Talk:Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories/Archive 10

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Archive 9

Archive 10

Ecuador

The one-sentence paragraph on Ecuador should be expanded by adding material about B. Megger's Jomon ideas discussed later. Or the Ecuador material should be added to the Japan section. Kdammers (talk) 21:22, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Greenland

We state elsewhere in the article that Greenland is not considered to be part of the Americas; we can't also give it as an example of contact with the Americas in the lead. Ideas? Cuchullain, it'd be better to discuss it here than just to mindlessly revert. Thanks. --The Huhsz (talk) 16:18, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

The article Americas definitely presents Greenland as part of the Americas. I think if the parenthetical "Greenland is generally not considered part of North America" in the "Norse trans-oceanic contact" section were just changed to "other than Greenland", the article would be OK. Deor (talk) 17:45, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think Greenland is geophysically part of America, but politically and historically part of Europe. I do't have a strong view on what the solution is, but we can't go on with the article contradicting itself like this. --The Huhsz (talk) 19:25, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Greenland is definitely part of North America at least geographically. Culturally the inhabitants are Inuits, whose origins are in North America. Its association with Europe is only through the European colonization. That said, there's definitely confusion in sources as to whether Greenland "counts" as a settlement of America, which is presumably where the somewhat confused treatment of it here comes from.--Cúchullain ^t/c 19:33, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Peanuts

I've deleted it again and posting it here:

"The Amazon Basin is the area where botanists belived that the peanut plant (Arachis hypogaea) was first domesticated where it bears such names as, in the Tupí language: mandobi, manobi, mandowi, mundubi, and munui; in the Pilagá language: mandovi; in the Chiriguano language: manduvi; and in the Guaraní language: manubi. These terms have compared to the terms for peanut in India with correlating names found in Sanskrit: andapi; Hindi: munghali; and Gujarati: mandavi. Sanskrit as a literary language was gone by the 12th Century AD. The peanut was discovered in an archaeological excavation in caves on the island of Timor in Indonesia and dated prior to 1000 C.E. An additional "10 or more" additional specimens of nuts have been found in the third-century B.C.E. tomb of Western Han emperor Yang ling in Xianyang, Saanxi. Additional archaeological examples of peanut finds in China by radiocarbon dating puts them as early as 2800 B.C.E."

My problem is that those sources seem to come from here - a chapter from some conference proceedings published by the University of Hawaii: "Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages" John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen {author of a book that makes pre-Columbia America a major international crossroads)[1]. Sorenson, a Mormon, is a leader in writing this sort of guff. There's an excerpt of a review of a related work here - the whole is downloadable. Long story short, I'd like to see some quotes from these sources with context. Doug Weller talk 15:50, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

The 4th source says "Because it was thought that peanuts, sesames, and broad beans should not be found in China at such great antiquity, according to our present knowledge of their respective histories of cultivation, Ho (1969:205-9) questions the stratigraphy of the remains at the Ch'ien-shan-yang site. This obviously is not a question that can be settled by reading or interpreting the original report, which gives no reasonable ground for doubt in stratigraphical issues. Note that peanuts were also found at P'ao-ma-ling at the same cultural level and time period." Doug Weller talk 16:15, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

We seem to be having some guess work based on old rejected claims.--Moxy 🍁 22:09, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

References

"Some"

I saw my copyedit was undone by Doug Weller and we again state ... preceded Columbus' arrival in the Americas by some 500 years. Now, I get that "some" is another way of saying "about"; I just question whether it adds anything to underline that it's "about" 500 years; what difference does it make? "Some" in this instance also carries a connotation of "a large amount or number of something" which busts NPOV. I'd rather say "about", or just trust to the reader's intelligence that of course it's an approximate value. All measurements are, and it doesn't need to be stated every single time we quote a value. --The Huhsz (talk) 11:58, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

It's used by reliable sources exactly that way.[2] It's used not just in other contexts but in this specific context. Doug Weller talk 12:15, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sure it is, but as an encyclopedia we should try to pare down inessential words. Reliable sources are not bound by this and may use all sorts of words and constructions that we wouldn't. All measurements are approximations, so stating that individual measurements are approximate looks kind of plodding. --The Huhsz (talk) 12:30, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Citing examples of ships reaching the West Coast of the US from Japan

