of herring shoals.  They were located just off the coast of Greenland during the Viking period, but during the cold medieval period were located in the North Sea (Fell, 1974, 2).  Reasons other than cold led to the abandonment of the Viking Colony in Vinland (believed to be along the northern coast of the United States).  There were no firearms at this time and Indian attacks in force made the colony too difficult to hold,  as the cost was too great (N. Davies, 231).

          The sinking of land is another factor that must be considered in the movements of people.  The geography of England, for example, has been greatly altered due to land sinking and coast erosion.  The beach on which Julius Caesar landed no longer exists.  Ancient settlements along the coast have sunk below the English Channel.  Roman and even older remains located below Tilbury Docks  have sunk 80 feet (MacKenzie, 70–71).  In the East Indian Archipelagos there are indications that many of the islands were connected at one time, and that earlier migrations took place over land bridges into new regions (Haddon, 33).

          The oldest seat of civilization was the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Asia Minor (Ripley, 442–443).  Lower Mesopotamia gave rise to such cities as Sumer, Akkad, Shinar, and Babylon.  The great Celtic migration westward into Europe was the result of an invasion of a Nordic stock, known as Sumerians, who took possession of eastern Turkestan.  The Celts vacated territory that was filled by these Sumerian people who crossed Iran and then settled in Mesopotamia (Compare Gen.11:2).  The people of Elam, Assyria, Babylonia, and southern Anatolia (Turkey) were all Sumerians from Turkestan (Kephart, 116–117, 167, 144).  Somewhere around 2300 BC the Celto-Slavic migration from Central Asia reached Europe, by way of Iran, the Caucasus, and the Danube valley (Kephart, 182).  Farming began to spread from the Middle East at an early date.  While exhaustion of the soil and overpopulation were factors, climatic changes should not he excluded.

          One of the principal areas of expansion was by way of the upper and middle Danube and Rhine Rivers along with their tributaries (Chadwick, 19–20).  Nordics entering Eastern Europe soon pressed the Slavs northward.  Climatic conditions, as well as geography, were largely responsible for the retardation, until relatively late, of the migration of races into northern Europe from Central Asia by way of the Caspian Sea (Kephart, 182).  Writers, both ancient and modern, say a great period of unrest took place from 1700–1400 BC when a gradual drying of Central Asia took place (Fasken, 260).  As far as Asia itself is concerned, a Chinese movement forced the Mongols northward, who in turn forced the Eskimos into the far north.  These movements were also the reason the northern American Indians immigrated into North America (Kephart, 114).  Also, we should consider an Aryan invasion into India, which split the Negro population there into two groups.  One moved eastward and settled in the South Pacific Islands, the other westward into central Africa.  Africa was not settled from the north, but from the east, south of the lighter-skinned people of North Africa (ibid, 168).  This Aryan invasion into India is believed to have taken place some time prior to 1000 BC (McGovern, 34).

          The continents were covered with marshes and great forests following the Flood.  As a result the ocean was the earliest highway.  The first settlements were established as a result of travel along the shorelines (Haberman, 79).  In the earliest times Europe was connected with waterways so that goods were shipped from the Baltic to Egypt by way of Italy.  A route has been described which went from the Baltic into Italy via the Brenner Pass.  Scandinavian merchants were penetrating deep into Russia as early as 1000 BC.  As a result of this trade, a high degree of culture developed in Scandinavia (Olson, 57–58). The Danube River was the principal route of penetration into Europe by eastern peoples. Agriculture slowly developed in Europe north of the Alps due to influences from Susa, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.  Cultural advance in Switzerland was in a large measure imported from the East (Kephart, 179–180).

          Gusten Olson refers to the Universal History. According to him it states the first Scandinavians migrated into Scandinavia from where Noah’s ark landed (Olson, 10).  These people of Nordic stock appeared along the coasts of the Baltic at the close of the Old Stone Age.  Madison Grant says the Nordics originated in the forests and plains of eastern Germany, Poland, and Russia (Grant, 152–153). These blond hunters settled in Denmark, southern Sweden, Norway, and Britain.  (The reader should be aware that the various ages [Old Stone Age, New Stone Age, etc.] all fall within the historical period, and none should be regarded as extending beyond 4000 BC).  As we shall see in the next chapter, terms such as Old Stone Age, New Stone Age, Bronze Age, etc., should be taken for what they are worth—simply descriptions of varying cultures, not chronological eras of time.  Long before the New Stone Age, the Baltic and Iberian people reached Britain over what is believed to be a land bridge, that is now marked by the Dogger Bank.  Those who came from the region of the Baltic came in boats.  Large tracts of land, the remnants of the North Sea land bridge, have been submerged since about 3000 BC, the result of erosion and land sinking.  Pliny, who served in the Roman army, wrote that in the first century AD there were 23 islands between Texel Island, off the coast of Holland, and the Eider River in Schleswig-Holstein.  Seven of these islands are now gone.  Clement Reid notes we are not dealing with vast amounts of time, but within the same time period as the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Minoan civilizations (MacKenzie, 69–70).

