Editing Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories

{{Short description|Speculative historical theories}}
{{For-multi|the prevailing models which describe the geographic origins and early migrations of humans in the Americas|Peopling of the Americas|further information about Native American genetic heritage|Genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas|evidenced pre-Columbian communication across the Bering Strait|Pre-Columbian trans-Bering Strait contact}}
{{Use American English|date=March 2023}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2020}}

[[File:Viking landing.jpg|300px|thumb|upright=1.5|Reenactment of a [[Viking]] landing in [[L'Anse aux Meadows]]]]

'''Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories''', many of which are speculative, propose that visits to the [[Americas]], interactions with the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas]], or both, were made by people from elsewhere prior to [[Christopher Columbus]]'s [[Columbus's first voyage|first voyage]] to the [[Caribbean]] in 1492.<ref name="RileyKelley2014">{{cite book |last1=Riley |first1=Carroll L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lmvUBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |title=Man Across the Sea: Problems of Pre-Columbian Contacts |last2=Kelley |first2=John Charles |last3=Pennington |first3=Campbell W. |last4=Rands |first4=Robert L. |publisher=[[University of Texas Press]] |year=2014 |isbn=9781477304778 |page=9 |doi=10.7560/701175 |jstor=10.7560/701175 |oclc=1301929527 |author-link2=J. Charles Kelley}}</ref> Studies between 2004 and 2009 suggest the possibility that the earliest human [[Settlement of the Americas|migrations to the Americas]] may have been made by boat from Beringia and travel down the Pacific coast, contemporary with and possibly predating land migrations over the [[Beringia|Beringia land bridge]],<ref name="science20170810">{{cite journal |author=Wade |first=Lizzie |date=August 10, 2017 |title=Most archaeologists think the first Americans arrived by boat. Now, they're beginning to prove it |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/most-archaeologists-think-first-americans-arrived-boat-now-they-re-beginning-prove-it |journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]}}</ref> which during the glacial period joined what today are [[Siberia]] and [[Alaska]]. Apart from [[Norse colonization of North America|Norse contact and settlement]], whether transoceanic travel occurred during the historic period, resulting in pre-Columbian contact between the settled American peoples and voyagers from other continents, is vigorously debated.

