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Hey folks!
Ask and ye shall receive!
After a long, long hiatus to do a bit more reputable history for almost a year, it’s time to delve back into the crank files and check out more theories about visitors to the Americas before Columbus.
Today we will even go one step further, let’s see if Columbus was even the first, i mean second European to step foot on American, i mean Barbadian land.
So let’s start by going back.
Way back.
To the Solutrean people.
These were people of a very early time, like literally the stone age.
They lived in France between 22 and 17 thousand years ago.
Just for perspective, that’s almost half way between now and when the neanderthals went extinct.
So in 1998 a hypothesis surfaced suggesting that when you look at the flint tools of these Solutrean people, they look a lot like the tools of the ancient Clovis people.
The Clovis are some of the oldest discovered Native Americans.
So according to this hypothesis, the Solutrean people crossed the atlantic on boats following the ice floes,using icebergs to take a break and get fresh water, which during the ice age was a lot more plausible.
When they see the stone tools of the Clovis people, specifically their spear tips, some archaeologists realized they look a lot like those of their French possible-cousins, the Solutrean.
These particular tools showed up on the east coast of America, but not in Asia or Alaska, which one might think would be where they came from.
So either they created the same type of tools independently of the Solutrean, or they were an import.
Supporters of this theory like to point to a genetic group called haplogroup X as evidence.
This genetic marker is often found among those living in modern day Anatolia, and the northeast of America.
However, a Brazilian group of researchers found that other genes suggest the Clovis people came from the same stock as those that crossed the Bering strait from Siberia, which you can find out about here.
Now the list of specimens and new teams looking over these genes seems to sway on this part of the hypothesis nearly every year, with the most recent coming out in 2015.
It seems that the consensus for now is that it doesn't look good for our solutrean brothers and sisters.
Those that attack this hypothesis are very critical of the idea that there is anything specific enough to warrant the suspicion that the tools the Clovis people made indicate a lineage with the Solutrean people.
And, Other inventions like cave paintings didn't seem to cross the Atlantic along with those spear heads.
Lastly, Oceanographers doubt there would be enough ice for even the bravest Solutreans to be able to rest and get fresh water in order to make the long trek across the Atlantic.
Moving ahead in time just a tad, we wouldn’t be able to talk about Europe if we without mentioning the Roman Empire.
It seems that any ancient empire needs to have a myth or two about how they too beat Columbus.
Poor guy, he’s just feeling so defeated right now.
So let's head to Brazil to a location called the Bay of Jars.
The Bay of Jars has clay pots that some would say look like Roman amphorae.
The problem with this theory is that they also look similar to 15th or 16th century Spanish jars for olive oil.
Damn you Occam's razor!
Further north in Mexico, there was a terracotta head discovered in 1933 near Mexico city.
The head may appear to have African features, and even a beard to boot.
People were really optimistic about this one.
A Roman expert said it was consistent with a legit Roman statue.
But, There were some doubts because it was found near post columbian artifacts, but you know, it could still be something.
Then the discoverer of the head mentioned in a class one day that someone planted it as a joke…
After Columbus crossed the Ocean Blue, a few people began to dig up medieval legends that might have given their countries the ability to comment ‘first’ on America’s shores.
Many of these are legends are without any real evidence, and we all know what a sailor’s story is worth.
One is the the 1925 book by Soren Larsen claiming that a Danish Portuguese mission found Newfoundland and Labrador in the 1470s.
There’s also the legend of a Spanish caravel swept off to sea in a storm while heading to England that found itself on an island inhabited by naked tribes-people.
And then there is the legend that Scottish noble Henry I Sinclair made it to Canada via Greenland.
Which is a Story that doesn’t seem to exist before the 18th century.
There’s of course the legend of Saint Brendan, the Irish Monk who looked for paradise in the 6th century and maybe found something.
Some of these legends were created or perpetuated for nefarious purposes.
There’s Welsh prince Madoc who legendarily explored the Americas in the 12th century.
In Louisville Kentucky, there’s a local legend that a rock formation called the Devil’s backbone was used as a citadel by Madoc.
While most scholars call Madoc exploring the Americas bunk, the British were more than happy to hop on this as justification for conquering the Americas, because hey, they got here first, right?
Then there is a small claim written in the books of famous caller outer of Spain Bartholome de las Casas.
He suspected that the European explorer who beat christopher Columbus was… Christopher Columbus.
He suspected that Columbus may have hit canada when he sailed literally somewhere to some island in 1477.
The whole thing is really rather vague...
Sometimes the work of a lone quack gains a lot of popularity and support because their hypothesis is just a lot more fun than reality.
You know what I’m talking about, conspiracy theorists.
This seems to be the case with Barry Fell, who swears that there is Irish Ogham writing carved in stones in Virginia.
Where these rocks are, where they were found and whether they were legitimate… well we don’t seem to have any followups on that.
Ok, so maybe no Europeans beat Columbus and Erikson to the Americas, but maybe we have this whole thing backwards.
Maybe the Native Americans actually came to Europe first. Some mitochondria of Icelandic people, suggests that they might hold some native american DNA.
Given how close Greenland is with Inuit people living there, as well as a long tradition of Inuit hunting alongside ice flows in this area.
This just might be plausible.
The Norse sagas also have a few hints that might suggest they met some people who came to visit Europe.
There is the 1009 story of Thorfinn Karlsefni who kidnapped a couple of children from Markland.
Markland is one of the places suspected to be in Canada that Leif Ericson discovered.
They were apparently brought to Greenland where they learned Norse and converted to Christianity.
In 1420, a Danish geographer claimed he met “pygmies” captured by Norsemen.
His descriptions of the Pygmies and their boat seem to match the description of the Inuit.
In a similar vein, a Swedish clergyman reported that in 1505 he came across some leather boats kept in the Oslo cathedral reportedly found decades earlier.
These also match Inuit designs. The norse also had quite a habit of capturing slaves from Ireland and Scotland, and it is quite likely that if they were running into the Inuit that they would occasionally bring a few home with them over the centuries.
Columbus’ son Ferdinand wrote a biography of his father and in it He wrote that Columbus found two strange bodies that washed ashore in Ireland that have descriptions that might match Inuit that got lost.
Why does this have so much weight?
Well there is post-1492 evidence that the Inuit came to visit Europe either on their own or as captives.
The Greenland Inuit legends speak of a place called Akilineq, a rich land across the ocean, and in the case of Greenland, Europe is pretty dang close.
On that note, it seems like it would have been possible that Alaska and Kamchatka might have had a contact via the Aleutian Islands.
If Sarah Palin can see it from her house, it seems likely, though there is no evidence of it at this time.
Ok, I think it’s time to close the book on these stories for at least a little while, but not for almost a year.
Next time, we’re going to look at Semitic and Arabic claims of beating Columbus, which will involve the fun and strange world of Mormon archaeology.
If I missed any contact theories from Europe or to Europe, be sure to fill me in on them down below, or go down and check to see if one of my awesome viewers found a juicy one I missed.
This episode is dedicated to Patreon patron, and old college buddy Robbie.
Thanks Robbie, 2mwp!
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