Customer Reviews

World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was raised in a world that was sure that the Western Hemisphere was untouched by cultural exchanges between the times of the people walking over the dry Bearing Straits until Columbus came. Well, there was that pesky Viking thing. And now this book lists dozens and dozens and dozens of plants and the micro bugs we humans carry with us. Science pretty much knows where each of these species originated and when you see a thousand year old sculpture or two in India that clearly include maize, well that is a problem for the hegemonic Columbus principle. Some of the other examples are tobacco showing up in Egyptian mummies and hashish showing up in Peruvian mummies. There is also that strain of maize being grown around the Himalayas. Again, I am just scratching the surface. The authors, John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Joahannessen, provide tables of each plant, nematode, and animal that has been found where it should not be if there were no pre-Columbian voyagers. While you might be persuaded to dismiss one or two even apparently strong cases as some kind of unexplainable anomaly, I think the large number presented here raises serious issues that require much deeper examination.

While this is not designed as an entertainment or a narrative for a general audience, I think you will find it fascinating. This is in no way a book trying to overstate its case or make whacky claims. If anything the claims made are understated.

Enjoy and be ready to have your perception of world history changed forever.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

This very interesting book is essentially about evidence of pre-Columbian contact across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The authors find evidence in the distribution of flora and fauna found on opposite sides of the ocean. The assumption is that there had to have been a vector which caused this distribution because natural causes do not seem to be a totally satisfactory answer.

Co-author Carl Johannessen pointed out to this writer that in their book they have recorded "13 plants that came into the Americas and 84 plants left the Americas for the Asian and other tropical and subtropical zones in the Euro-African realm." If this is, in fact, correct that would represent thirteen opportunities for the external influences which are central to the epigrapher's theories to come into contact with native peoples of the Americas. Indeed a larger number than this 13 could be assumed because a number of the examples that went from the Americas to the Old World could have been taken back by parties that had originated in the Old World and were returning home after a voyage that had reached the Americas.

I do not question that there was pre-Columbian contact between the Old World and the New World. Since the 1960 discovery of L'Anse aux Meadows (dated to approximately 1000 AD) on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador we have had proof of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact by the Norse. There are rumors of Eskimos paddling their kayaks into the Thames River, stories of the large Chinese exploration fleets of the early 15th century, and the recent theories of Smithsonian archaeologist Dr. Dennis Stanford who postulates trans-Atlantic contact between the prehistoric Solutrean culture of Europe and the Clovis culture in North America.

What Sorenson and Johannessen have done is provide a large body of evidence of possible trans-oceanic contact based upon the evidence of flora and fauna found on both sides of oceans, and of diseases and parasites that are likewise found on both sides of oceans but which should not have been able to pass over the Bering land bridge because of the restrictions of the cold valve which assumes that a person weakened by disease would not have survived the trek across the arctic from Siberia through Alaska to carry that disease to the population of the Americas (and if they did not walk in through Beringia they must have sailed in across the Atlantic or Pacific ocean). Other evidence toward this conclusion is provided by the facts that some of these diseases do not occur in North America (considered unlikely if the disease had been carried across North America in either direction, and that many of the parasitic organisms require residence in warm, moist soil during a portion of their life cycle prior to transferring to a new host and these conditions were not available in Northern latitudes.

What is most admirable about this volume is that instead of citing a few facts and building them into a huge theoretical edifice, the authors have given us relatively few pages (90) of explanation and conclusions, and a huge amount of data. They have not allowed themselves to be sidetracked into speculating on the "who", they have restricted themselves to the what. They have provided 396 pages of Appendixes in which they cite thousands of sources. Perhaps the best illustration of this is their section (pages 361-78) on Zea mays - Indian corn. They include some fifty sources on facts and data pertaining to evidence on the question of pre-Columbian distribution of corn in the Old World. Instead of telling us what we should believe, they give us the data and trust us to decide for ourselves. Their very extensive bibliography fills 64 pages, and they have even included a 10 page Index of Authors, both of which will be invaluable to researchers. Their 16 illustrations show visual evidence of this distribution of flora and fauna including Figure 1 showing an Indian sculpture from between the 11th and 13th centuries of an Apsara holding what can only be interpreted as an ear of corn (maize).

So what have I decided for myself? As I said above I did not deny the fact of pre-Columbian contact, I just discounted it. I assume that some pre-Columbian contact beyond L'anse aux Meadows took place between the old and new worlds. My doubt has centered more on questions of transfer of culture in amounts that could lead to large numbers of inscriptions in foreign languages on the rocks in the interior of North America.

After reading World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492 no-one should be able to categorically deny the possibility of such pre-Columbian cross-ocean contact without disproving or explaining away literally thousands of pieces of data assembled by the authors, a daunting task indeed!

This book should cause some serious rethinking among scientists and other interested readers regarding the capabilities and accomplishments of non-European people and civilizations prior to the explorations of Columbus and others in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Scholars concerned with the ancient cultural history of the Americas have long professed a belief that there were no culturally or biologically significant connections between the "Old" and "New" Worlds as a result of transoceanic voyaging before 1492. Sorenson and Johannessen convincingly argue otherwise.

In a comprehensive appendix that is nearly 400 pages long, they list biological, anthropological, archaeological and historical sources of information to document their thesis that bi-hemispheric distribution of organisms via intentional voyages across the oceans took place during the eight thousand or more years preceding Columbus. They further contend that this inter-continental diffusion of plants, animals, and microorganisms was a direct result of purposeful travels on the part of pre-Columbian explorers, missionaries, businessmen, colonists, and fishermen.

Among the plants claimed by Sorenson and Johannessen to have been transported from the Americas to India, China, Africa, and the Mediterranean in the centuries and millennia before Columbus are: agave, amaranth, cashew, pineapple, peanuts, chili peppers, papaya, pumpkins, bottle gourds, arrowroot, basil, lima beans, kidney beans, and - surprisingly! -- maize.

Asiatic plants transplanted to the Americas during the same time period include: marijuana, apazote, a cotton (Gossypium gossypioides), mulberry, bananas, plantain, and sugarcane.

In addition, they claim at least 19 species of micro-predators (such as ringworm) and seven other species of fauna, including dogs, were shared by the Old and New Worlds. The further suggest and list 75 other species of bi-hemispheric plants and animals deserving additional study, including: indigo, mangoes, tamarind, grapes, and sarsaparilla.

According to the authors: "The only plausible explanation for these findings is that a considerable number of transoceanic voyages across both major oceans in both directions were completed between the seventh millennium B.C.E. and the European Age of Discovery. Scientists' growing knowledge of early maritime technology and its accomplishments increasingly give us confidence that vessels and nautical skills capable of the long-distance travels were indeed developed by the times indicated. These voyages put a new light on the extensive Old World/New World cultural parallels that have long been considered controversial."

This book should be read and considered by anyone with an interest in pre-Columbian history, anthropology, archaeology, biology, botany, or agronomy. It should be of particular interest to other scientists who may dispute or disagree with its findings. If Sorenson and Johannessen are even partly correct in their assertions, this book has the potential to radically change most current paradigms regarding race, culture, and history.

there has been a major contraversy within archaeology concerning whether or not columbus was the first to cross an ocean to discover the western hemisphere. the vikings arrival to the northeast is verified but dismissed because that made so little cultural impact that it doesn't count. all the evidence indicating transoceanic crossing is dismissed with the claim that artifacts found predating columbus was indepently invented by our native americans. this book finally refutes this theory since various cultures could not have independently invented the large variety of plant life cited so scientifically which only could have crossed except by being carried by man.