Only a few cases of pre-Columbian contact are widely accepted by mainstream scientists and scholars. [[Yup'ik]] and [[Aleut]] peoples residing on both sides of the Bering Strait had frequent contact with each other, and European trade goods have been discovered in pre-Columbian archaeological sites in [[Alaska]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kunz |first1=Michael L. |last2=Mills |first2=Robin O. |date=April 2021 |title=A Precolumbian Presence of Venetian Glass Trade Beads in Arctic Alaska |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/abs/precolumbian-presence-of-venetian-glass-trade-beads-in-arctic-alaska/3465746929B31ADBC6E1D1A23D09A2CD |journal=[[American Antiquity]] |language=en |volume=86 |issue=2 |pages=395–412 |doi=10.1017/aaq.2020.100 |issn=0002-7316 |oclc=9008993516 |s2cid=233337921|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Maritime explorations by [[Vikings|Norse]] peoples from [[Scandinavia]] during the late 10th century led to the [[Norse colonization of North America|Norse colonization]] of [[History of Greenland#Norse settlement|Greenland]] and a base camp [[L'Anse aux Meadows]]<ref name="Kuitems,etal2022">{{cite journal |last1=Kuitems |first1=Margot |last2=Wallace |first2=Birgitta Linderoth |author-link2=Birgitta Wallace |last3=Lindsay |first3=Charles |last4=Scifo |first4=Andrea |last5=Doeve |first5=Petra |last6=Jenkins |first6=Kevin |last7=Lindauer |first7=Susanne |last8=Erdil |first8=Pınar |last9=Ledger |first9=Paul M. |last10=Forbes |first10=Véronique |last11=Vermeeren |first11=Caroline |last12=Friedrich |first12=Ronny |last13=Dee |first13=Michael W. |date=January 2022 |title=Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=601 |issue=7893 |pages=388–391 |bibcode=2022Natur.601..388K |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03972-8 |issn=0028-0836 |oclc=9389057830 |pmc=8770119 |pmid=34671168}}</ref> in [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]],<ref name="CordellLightfoot2008">{{cite book|author1=Linda S. Cordell|author2=Kent Lightfoot|author3=Francis McManamon|author4=George Milner|title=Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia &#91;4 volumes&#93;: An Encyclopedia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=arfWRW5OFVgC&pg=PA83|year=2008|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-02189-3|pages=82–83}}</ref> which preceded Columbus's arrival in the Americas by some 500 years. Recent genetic studies have also suggested that some eastern [[Polynesia]]n populations have [[Genetic admixture|admixture]] from coastal western South American peoples, with an estimated date of contact around 1200 CE.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last1=Ioannidis|first1=Alexander G.|last2=Blanco-Portillo|first2=Javier|last3=Sandoval|first3=Karla|last4=Hagelberg|first4=Erika|last5=Miquel-Poblete|first5=Juan Francisco|last6=Moreno-Mayar|first6=J. Víctor|last7=Rodríguez-Rodríguez|first7=Juan Esteban|last8=Quinto-Cortés|first8=Consuelo D.|last9=Auckland|first9=Kathryn|last10=Parks|first10=Tom|last11=Robson|first11=Kathryn|date=2020-07-08|title=Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement|journal=Nature|volume=583|issue=7817|pages=572–577|language=en|doi=10.1038/s41586-020-2487-2|pmid=32641827|pmc=8939867 |bibcode=2020Natur.583..572I|s2cid=220420232|issn=0028-0836}}</ref>

Scientific and scholarly responses to other claims of post-prehistory, pre-Columbian transoceanic contact have varied. Some of these claims are examined in reputable peer-reviewed sources. Many others are based only on circumstantial or ambiguous interpretations of archaeological evidence, the discovery of alleged [[out-of-place artifact]]s, superficial cultural comparisons, comments in historical documents, or narrative accounts. These have been dismissed as [[fringe science]], [[pseudoarchaeology]], or [[pseudohistory]].<ref name="Fagan2006">{{cite book|editor1-last=Fagan|editor1-first=Garrett G. |last1=Fagan |first1=Garrett G. |title=Archaeological Fantasies: How Pseudoarchaeology Misrepresents the Past and Misleads the Public|chapter=Diagnosing pseudoarchaeology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sIYpx9mzd4gC&pg=PA40 |year=2006 |publisher=Psychology Press |isbn=978-0-415-30592-1 |page=405}}</ref>