          What is clear is this: The races living in Europe since the New Stone Age were preceded by several races from the Old Stone Age, races which occupied wide stretches of Europe (Günther, 111).  Nordic peoples drove out these original inhabitants.  The Gothic annals claim that the “Gotha” were first led into Scandinavia 62 years after the Tower of Babel under King Eric, who was a contemporary of Saruch (Serug), the great-grandfather of Abraham.  Suhm’s History of Denmark, page 65, states: “And the Gothic kingdom [Dania or Scythia] was founded 762 years after the flood, when Sarugh [ancestor of Abraham] was 95 years old.” In the History of Denmark, page 39, section five, we read: “both Denmark and Sweden with surrounding areas were, according to the old chronicles, inhabited from Abraham’s time and started to have kings when David reigned in Israel” (quoted in Olson, 10).  Based on a medieval tradition, the people of Trier (Germany) claim that their city is the oldest in Europe, founded by the son of the legendary Assyrian king, Ninus.  An old house in Trier has an inscription which reads: “Trier already stood 1,300 years before Rome” (Bihl, 69).  One cuneiform inscription states that commercial relations between the Assyrians and northern Europe took place at an early date (Olson, 58–59).

          Egyptian and Babylonian colonies in southwest Europe directly influenced the culture of Britain. The earliest traders settled in Britain when the Pharaohs were ruling in Egypt, and both Babylonian and Egyptian cultures found in Spain were trading with Britain. (MacKenzie, 218, 229). The earliest inhabitants of Britain, which have been traced by means of religious monuments, as well as language, came from Akkad, the southern province of Babylonia.  Long before the Greeks and Romans spread over Europe, these inhabitants in Britain were the first Aryans (Haberman, 7–8).

          The belief of Geoffrey of Monmouth was that the first colonization of Britain came from Troy, and was led by Brutus, the son of Aeneas.  This account is found in the Welsh chronicles and it is believed to have occurred at the time Eli was judge over Israel (Turner, 63–64, fn).  Raymond Capt tells us that the descendants of Darda (the Dara of I Chron. 2:6) ruled Troy for several hundred years.  But after the destruction of Troy, Aeneas, the last descendant of the royal line of Zerah, settled in Italy and by marriage to the daughter of Latinus, king of the Latins, established the beginning of the Roman Empire. Brutus, the grandson of Aeneas, took a large party of Trojans to “The Great White Island,” the early name for Britain due to the white chalk cliffs.  Brutus founded the city of “New Troy,” which the Romans called Londinium, now called London (Capt, 65–66).  An even earlier tradition comes from a work called the Psalter of Cashel that states Nin MacPeil first came to Ireland.  This is a reference to none other than Belus or Nimrod, the world’s first despot who ruled over the whole of western Asia and possibly Europe (Keating, 113, fn).  The fact that the people of Britain had early contacts with the Greeks is seen by a large number of Welsh names, which are very similar to Greek.  These ancient “Greeks,” or Danai, are believed to be the descendants of the Israelite tribe of Dan (Stoker, 5).   All the evidence indicates that tin has been continuously mined in Cornwall from the Bronze Age until now (Fell, 1983, 52).