There is a lot of effort to list historical examples of ships from Japan that arrived on the West Coast of the US as if to prove this possibility. There is widespread modern evidence as well, even a high school dingy (no modern seaworthy vessel) from the 2011 tsunami in Japan that reached Washington State. Citing the modern example will strengthen the point, but also suggests too much effort is made trying to convince the reader that it is possible for a craft to reach the Americas from Japan when it is widely accepted as fact. Seanblanton (talk) 12:41, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Peruvian Mummies

So, the "Peruvian Mummies" section is sourced to a single reference (there were two citations, but bother of them were to the April 2008 issue of the York Univerisity Magazine) with a dead link. And that magazine is a magazine for staff, and going back towards 2008 (March 2009, the earliest copy I can find), the magazine didn't even have a named editor, just "produced by the Communications Office, University of York", with Director of Communications: Hilary Layton, Publications Manager: Jilly Lovett, and "The Communications Office reserves the right to edit submissions." Beyond that I can find "Buckley’s work on South American mummies also hints at wider trade links with the rest of the world than previously thought. He hopes to publish the results this year but until then remains tight-lipped." and the abstract of a poster presentation by Buckley.. If this was actually going to be published and peer reviewed, you'd think it would have been done by now. --tronvillain (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Post-prehistory

• L'Anse aux Meadows ... remains the only site widely accepted as evidence of post-prehistory, pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact with the Americas. (from the lede)

Post-prehistory? Don't the prefixes cancel each other out? Isn't that just a ridiculously long-winded way of saying "historical"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:57, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Maybe the author meant "late pre-history"? North America doesn't become historical until the rennaissance.--Berig (talk) 23:08, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Genetic Evidence against a Paleolithic European Contribution to Past or Present Native Americans

From PaleoAmericaA journal of early human migration and dispersal Volume 6, 2020 - Issue 2"

Modern and ancient genomics have recently ignited new debates in the field of peopling of the Americas, sometimes bringing up some odd scenarios. One of those is the Solutrean hypothesis. We argue that not only is the archaeological evidence supporting it rather tentative, but also it is not possible to reconcile what is known about the genetics of past and present Native Americans with the occurrence of a transatlantic dispersal during the late Pleistocene."[3] Doug Weller talk 15:08, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Skoglund et al genetic study does not support Polynesian contact

Under the Genetic Studies section of Polynesian contact, the inclusion of the 2015 Skoglund et al study suggests that the genetic link between certain South American groups and "indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders" is supportive of the Polynesian contact hypothesis.

However, the authors of that paper make clearly state that "The geographic distribution of the shared genetic signal between South Americans and Australasians cannot be explained by post-Columbian African, European or Polynesian gene flow into Native American populations. If such gene flow produced signals strong enough to impact our statistics, our statistics would show their strongest deviations from zero for African, European or Polynesian populations, which is not observed."

However this genetic contribution arrived in South America, it was via a population distinct from, and most likely much older than the origin of, the Polynesians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.87.172.114 (talk) 16:53, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Off-topic

This article is about "trans-oceanic" contact, but someone has added a section about "trans-strait" contacts.

Similar cultures of peoples across the Bering Strait in both Siberia and Alaska suggest human travel between the two places ever since the strait was formed. After Paleo-Indians arrived during the Ice Age and began the settlement of the Americas, a second wave of people from Asia came to Alaska around 8000 BCE. These "Na-Dene" peoples, who share many linguistic and genetic similarities not found in other parts of the Americas, populated the far north of the Americas and only made it as far south as Oasisamerica. It is suggested that by 4000-3000 BCE "Eskimo" peoples began coming to the Americas from Siberia. "Eskimo" tribes live today in both Asia and North America and there is much evidence they lived in Asia even in prehistoric times.

Bronze artifacts discovered in a 1,000-year-old house in Alaska suggest pre-Columbian trade. Bronze working had not been developed in Alaska at the time and suggest the bronze came from nearby Asia—possibly China, Korea, or Russia. Also inside the house were found the remains of obsidian artifacts, which have a chemical signature that indicates the obsidian is from the Anadyr River valley in Russia.

In June 2016, Purdue University published the results of research on six metal and composite metal artifacts excavated from a late prehistoric archaeological context at Cape Espenberg on the northern coast of the Seward Peninsula in Alaska. Also part of the team were researchers from the University of Georgia and the University of Pennsylvania. The report is the first evidence that metal from Asia reached prehistoric North America before the contact with Europeans, stating that X-ray fluorescence identified two of these artifacts as smelted industrial alloys with large proportions of tin and lead. The presence of smelted alloys in a prehistoric Inuit context in northwest Alaska was demonstrated for the first time and indicated the movement of Eurasian metal across the Bering Strait into North America before sustained contact with Europeans.

