Customer Reviews

Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America: Lost History and Legends, Unearthed and Explored

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Everyone knows Columbus discovered America - but in fact he owned and worked from charts of the region drawn by Viking explorers hundreds of years before he was born - and they in turn were preceded by Irish missionaries, shipwrecked Romans and others. DISCOVERING THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT AMERICA: LOST HISTORY AND LEGENDS, UNEARTHED AND EXPLORED gathers all these accounts, using the articles from Ancient American magazine to assemble some documented discoveries which are real puzzlers. Most have not been closely examined and certainly not under one cover, in a place convenient for contrast and discussion.

Finally, people aren't ignoring the evidence of pre-Columbus voyages to America. This change in thinking has been a long time coming. This book presents some of the most compelling evidences for the voyages and visits. Even skeptics will have a hard time putting this book down. See also: Columbus Was Last: From 200,000 BC to 1492, A Heretical History of Who Was First & The Island of Seven Cities: Where the Chinese Settled When They Discovered America

Childress' book cites numerous known abberations to the common perception that most relics and antiquities found in North America are of "native" cultural origin, and having these bits all in one place in one book is useful and entertaining. However, the speculation on aliens, portals, and Atlantis-type culture is, as always, tedious. Anyone can speculate and it is a writer's choice on how he or she chooses to speculate. The reader ,however, must be realistic in their analysis and truth behind the writer's speculation. If it is for entertainment purposes, the book and its speculations are wothwhile; if it is for actual information, the book is worth the price to read about the additional relics that have been found in North America that can really question our prevalent interpretations of North American history - however, the speculation on aliens and such is just that...entertainment value only. Early Mankind was a lot more innovative and flexible than people like Childress give them credit for - no use of aliens and portals is necessary to explain the historical evidence that is apparent in the antiquities record.

Interesting perspectives on things. Makes you think. You need an open mind to read this. Don't dismiss until you have read. Maybe there are answers here to answers that historians have been asking.

This is a fairly decent book in some ways and one to take with a big laugh in others. I've certainly read worse though. Most of it is review for me since I've read most of the authors mentioned here in more detail and most of the information was not new to me. Overall the feel for the book is rather one sided. For example, some of the latter stories regarding ancient findings of artifacts and one in particular about an oil lamp that was found in a yard in Ohio strongly lead the reader to believe that the oil lamp that was found by this gentleman has been there since ancient times never mentioning the fact that due to the masses of peoples populating the USA that it is more likely that the lamp was in fact brought here and discarded by a settler rather than laying there in someone's yard waiting to be found for thousands of years. Why it is easier to believe that the lamp lay there undisturbed in the ground all by itself with nothing else anything like it found before or since in the same area is beyond me.

The idea that the lamp could quite easily be explained by another reason as simple as a theory that maybe the man that found it made it all up and put it there himself after buying it in a garage sale is never brought forward. In other words this is not proof at all for the ancients being in America but just another of many unverifiable stories that may as well sit along side the big foot, UFO/USO and big bird stories in other books. Frankly I'm surprised this and some other stories like it were even used because they do not show very much in the way of intelligent study of the findings but in fact bring the book down a notch to that approaching a tabloid magazine article.

There are more stories like this in the book that are strongly one sided never mentioning the pros and the cons of the view point or other educated alternative perceptions as to the origins of some of the findings but there are more than one that show a quick wit to shun and look down on the acedemic society for how they do things. Ironic isn't it?

In short this book is entertaining reading so long as you take each story with a grain of salt so to speak. I will say that Discovering the Mysteries of Ancient America is not of the calipre of Forbidden Archaeology by any stretch of the imagination. If you want real in depth study of this subject that would be the book to buy I think. This book would be a good precursor to that one though to warm you up to the things you will learn in it.

STR

Discovering the Mysteries is a great reference book for those interested in the many enigmas from the Americas. It is edited by Frank Joseph, who publishes a bimonthly periodical entitled "Ancient American". Many different well known authors have articles in this book, and they vary in topic from the peoples to ancient out of place finds.

One topic that is gone over is the Kennewick Man, the 9000 year old remains of a Caucasion man found in the state of Washington. It seems that many have ignored it since it does not belong in with conventional thinking.

There is a point/counterpoint article on whether or not the Kensington Runestone is real or fake, with one article saying it isn't real and the other one stating it is. There have been even further tests done after the articles were written to show that this artifact may indeed be real.

A very interesting article on the find of Dr Virginia Steen-MacIntyre of a very ancient habitat site that was dated over 200,000 years ago. The arguments against it at the time was that modern man was only 170,000 years ago. With the recent find of a 400,000 year old tooth of a modern human in Israel, they may have to reevaluate what Dr Steen-MacIntyre and others found.

The book was published in 2006 and most of the articles date from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s. It is interesting to read them knowing the latest finds and newer dating techniques now available. A very interesting book that is a welcome addition for the alternative reference libraries out there.

The book is not really a book but a collection of articles from a magazine called North American. The book was a gift and I didn't know what to expect from it. I thought it will be about Atlantis and UFOs. I was pleasantly surprised.

The book is not about Atlantis (only one article mentions it) and there are no UFOs in it or any other weird stuff. The articles argue that the two American continents were visited in the past by old civilizations long before Columbus sailed on his first voyage.

Evidence is offered that Americas were visited as early as ancient Egypt. The writers try to prove it by discussing various artifacts found on American soil, ancient legends, Native American culture and existence of corn (an American plant) in Europe and Asia long before it was imported by the Spanish.

I must say that after reading the book I am still not completely sold on the idea of ancient contacts, but at the same time I would not be surprised if it turned out to be true. The writers spend a lot of space and ink describing how the historical/archeological establishment is deeply conservative and all evidence of pre-Columbian presence in the Americas is dismissed as a hoax or ignored without any serious research.

From my personal experience and from other readings, I can testify to the conservatism of the mainstream academic establishment. Among the academia, once a certain theory is accepted as fact, it becomes almost sacred dogma. The theory then persists until evidence against it becomes so overwhelming that it simply cannot be accepted anymore.

Just take the case of the Vikings. For centuries historians rejected the idea that Vikings landed in North America despite the fact that they had colonies in Greenland and legends about sailing to the land beyond the ocean. It was only after an abundance of Viking artifacts was unearthed in Canada and United States that the establishment had to grudgingly accept that the Spanish were not the first Europeans to reach America.

If they were wrong about Vikings, maybe they are wrong about other things too?

Anyone who has more than a passing interest in the real truth of what has actually been dug up by archaeologists & anthropologists for hundreds of years all around the world, should add this book to their collection. It combines articles from various authors and gives a straight-forward, non-technical look at what experts like Dr. Virginia Steen-McIntyre have been proving for years, that there were great civilizations that have existed on earth for thousands of years, long before the so-called "main stream scientific experts" allow to be disseminated to the general public.
I see lots of reviews of books like this one, with uninformed neophytes claiming "how can someone take fables and pass them off as truth". While these same reviewers will spout Bible rhetoric and try to convince everyone that the Bible is truth, but nothing else is. Well, if you can believe in the Bible myth why not Atlantis and the like. Sorry Bible thumpers, but it's pure hypocrisy and you know it.
This is a great book, with honest and true facts and if you don't want to know about the world of the past don't by it.

This is a great resource for historical artifacts that don't fit the usual history of America, but the conclusions are very speculative. The book Noah's Ark, Discovering the Science of Man's Oldest Mystery offers a more plausible explanation with facts that support the theory.

This is exactly what I looked for. A collection of interesting articles, and among them strong evidences that the Vikings were in America before Columbus. Just what I was looking for. Great!