== Claims of Polynesian contact ==
=== Human genetics ===
Between 2007 and 2009, geneticist [[Erik Thorsby]] and colleagues published two studies in ''[[Tissue Antigens]]'' that offer evidence of an Amerindian genetic contribution to human populations on [[Easter Island]], determining that it was probably introduced before European discovery of the island.<ref>{{cite journal | doi = 10.1111/j.1399-0039.2006.00717.x |title= Molecular genetic studies of natives on Easter Island: evidence of an early European and Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool | year = 2007 | last1 = Lie | first1 = B. A. | last2 = Dupuy | first2 = B. M. | last3 = Spurkland | first3 = A.|authorlink3=Anne Spurkland | last4 = Fernández-Viña | first4 = M. A. | last5 = Hagelberg | first5 = E. |author-link5=Erika Hagelberg | last6 = Thorsby | first6 = E. | journal = Tissue Antigens | volume = 69 |issue= 1 | pages = 10–18 | pmid=17212703}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | doi = 10.1111/j.1399-0039.2009.01233.x | title= Further evidence of an Amerindian contribution to the Polynesian gene pool on Easter Island | year = 2009 | last1 = Thorsby | first1 = E. | last2 = Flåm | first2 = S. T. | last3 = Woldseth | first3 = B. | last4 = Dupuy | first4 = B. M. | last5 = Sanchez-Mazas | first5 = A. | last6 = Fernandez-Vina | first6 = M. A. | journal = Tissue Antigens | volume = 73 | issue = 6 | pages = 582–5 | pmid = 19493235 }}</ref> In 2014, geneticist Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas of the Center for GeoGenetics at the [[University of Copenhagen]] published a study in ''[[Current Biology]]'' that found human genetic evidence of contact between the populations of Easter Island and [[South America]], dating to approximately 600 years ago (i.e. 1400 CE ± 100 years).<ref>{{cite web|last1=Westerholm|first1=Russell|title=Easter Island Was Not Populated Solely by the Polynesians, According to New Genetic Study|url=http://www.universityherald.com/articles/12415/20141024/easter-island-was-not-populated-solely-by-the-polynesians-according-to-new-genetic-study.htm|website=University Herald|access-date=December 24, 2014|date=October 24, 2014}}</ref> In 2017, a comprehensive genomes study found "no Native American admixture in pre- and post-European-contact individuals".<ref name="Fehren-Schmitz Jarman Harkins Kayser 2017 pp. 3209–3215.e6">{{cite journal | last1=Fehren-Schmitz | first1=Lars | last2=Jarman | first2=Catrine L. | last3=Harkins | first3=Kelly M. | last4=Kayser | first4=Manfred | last5=Popp | first5=Brian N. | last6=Skoglund | first6=Pontus | title=Genetic Ancestry of Rapanui before and after European Contact | journal=Current Biology | publisher=Elsevier BV | volume=27 | issue=20 | year=2017 | issn=0960-9822 | doi=10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.029 | pages=3209–3215.e6| pmid=29033334 | s2cid=21693208 | doi-access=free | bibcode=2017CBio...27E3209F }}</ref>

Two skulls suggested to belong to "Botocudo" people (a term used to refer to Native Americans who live in the interior of [[Brazil]] that speak [[Macro-Jê languages]]), were found in research published in 2013 to have been members of [[mtDNA haplogroup]] [[Haplogroup B (mtDNA)#Tree|B4a1a1]], which is normally found only among Polynesians and other subgroups of [[Austronesian people|Austronesians]]. This was based on an analysis of 14 skulls. Two belonged to B4a1a1, while twelve belonged to subclades of mtDNA [[haplogroup C (mtDNA)|haplogroup C1]] (common among Native Americans). The research team examined various scenarios, none of which they could say for certain were correct. They dismissed a scenario of direct contact in prehistory between [[Polynesia]] and Brazil as "too unlikely to be seriously entertained." While B4a1a1 is also found among the [[Malagasy people]] of [[Madagascar]] (which experienced significant Austronesian settlement in prehistory), the authors described as "fanciful" suggestions that B4a1a1 among the Botocudo resulted from the African slave trade (which included Madagascar).<ref>{{cite journal|author1=Vanessa Faria Gonçalves |author2=Jesper Stenderup |author3=Cláudia Rodrigues-Carvalho |author4=Hilton P. Silva |author5=Higgor Gonçalves-Dornelas |author6=Andersen Líryo |author7=Toomas Kivisild |author8=Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas |author9=Paula F. Campos |author10=Morten Rasmussen |author11=Eske Willerslev |author12=Sergio Danilo J. Pena |title=Identification of Polynesian mtDNA haplogroups in remains of Botocudo Amerindians from Brazil|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|volume=110|issue=16|pages=6465–6469|doi=10.1073/pnas.1217905110|year=2013 |pmid=23576724 |pmc=3631640|bibcode=2013PNAS..110.6465G |doi-access=free }}</ref> A later review paper of Polynesian history suggested that it was "more likely that these are the skulls of two people who died in Polynesia sometime early in the period of European voyaging, and whose graves were robbed by later visitors, and then mistakenly grouped in collections with the remains of Native Americans."<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Horsburgh |first1=K. Ann |last2=McCoy |first2=Mark D. |date=September 2017 |title=Dispersal, Isolation, and Interaction in the Islands of Polynesia: A Critical Review of Archaeological and Genetic Evidence |journal=Diversity |language=en |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=37 |doi=10.3390/d9030037 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2017Diver...9...37H |issn=1424-2818}}</ref>