          Early Sumerians, Dravidians (from India), and Phœnicians possessed large, well-built, well-rigged ships that were far more sea-worthy than those during the time of Columbus.  Sumerian tablets reveal that their kings took voyages to the “Land beyond the Western Sea.” They had established colonies and erected monuments there (Verrill, 105).  It is not known for certain where the “Land beyond the Western Sea” was located although both Britain and America have been postulated.  There were boats in the Mediterranean at a very early date.  Egyptians were the earliest in advanced shipbuilding, constructing boats fitted with masts and sails.  They had the longest unbroken tradition of sailing and ship building in antiquity, possessing a dazzling array of ships.  It would not have been difficult to cross the Atlantic in these boats (Jairazbhoy, 13).  As early as 700 BC Phoenician vessels were capable of traveling the high seas, and oceanic voyages are believed to have started in the sixth century BC (N. Davies, 118, 150).  So, the popular notion that ships during the time of Columbus were an advancement over earlier ships should be discarded.  Even before the time of Christ, the major inventions used for navigation were in use, inventions that made European shipping dominant during the Renaissance. These inventions had been lost during the Dark Ages.  Latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates were employed by the Chinese as early as 100 BC.  The astrolabe (a device used to determine latitude) was invented by the ancient Greeks but did not arrive in Europe until the fifteenth  century.  Trade vessels used in the Indian Ocean were massive. For example, one was used to transport an elephant to the emperor of China.  Some of these vessels weighed up to 70 tons (Van Sertima, 5561).

          Stone monuments erected in various areas around the world trace the extensive movement of peoples in ancient times.  These monuments, called dolmens, began in Syria, then went into North Africa, on into Spain, and up into Western Europe (Bible Research Handbook, serial 60c).  Massive stones are found all along a vast seacoast, which includes the Mediterranean coast of Africa, and the Atlantic coast of Europe.  Megalith means “big stone.” Sea routes were the natural way by which the people who built these structures traveled—a race of people that was spread far and wide.  It is not at all improbable that great migrations brought these megalithic monuments from Sweden to India and vice versa.  History is full of such migrations (MacKenzie, 91–92).  The primary use of the dolmen was that of a burial chamber which served as a collective grave, and was used repeatedly.  The origin, as we have just seen, was in the eastern Mediterranean and then spread throughout the New Stone Age settlements in the west as a result of trade.  They are placed in the second and third centuries BC (Karp, “Who Raised the Megaliths?”) The reader should be aware that Karp’s dates may be excessively long.) The Bible has numerous references to stone heaps or monuments.  The reader should be aware of Jeremiah’s instruction to scattered Israel, “Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps. . .” (Jer. 31:21).

          It is well-known that the Phœnicians had extensive colonies.  They occupied Spain.  When Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, pursued them, he became the king of Spain.  The Phœnicians had established trade with the “islands of tin.” Most authorities believe that the “islands of tin” refer to some of the British islands, as Aristotle mentions Celtic tin.  The Phœnicians went to great lengths to conceal their trade in tin, even stranding their ships if followed.  These losses were indemnified out of the public treasury (Turner, 51–52).  Around 1000 BC the Egyptians established a settlement in Java.  Around 600 BC the Greeks founded Marseilles.  Cadiz, in Spain, was founded around 1100 BC.  During the reigns of the Roman emperors Claudius and Nero, Roman ships were sailing to Ceylon and Roman currency flooded the East (Fell, 1974, 140–144).  Ancient Phoenician records show that thousands of years before the Christian era, voyages were taking place around Africa to India and across the China Sea. So, it should not be difficult to assume that voyages across the Atlantic could have occurred just as easily (Verrill, 9).

          Because of calms on the ocean, it could often take a Spanish caravel of the fifteenth century longer to make the trip from Africa to America than the simplest African boat.  It is a mistake to equate seaworthiness with size.  The fact is: The larger the boat, the more likely it is to be broken up in heavy winds.  The notion that small boats could not traverse the ocean is a fallacy (Van Sertima, 63–64). There are many examples of Japanese junks drifting helplessly for months.  Between 1783 and 1883, there were 42 examples of such wrecks.  These junks were carried to American shores by the Japanese trade current.  During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, 60 Japanese junks were carried off into the Pacific.  Six of these reached the American shoreline between Alaska and the Columbia River.  Another six were found along the Mexican coast.  There are many modern examples of tiny craft crossing the oceans (N. Davies, 194, 71).

          At a very early date it was known that the earth was a globe.  Eratosthenes, the Greek astronomer and geographer, calculated the circumference to be 28,000 miles.  Three hundred years later, Ptolemy attempted to correct what he thought was Eratosthenes’ overestimation, but his calculations were too small.  As a result Columbus, who used Ptolemy’s figures, expected to encounter land much earlier than he did (Fell, 1974, 8).  Aristotle said in 340 BC: “Beyond the Pillars of Hercules [straits of Gibraltar] is the ocean which flows around the earth.  In it are two very large islands, called Britannic [Britain and Ireland]” (quoted in Rutherford, 23, fn).  The Spanish philosopher Seneca, tutor of the emperor Nero said, “Spain will soon be linked with the Indies across the Atlantic Ocean” (quoted in Fell, 1983, 138).