This is not a surprise based on oral history and other archaeological finds, and it was just a matter of time before we had a good example of Eurasian metal that had been traded [...] We believe these smelted alloys were made somewhere in Eurasia and traded to Siberia and then traded across the Bering Strait to ancestral Inuits [sic] people, also known as Thule culture, in Alaska. Locally available metal in parts of the Arctic, such as native metal, copper and meteoritic and telluric iron were used by ancient Inuit people for tools and to sometimes indicate status. Two of the Cape Espenberg items that were found – a bead and a buckle — are heavily leaded bronze artifacts. Both are from a house at the site dating to the Late Prehistoric Period, around 1100-1300 AD, which is before sustained European contact in the late 18th century. [...] The belt buckle also is considered an industrial product and is an unprecedented find for this time. It resembles a buckle used as part of a horse harness that would have been used in north-central China during the first six centuries before the Common Era.

— H. Kory Cooper, Purdue.

If someone can explain in what way the Bering strait consitutes an "ocean" maybe it can be reinserted.--Berig (talk) 09:18, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

PS, maybe it can be included in a new article named Pre-Columbian trans-Bering Strait contact theories.--Berig (talk) 11:15, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

• This was probably a wedge issue. It's a common tactic for editors who believe in pseudoscience or conspiracy theories. They find something real which is related to the subject of their beliefs and write about it in the article about their fringe beliefs. They then point to this as "evidence" that the belief is not fringe, and use that to argue that skeptical sources are not reliable and should be removed. It rarely works in articles that are watched by reasonably well-informed editors, but that doesn't stop them from trying.

In this case, we know that there was some contact across the Bering Strait (there's genetic, archeological and linguistic evidence for it, in any case).

I agree with this removal, and with the creation of an alt page. We might discuss linking that page here, but as this is a fringe belief, and that page documents actual science, that remains an open question. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:51, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining why it was added to the article. It makes sense :-). It is actually the second time I remove trans-Bering strait contacts from the article.--Berig (talk) 15:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

No problem. My topics of interest are pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, so I see this kind of stuff constantly, whereas it rarely happens outside of this topic area. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:31, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

References

Portugese claim

Here's an old article about the potential evidence of Portuguese contact https://www.jstor.org/stable/1786989

Asdjk48 (talk) 01:17, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Botocudo people

The article refers to them as "now extinct", yet it also links to Aimoré where it says there are still some of them living today, though with a population of around 350. Perhaps "once numerous" or removing the reference to extinction altogether would be better? Autarch (talk) 00:22, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Misleading Statement?

The sentence 'There is a growing body of evidence indicating that the earliest human migrations to the Americas may have been made by sea voyages, contemporary with and possibly predating land migrations over the Beringia land bridge,[2] ' seems to me to imply strong proof of the Americas being settled by trans-oceanic voyages, when the link ( and Beringia wiki page) makes it clear it is only talking about coastal travail out of Beringia, and Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic voyages only visited an already inhabited continent. I think this should be re-written. Comments? 2A00:23C8:7507:5201:4CF0:AD9D:753:34D (talk) 21:57, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I brought that sentence into line with the source and noted that the source is about two old studies. I also fixed another sentence which was confusing as it suggested that trans-oceanic travel had occurred during the earliest human migrations. Well spotted! Doug Weller talk 11:16, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Error: Bunbury thought Finns, not Indians, landed in Germany

The section "Claims of transoceanic travel from the New World to the Old World: Claims of travel in Roman times" states that Pomponius Mela had claimed that Indians (from India) had accidentally landed on the coast of Germany but that "Edward Herbert Bunbury suggested that they were Finns."

This claim that Bunbury had suggested that Finns, instead of Indians, had landed in Germany is repeated on a couple of other Web sites (e.g., "Chinese Silk in the Roman Empire"), which provide no reference for the claim. Bunbury mentions only twice in his book this incident about Indians landing in Germany, and on neither occasion does he mention Finns. See: Bunbury, Edward Herbert (1879) A History of Ancient Geography Among the Greeks and Romans from the Earliest Ages till the Fall of the Roman Empire Vol. 2. London, England: John Murray pp. 172 and 364.

