Why Muslims are under rated.

[Minimalist]

The winds and currents between West Africa and South America are the most likely suspect. Shortest distance and half a chance of getting back.

Plus - the Olmec heads look decidedly African.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

1500BC is even before the peak of the Phoenician civilisation, and they were the first real maritime power.

Based on available evidence,we may claim that is most probably the case.However we may not make any truth claims about the matter.

I think Sami's drivel may be dismissed due to the absence of any credible evidence.

[Angrboda]

[Anomalocaris]

The winds and currents between West Africa and South America are the most likely suspect. Shortest distance and half a chance of getting back.

Plus - the Olmec heads look decidedly African.

No large scale contact or colonization effort ever happens without a simultaneous transfer of animal and plant life, domesticated and undomesticated, that live in the environ of the contact populations. That there are no clear candidate for transfer of animals and plants associated with human environs in either direction between the old and new worlds after the end of ice age is my my mind a very strong argument against any substantial post-glacial, per-columban contact between the human populations of the old world and the new.
If there were, it must have been small and of negligible importance to either environments and sociologies involved.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Min; thank for the Olmec photo: I had either forgotten or had not noticed their African appearance.

Of course,dear old Ignatius Donnelly proved that meso American culture came from Atlantis,as did that of Ancient Egypt. No really,would I lie? I consider him at least as credible anyone cited by Sami.

Ignatius Loyola Donnelly (November 3, 1831 – January 1, 1901) was a U.S. Congressman, populist writer and amateur scientist, known primarily now for his theories concerning Atlantis, Catastrophism (especially the idea of an ancient impact event affecting ancient civilizations), and Shakespearean authorship, all of which modern historians consider to be pseudoscience and pseudohistory. Brother to Eleanor C. Donnelly, Donnelly's work had important influence on the writings of late 19th and early 20th century figures such as Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner, and James Churchward and has more recently influenced writer Graham Hancock. Donnelly's concept of Atlantis as an antediluvian civilization became the inspiration for the 1969 pop song hit Atlantis by Donovan and the 2009 film 2012 by Roland Emmerich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_Donnelly

[Minimalist]

If there were, it must have been small and of negligible importance to either environments and sociologies involved.

How about a band of refugees fleeing a political upheaval in their homeland? They might not have been very numerous but may still have settled in Central America....and, of course, they could not return home if they wanted to.

I do get a little tired of people trying to inflate what might at best have been superficial contact between Europeans and Native Americans into some sort of "trade network" or, worse, a "migration." As Charles Mann has noted in his exemplary book, "1491" within a generation of Columbus' arrival we start to see the Native American populations ravaged by common European diseases. Most Native Americans were sickened as the germs were transported along internal trade routes without ever seeing a white man.

Had there been earlier contact we would see the impact of disease organisms long before Columbus.

[Anomalocaris]

There is alway the possibility of small bands of true castaways making it in one direction or another. But of what import are they other than curiosity?

I am profoundly suspicious of the "negroid" origin of Olmec ball heads. The proportions of the ball heads are not exactly anatomically correct. Clearly a considerable amount of stylization is involved. Once artistic freedom is involved, it becomes much harder to argue appearently resemblance in sculpture stems from actual resemblance in the original.

It is just as easy to argue Olmec sense of masculine authority happen to involve a broad nose and prominent lips. The board flat nose is even easier to argue from the perspective of minimum carving effort. Carving a relief sculpture of the nose into a round stone picked to already resemble a round human head would involve less work if the nose is broad and flat than if it is high and aquiline.

Btw, Charles mann's 1493 is an even better read than his 1491.

[Minimalist]

But of what import are they other than curiosity?

Absolutely none. But, in Dennis Stanford's Solutrean Hypothesis a single hunter making it across could have demonstrated the bi-facial flaking technique to anyone he happened to bump into.

The proportions of the ball heads are not exactly anatomically correct.

No one is arguing they were classical Greeks. Egyptian statuary was highly stylized, too.

[Angrboda]

Well, that's also arguing that a morphology of people with broad, flat noses is type specific of African negroid populations. Many sub-groups of the mongoloid races have broad flat noses, and we have a demonstrable route by which a mongoloid people could have arrived without the need of any maritime technology whatsoever. (Ignoring Solutreanism, which I'm insufficiently familiar with to speculate on the morphological features of the head and face of possible Solutrean migrations.) This is also ignoring the possibility of convergent evolution, or of migratory stock whom we have no knowledge of the facial morphology of (peoples whose culture is more or less silent in history).

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

No one is arguing they were classical Greeks. Egyptian statuary was highly stylized, too.

Indeed,yet the races portrayed say on victory monuments, are often identifiable. Plus, I don't remember you claiming any direct link between the Olmec an Africa. I thought you simply made the oservation that Olmec statues have African features, which they seem to have to me.

The notion that the Olmec came from Africa has been a fairly common view. However, the current consensus seems to be that the Olmec originated in meso America.

From Wiki:

Mainstream scientific consensus

The great majority of scholars who specialise in Mesoamerican history, archaeology and linguistics remain unconvinced by alternative origin speculations.[1] Many are more critical and regard the promotion of such unfounded theories as a form of ethnocentric racism at the expense of indigenous Americans.[2] The consensus view maintained across publications in peer-reviewed academic journals that are concerned with Mesoamerican and other pre-Columbian research is that the Olmec and their achievements arose from influences and traditions that were wholly indigenous to the region, or at least the New World, and there is no reliable material evidence to suggest otherwise.[3] They, and their neighbouring cultures with whom they had contact, developed their own characters which were founded entirely on a remarkably interlinked and ancient cultural and agricultural heritage that was locally shared, but arose quite independently of any extra-hemispheric influences.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec_alter...eculations