Man Across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts

Whether man crossed the seas between the Old World and the New in the times before Columbus is a tantalizing question that has long excited scholarly interest and tempted the imaginations of men the world over. From the myths of Atlantis and Mu to the more credible, perhaps, but hardly less romantic tales of Viking ships and Buddhist missionaries, man has speculated upon what is, after all, not simply a question of contact, but of the nature and growth of civilization itself. To the specialist, it is an important question indeed. If men in the Western Hemisphere and in the Eastern Hemisphere developed their cultures more or less independently from the end of the last Ice Age until the voyages of Columbus, the remarkable similarities between New World and Old World cultures reveal something important about the evolution of culture. If, on the other hand, there were widespread or sustained contacts between the hemispheres in pre-Columbian times, these contacts represent events of vast significance to the prehistory and history of man. Originally delivered at a symposium held in May, 1968, during the national meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, the papers presented here, by scholars eminent in the field, offer differing points of view and considerable new evidence on the pros and cons of pre-Columbian contact between the Old World and the New. Various kinds of data - archaeological, botanical, geographical, and historical — are brought to bear on the problem, with provocative and original results. Introductory and concluding remarks by the editors pull together and evaluate the evidence and suggest new ground rules for studies of this sort. 'Man across the Sea' provides no final answers as to whether men from Asia, Africa, or Europe visited the American Indian before Columbus. It does, however, present new evidence, new lines of approach, and a fresh attempt to delineate the problems involved and to establish acceptable canons of evidence for the future. The editors of this volume, who also organized the original symposium, are all on the faculty of Southern Illinois University. Carroll L. Riley is professor of anthropology and curator of anthropology at the University Museum. J. Charles Kelley, formerly director of the University Museum, is professor of anthropology and coordinator of research for the museum. Campbell W. Pennington is professor of geography. Robert L. Rands is professor of anthropology and museum curator of Mesoamerican archaeology.