Therefore I have deleted this claim.

VexorAbVikipædia (talk) 18:03, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Why is the article titled "theories"?

The article covers the universally accepted Norse contact as well as the pretty well accepted Polynesian-South American contact. Should it maybe be moved or split?★Trekker (talk) 16:51, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

• I went ahead and WP:BOLDly moved it.★Trekker (talk) 20:02, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  I reverted you, make a formal move request. Doug Weller talk 20:26, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

  • @Doug Weller: Done.★Trekker (talk) 11:29, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 16 January 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. While there is consensus not to move this article, there was substantial support for WP:SPLITting the article as follows: this article will retain its title and narrow its scope to focus on WP:FRINGE theories of contact, whereas a separate article will be created to discuss more widely accepted theories such as Norse–Greenlandic contact. (non-admin closure) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

---

• Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories → Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

– As the article itself states, there are at least 3 typs of pre-Columbian contant that is widely accepted, Alaska-Russian contact, Greenland-Norse contant and Polynesian-South American contant, these are not just theories nor regarded as pseudo-history/fringe theories. I believe either the article should be split or moved to reflect this. ★Trekker (talk) 11:28, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

• No, I do not support renaming this article as it exists today. Eighty percent of it consists of pseudo-history or fringe theories that have, at best, been ignored by the majority of historians or widely criticized by them. Including them in a renamed article would give them prominence and creedence that is not warranted. Glendoremus (talk) 15:08, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Its still misleading to have this all titled theories and categorized as fringe when it also covers accepted interactions.★Trekker (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

You seem to think that the word theory implies the notion of lack of wide acceptance or "fringiness". Such is not the case, though. Deor (talk) 19:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

In that case why insist on using "theories" to avoid giving "prominence and creedence" to fringe theories like you argue above?★Trekker (talk) 19:58, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The very first sentence starts off with: "Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories are speculative theories". This is clearly inconsistent with the point you're trying to make here. It groups together the clearly well-supported "theories" (in the sense you're using here) with "theories" in the sense people use when their friend is into UFOs and they don't wanna make them feel stupid. Tr3ndyBEAR (talk) 06:14, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose per Glendoremus. These are theories and no reason why they can't be labeled as such in the title.  oncamera  _{(talk page)} 08:56, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
  • But its not just theories, there is a lot of direct evidence and proof for contact between peoples here.★Trekker (talk) 09:17, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

  Then the title is inconsistent with the very first sentence which starts off explicitly stating that the subject here is "speculative theories" and not theory in the scientific sense you're confounding here. Tr3ndyBEAR (talk) 06:17, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose, though I'd support splitting off evidenced theories. I believe Alaska-Russian contact and Greenland-Norse contact both already have articles, but I don't think Polynesian-South American contact does. There are so many unevidenced, purely speculative, and practically disproven theories that get significant coverage that it's nice to have a page that collects them all. I see that as the main purpose of this page, so I like that it makes short reference to the stronger theories and directs readers elsewhere. I think the page could do a better job of this, perhaps with some more aggressive hatnoting. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:58, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
• Move or split. The article starts with "Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories are speculative theories...", but then elaborates extensively on established theories. That is just inconsistent. Furthermore, if theories is not meant as speculative theories, it is entirely redundant in the title of the article. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:55, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
•  Comment:. There is already an article on Norse colonization of the Americas, which in my view constrains the need for a whole new article on evidenced trans-oceanic contact. Maybe a separate article on evidenced Polynesian contact while keeping mostly speculative theories here? Ladril (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
• Split off most of the information that is well-founded, and keep speculations here (with, of course, a brief section included that shares the well-founded theories and includes links to the relevant articles). (So, oppose) Red Slash 23:33, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

@StarTrekker how about changing the first sentence to--

'Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories (some well established and others rather speculative) propose that possible visits to the Americas, possible interactions with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, or...'

nobody has any problem w/ calling evolutionary theory a theory, but it would be useful to mention right off the bat that some included in this article are scientifically corroborated while others are considered fanciful.

i would gladly change the sentence if there are no objections Potholehotline (talk) 02:34, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