          Diodorus Siculus gave an account of a Carthaginian settlement in what appears to be either Cuba or South America.  According to this account the Phœnicians were driven by a violent wind out into the Atlantic Ocean far beyond the Pillars of Hercules.  After many days of sailing west, they discovered an enormous island that was fertile and had navigable rivers.  Both the Carthaginians and Tyrrhenians of Italy soon knew of this discovery.  A settlement was established there, but the official policies of Carthage forced disbandment and no further development (Fell, 1983, 72–73).

          Plutarch refers to a manuscript he found in the ruins of Carthage.  It gave sailing directions for a voyage across the Atlantic by way of Iceland.  Weather at that time was advantageous for sailing, and this northern route was much more useful than the route later taken by Columbus.  Plutarch described Greeks who had settled among the barbarians in the Western Epeiros (the continent that rims the western ocean).  These settlements were on the same latitude as the Caspian Sea, which would place them in the vicinity of New England, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia (Fell, 1983, 48–49, 64, 70–72, 88).  Sailing in the northern latitudes was not all that uncommon during this period.  Thule, which is often mentioned by classical writers, is believed to be the oldest Scandinavian country.  Pytheas, an ancient navigator, said Thule was the coast of Norway and was as far north as the 65th parallel (Olson, 54).

          It has become apparent is that there is mounting evidence of ancient contact between the continents.  Carvings and sculptures of elephants have been found in America, which precludes the idea they were brought here by the Spaniards.  Inscriptions of the archaic Sumerian Linear Script, which could not have been faked, have been deciphered here (Verrill, 16).  Professional opinion is far from united regarding the various theories on American origins.  The crucial question, however, is no longer from where the first migrants to the New World came, but whether there were voyagers before Columbus who joined them later.  Where proof is not absolute, the data is open to interpretation.  The fact is:  Nothing is ever proved to everyone’s satisfaction regardless of how clear-cut the evidence may be (N. Davies, 16–19).  There is a long-standing tradition among those who believe in trans-Atlantic immigration, that the Indians came from the East.  American Indians, if not indigenous to the Americas, came here from the Old World long before traditional or monumental records were established.

          In 1930, a French commandant published a thesis that demonstrated the ethnic names of certain Berber groups were the same as those of American Indian tribes, and that these names are found only among the Berber tribes and nowhere else in the world.  The commandant, Jules Cauvet, examined 77 similar tribes on both sides of the Atlantic, and found that 46 of the names appeared to come from Africa, the others from Europe or Asia.  Ethnic names are important because they are the last linguistic element to disappear even after the original language is abandoned, forgotten, or absorbed.  Two anthropologists have demonstrated that certain peoples living in the Sahara possess American Indian traits.  They have similar names and naming methods, and tribal groups are designated by the same titles, the only difference being the prefix or suffix.  The women in these particular tribes could easily be mistaken for American Indians (Van Sertima, 252–254).

          In the early days of our Republic, our forefathers were men of learning, men that had studied Latin and Roman history.  It was commonly believed at the time that ships had crossed the Atlantic and left behind many mementos, such as ancient coins.  The Columbus mystique gained in popularity and children were taught that people believed the world was flat until 1492.  As a result, these ancient coins were dismissed and all new finds ignored (Fell, 1983, 27).  What is interesting is that these coins are found at sites near navigable rivers, or along the coast, or in the neighborhood of natural harbors (ibid, 64).  Not until after 1860 did the dogma take hold that the Indians migrated from Asia across the Bering Strait, and that no visitors came from Europe or Africa before the time of Columbus.  As late as 1940 the Norse were not even considered to have come to Vinland (ibid, 15).  Bancroft is a case in point.  His work published in 1883 is completely out-of-date when he states that there was no appearance of the Northmen in America before the tenth century.  Yet, he admits that it is probable that communication did take place earlier (Bancroft, 5:134).  The Verrills point out that man came to the New World by varying routes—some by the Bering Strait, some across the Pacific, some across the Atlantic.  An intermingling of these people led to the American Indian (Verrill, 11).  There is now incontrovertible proof that the Norse site at “L’Anse aux Meadows” in Newfoundland demonstrates settlements here and the Viking presence before the time of Columbus (Van Sertima, 77).