In 2020, a study in ''Nature'' found that populations in the [[Mangareva]], [[Marquesas Islands|Marquesas]], and [[Palliser Islands|Palliser]] islands and Easter Island had [[genetic admixture]] from indigenous populations of South America, with the DNA of contemporary populations of [[Zenú|Zenú people]] from the Pacific coast of [[Colombia]] being the closest match. The authors suggest that the genetic signatures were probably the result of a single ancient contact. They proposed that an initial admixture event between indigenous South Americans and Polynesians occurred in eastern Polynesia between 1150 and 1230 CE, with later admixture in Easter Island around 1380 CE,<ref name=":0" /> but suggested other possible contact scenarios—for example, Polynesian voyages to South America followed by Polynesian people's returning to Polynesia with South American people, or carrying South American genetic heritage.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Nature|last=Wallin|first=Paul|title=Native South Americans were early inhabitants of Polynesia|date=2020-07-08|volume=583|issue=7817|pages=524–525|doi=10.1038/d41586-020-01983-5|pmid=32641787|bibcode=2020Natur.583..524W|s2cid=220436442|doi-access=free}}</ref> Several scholars uninvolved in the study suggested that a contact event in South America was more likely.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Gannon|first=Megan|date=2020-07-08|title=DNA reveals Native American presence in Polynesia centuries before Europeans arrived|url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/07/dna-pre-columbian-contact-polynesians-native-americans/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200709021542/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/07/dna-pre-columbian-contact-polynesians-native-americans/|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 9, 2020|access-date=2020-07-09|website=National Geographic|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Wade|first=Lizzie|date=2020-07-08|title=Polynesians steering by the stars met Native Americans long before Europeans arrived|url=https://www.science.org/content/article/polynesians-steering-stars-met-native-americans-long-europeans-arrived|access-date=2020-07-09|website=Science {{!}} AAAS|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Zimmer|first=Carl|date=2020-07-08|title=Some Polynesians Carry DNA of Ancient Native Americans, New Study Finds|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/science/polynesian-ancestry.html|access-date=2020-07-09|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> Further genetic analysis on Easter Island indigenous population showed about 10% of the genome to be of Native American origin.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Moreno-Mayar |first1=J. Víctor |last2=Sousa da Mota |first2=Bárbara |last3=Higham |first3=Tom |last4=Klemm |first4=Signe |last5=Gorman Edmunds |first5=Moana |last6=Stenderup |first6=Jesper |last7=Iraeta-Orbegozo |first7=Miren |last8=Laborde |first8=Véronique |last9=Heyer |first9=Evelyne |last10=Torres Hochstetter |first10=Francisco |last11=Friess |first11=Martin |last12=Allentoft |first12=Morten E. |last13=Schroeder |first13=Hannes |last14=Delaneau |first14=Olivier |last15=Malaspinas |first15=Anna-Sapfo |date=September 11, 2024 |title=Ancient Rapanui genomes reveal resilience and pre-European contact with the Americas |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=633 |issue=8029 |pages=389–397 |doi=10.1038/s41586-024-07881-4 |pmid=39261618 |pmc=11390480 |bibcode=2024Natur.633..389M |issn=1476-4687}}</ref>