While changing the lead for now is a good idea there seems to be some support for a split instead which I think might solve everyones issues here.★Trekker (talk) 11:21, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support Agree all three of these are clearly supported in academia at this point and more evidence is growing for contact events. I think Native Americans reaching Iceland is another one that is growing in support. Wikipedia's mission is to represent knowledge as it currently exists and the academic discussions around this have shifted a lot in the past few years and it's time for Wikipedia to catch up. In addition this is a matter of cultural neutrality. Many Mi'kmaq and Gaelic people strongly believe they are related. The lack of "scientific" evidence for this does not at all imply there is evidence to the contrary for it. Wikipedia should be focused on talking about the evidence for and against and not taking an arbitrary stance to uphold an old academic view that is already waning. Lastly, all the theories in this article that are not well-supported are already clearly marked as "Claims of ...". It'd be trivial to section off those from the contact events that there is more than sufficient support for like Polynesian contact. Reading the article almost feels absurd to see the title and start off reading sections that now even show up in some text books. Tr3ndyBEAR (talk) 06:11, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

  If this is what your reading from the article it needs to be fixed to be more clear. [4] Moxy- 01:28, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

  Rapa Nui aren't the only polynesians that exist.★Trekker (talk) 01:42, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose anyone with basic academic knowledge of the topic is aware they have been dismissed as fringe science, pseudoarchaeology, or pseudohistory. {read the sources in the article).Moxy- 06:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

So you think Russia-Alaska, Norse-Greenlandic and SA-Polynesian contact are also fringe theories, because those are the ones I'm defendig here.★Trekker (talk) 11:16, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

But now they are in the lead. Doug Weller talk 11:29, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

That has nothing to do with my question.★Trekker (talk) 15:01, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose if there should be any change it would be to change theories to hypotheses. The change would be a violation of NPOV as it suggests these fringe theories are real. Doug Weller talk 11:32, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Would you support a split then instead?★Trekker (talk) 11:38, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:38, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Chinese contact per Guardian

According to a recent article in the Guardian, there appears to be a small amount of Chinese contact/migration to the Americas based on genetic studies. [5] Any thoughts on this? Is this accepted by other researchers in the field? Masebrock (talk) 05:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Masebrock: The article you are citing says that the Indigenous Americans are possibly related to the Chinese in some way, it does not support contact between the Indigenous Americans and Chinese. A migration that occurred up to 19,000 years ago is not considered contact. – Treetoes023 (talk) 03:32, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Supports fringe theories

I have recently added {{Fringe theories}} to this article because it presents fringe theories without giving appropriate weight to mainstream views and without providing the academic responses to said fringe theories. Let me preface this with the fact that the majority of the theories presented in this article are indeed fringe theories, which is not a problem as long as they are presented as such. Some sections in this article provide the arguments for the fringe theories presented, but fail to present the arguments against the fringe theories and the reasons why they are widely rejected by the scholarship of their particular field. This can be predatory, as it makes these fringe theories look like they have more merit than they actually do to readers that are not experienced in this topic. – Treetoes023 (talk) 03:57, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

What would you say is the most egregious example? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers: Probably Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories § Clava hand-club and words for axes. Despite this section being inside a larger section called "Disputed evidence", it provides no arguments against the theory's claims or any claims of disputed evidence. However, I should note that when reviewing this article just now when I was looking for the most egregious example of fringe theory support, there was a lot less of it than I remembered. A lot of the fringe theory support is confined to small bits of a larger section, I skimmed this article yesterday and I must have only seen the small bits of fringe support and assumed it represented the whole article. Perhaps I made a mistake marking this article with {{Fringe theories}}, while this article does slip at some points, it is not nearly as bad as I previously believed. I'm going to retract {{Fringe theories}}, if you think that it does fit this article than feel free to add it back. I can't tell if I'm coming to a reasonable conclusion or having self doubt after making a bold edit. – Treetoes023 (talk) 04:39, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

The article itself certainly doesn't merit that tag; there are many individual claims covered in this article and I think the lead does a good job of noting that the entire area is a topic of debate. And while I agree that some of the theories here are not provided with corresponding arguments against those theories, I do not interpret the article as supporting those theories. There is a somewhat parallel question though: if theory X has not been discussed anywhere else, is it worthy of inclusion? Then it becomes a notability issue, not a POV issue. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 00:04, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Rocker jaw

The term "rocker jaw" is used without any explanation as to what it means. The term needs to be explained or, if not, at least linked to a description or explanation. Kdammers (talk) 03:26, 31 October 2023 (UTC)