          In May of 1773, Thomas Bullitt met with the Chalahgawtha sept of the Shawnee Indians.  His purpose was to negotiate peace on behalf of Lord Dunmore, the white father of Virginia.  Bullitt asked Chief Black Fish, the Shawnee chief, for settlements south of the Ohio River in the country know as Can-tuc-kee.  Black Fish told Bullitt:

    The Shawnees cannot tell you that you are allowed to settle in the Can-tuc-kee lands.  We have never owned that land.  It belongs to the ghosts of the murdered Azgens—a white people from the eastern sea.  Their bones and ghosts own and occupy every hill and valley of the country.  They protect the game there and have more and better right there than any of the Indian tribes, including our own Shawnee nation, because they do not need or use material food themselves and do not like it.  Long ago our fathers and our grandfathers killed off the Azgens, but we now fear more the spirits of these people than our fathers and grandfathers feared them when they were flesh.  When our food is all gone and our squaws and children starving, we appeal to the ghosts of the white mothers who were killed there, and by saying the right words, we are allowed to kill an elk or deer or bear or buffalo.  But, we are never allowed to kill the game wantonly and we are forbidden to settle in the country of Can-tuc-kee.  If we did, these ghosts would not rise from their caves and mounds and slay us, but they would set father against son and son against father and neighbor against neighbor and make them kill one another (Eckert, 70–74).

          In a footnote Eckert postulates that these Azgens may have been the remnants of Sir Walter Raleigh’s lost colony of Roanoke, which disappeared without a trace in 1587.

          When the United States was being settled, some unique experiences occurred in various places. In 1660, the Tuscarora Indians captured a Welsh clergyman by the name of Morgan Jones.  He later related that his life was saved because he spoke Welsh and some of the Indians understood it.  He spent four months with them preaching in the Welsh language.  In early colonial times the Tuscaroras were called “White Indians.”  European contact with American Indians at an early date is clearly seen in the paintings of George Catlin, who lived 30 years among the Mandan Indians.  Catlin concluded these Indians were of Welsh origin due to the fairness of their skin, the color of their eyes, and the manner of building their huts in Druidical circles, their domestic habits, and their religion (Spencer, 14).  Celts appear to have been in America at an early date.  In 1801, a Lieutenant Roberts met an Indian chief at Washington who spoke fluent Welsh, as though he had been raised in Wales.  The chief said it was the language of the Asguaws, a tribe located 800 miles north of Philadephia.  The chief knew nothing of Wales, but said his people had a tradition that their ancestors had come to America from a distant country far to the east, which lay over great waters.  A Captain Davies related that when he was at a trading post among the Illinois Indians, he was surprised to find several Welshman in his company who could converse readily in Welsh with the Indians.  Lord Monboddo, a Scotchman, wrote in the seventeenth century that the Celtic language was spoken by many tribes in Florida (Bancroft, 5: 118–120, 122).  There is a postulation that these Indians were the Maiatai, the painted Indians or Picti of the Romans, who were brought to America from the British Isles for the purpose of establishing trade.

          One more interesting account comes from Brazil.  In 1827, a farmer discovered a flat stone in one of his fields.  It was engraved in Greek writing.  The inscription read:  “During the dominion of Alexander, the son of Philip, King of Macedon, in the sixty-third Olympiad, Ptolemaios.”  Beneath the stone were two ancient swords, a helmet, and shield.  On one of the sword handles was a portrait of Alexander, and on the helmet a design representing Achilles dragging the corpse of Hector around the walls of Troy (Bancroft, 5:123).

          Ethnologists note the Asian similarity of American Indian tribes and regard them as a branch of the Mongol race, but as Haddon points out, it is quite feasible to postulate migrations from Europe as well (Haddon, 77).  An early Indian culture that flourished in the Great Lakes region shows many signs of Old World influence.  Metalworking began in North America earlier than any other place in the New World, and a copper culture in Minnesota and Wisconsin contains artifacts that go back to about 4000 BC (N. Davies, 73). The reader should keep in mind that this date is about 2000 years too early.  In the history of mining technology, a baffling mystery remains yet unanswered.  Around the northern shore of Lake Superior and the adjacent Ile Royale there are about 5,000 ancient copper workings.  Radiocarbon dating places them from 2000 to 1000 BC.  This corresponds with the Bronze Age in northern Europe. Conservative estimates place the ore removal at 250,000 tons during that period of time.  It is not known where the copper was taken.  No copper artifacts have been found in America and the assumption is the ore was shipped overseas (Fell, 1982, 261).

          In 1696, the Spaniards made an expedition to an area south of Yucatan.  There they found books written with characters that resembled both Hebrew and Chinese (Goetz and Morley, 10).  Hebrew shekels have been found in Kentucky and Arkansas dating from the time of the Jewish revolt in AD 132.  Christian relics from the early AD period are found widespread in America.  A version of the Ten Commandments is engraved on a rock near Albuquerque, New Mexico, and according to the majority opinion, it is an inscription in the north Canaanite script and old Hebrew language.  Another inscription that is similar was found on a stone tablet recovered from a burial mound in Newark, Ohio (Fell, 1983, 190, 167).  Near Kanab, Utah, obsidian disks or coins contain symbols that are of the same type as Hittite glyphs.  These belong to the archaic so-called Sumerian script employed in Egypt in the pre-dynastic and early dynastic periods (Verrill, 94).

          In 1200 BC the Olmec civilization in the Gulf of Mexico came on the scene.  With it came the massive organization of labor, a trade network, ceremonial centers with pyramids, colossal sculpture, relief carving, wall painting, orientation of structures, gods and religious symbolism, an obsession with the underworld, representatives of foreign types, hieroglyphic writings and scribes, seals and rings, and the use of iron.  According to Jairazbhoy this same culture is found in Peru and is Egyptian in nature. What is implied is that by these massive monuments and ceremonial centers, the Egyptians introduced slavery on a grand scale into the New World.  In fact, the Olmec priesthood was highly developed and their pantheon of gods is of Egyptian origin (Jairazbhoy, 87, 30, 9).

          During the Olmec period three types of racial stock were found in Mexico—Mongoloid, Negroid, and Semitic.  A Chinese facial appearance is seen in sculptures, and there is much evidence to indicate that the Shang people were established in Mexico.  The Negroid presence can be explained by the fact that the Egyptians commonly held Negroes as slaves and mercenaries.  Huge sculptured Negroid heads found there may have been military governors in this Egyptian colony (Jairazbhoy, 147, 100–102, 112, 18–19).  Urns found in Aztec ruins indicate a close connection with Chinese civilization (Kephart, 111).

          There is proof that the pre-Incan civilization found in Peru was ready-made and fully developed by Sumerian explorers and colonists around 2500–2000 BC.  The idea that ancient men were afraid to navigate the oceans because they thought the earth was flat is nonsense.  The Sumerians had pottery spheres that represented the earth, marked with the equator, tropics, and the parallels of latitude (Verrill, 294–295).  It is possible that the Mayas, Aztecs, and Peruvians were offshoots of an advanced culture that had been established in the coastal areas of South America.  Cultural sites found in South America predate the oldest human remains found in Alaska (ibid, 11).

          Various Indian tribes have differing traditions of their origin.  The Indians in Chile say their ancestors came from the west.  In North America, the Chippewas relate that their ancestors crossed an area where ice and snow continually existed.  The Algonquins have a tradition that they were of foreign origin and that a sea voyage took place.  The Olmec tradition is that they came from the east (Bancroft, 5:22).  Bancroft believes the most logical explanation regarding the New World is that inhabitants from eastern Asia peopled it.  Many authors, for example, believe the Tatars peopled the northwestern part of America (Bancroft, 5:30, 54).  This does not take into account traditions that place the origin of many tribes in the east, and it does not explain why so many of the American Plains Indians have such “European’ facial features and little like those of Asian peoples (Karp, 212).  Also, the theory that all the American Indians crossed the Bering Strait does not explain why they did not or could not bring food plants and livestock with them (Verrill, 9).

          What should be obvious in all this, is that American Indians were the result of many migrations to America, and that these migrations were made up of both mixed and unmixed Asian peoples (Kephart, 103).  Of most importance for the purpose of this chapter is the fact that widespread travel and colonization was frequent all over the world at an early date.  Mass migrations, both voluntary and forced, were more common than what is generally thought.

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