=== Plant genetics ===
The genetics of several plant species has also been used to support pre-Columbian contact via the Pacific. For example, there is a genetically distinct sub-population of coconuts on the western coast of South America. This has been suggested to be evidence of introduction by Austronesian seafarers.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Baudouin |first1=Luc |last2=Lebrun |first2=Patricia |date=2009-03-01 |title=Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) DNA studies support the hypothesis of an ancient Austronesian migration from Southeast Asia to America |url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s10722-008-9362-6 |journal=Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution |language=en |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=257–262 |doi=10.1007/s10722-008-9362-6 |bibcode=2009GRCEv..56..257B |s2cid=19529408 |issn=1573-5109|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

=== Sweet potato ===
{{see also|Sweet potato cultivation in Polynesia}}
[[File:Dispersion de la patate douce01.svg|thumb|right|alt=World map showing the spread of sweet potatoes|The spread of sweet potatoes. The red lines indicate the likely spread carried out by the Polynesians.]]
The [[sweet potato]], a food crop native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia by the time European explorers first reached the Pacific. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated to 1000 CE in the [[Cook Islands]]. Current thinking is that it was brought to central Polynesia c. 700 CE and spread across Polynesia from there.<ref>{{cite book |last=Van Tilburg |first=Jo Anne |year=1994 |title=Easter Island: Archaeology, Ecology and Culture |location=Washington DC |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Press}}</ref> It has been suggested that it was brought by Polynesians who had traveled across the Pacific to South America and back, or that South Americans brought it to Polynesia.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Langdon | first1 = Robert | year = 2001 | title = The Bamboo Raft as a Key to the Introduction of the Sweet Potato in Prehistoric Polynesia | journal = The Journal of Pacific History | volume = 36 | issue = 1| pages = 51–76| doi=10.1080/00223340123312}}</ref> It is also possible that the plant floated across the ocean after being discarded from the cargo of a boat.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Modeling the prehistoric arrival of the sweet potato in Polynesia | doi=10.1016/j.jas.2007.04.004 | volume=35|issue=2 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Science|pages=355–367|year=2008 |last1=Montenegro |first1=Álvaro |last2=Avis |first2=Chris |last3=Weaver |first3=Andrew | bibcode=2008JArSc..35..355M }}</ref> According to the "tripartite hypothesis", [[phylogenetic]] analysis supports at least two separate introductions of sweet potatoes from South America into Polynesia, including one before and one after European contact.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Roullier |first1=Caroline |first2= Laure |last2=Benoit |first3=Doyle B. |last3=McKey |first4=Vincent |last4=Lebot|title=Historical collections reveal patterns of diffusion of sweet potato in Oceania obscured by modern plant movements and recombination|journal=PNAS|volume=110|issue=6|date=January 22, 2013|doi=10.1073/pnas.1211049110|pmid=23341603|pages=2205–2210|bibcode=2013PNAS..110.2205R|pmc=3568323|doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[File:Thames Kumara n.jpg|thumb|right|Sweet potatoes for sale, Thames, New Zealand. The word "kumara" has entered English from [[Māori language|Māori]] and is widely used, especially in Polynesia.]]

Dutch linguists and specialists in [[Indigenous languages of the Americas|Amerindian languages]] [[Willem Adelaar]] and Pieter Muysken have suggested that the word for sweet potato is shared by Polynesian languages and languages of South America. [[Proto-Polynesian language|Proto-Polynesian]] *''kumala''<ref name=POLLEX-kumala>{{cite web|last1=Greenhill|first1=Simon J.|last2=Clark|first2=Ross|last3=Biggs|first3=Bruce|title=Entries for KUMALA.1 [LO] Sweet Potato (Ipomoea)|url=http://pollex.org.nz/entry/kumala1|work=POLLEX-Online: The Polynesian Lexicon Project Online|access-date=July 16, 2013|year=2010|url-status=dead|archive-date=8 February 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130208114223/http://pollex.org.nz/entry/kumala1/}}</ref> (compare [[Rapa Nui language|Easter Island]] {{lang|rap|kumara}}, [[Hawaiian language|Hawaiian]] {{lang|haw|{{okina}}uala}},<!--this is correct. an [m] was not dropped.--> [[Māori language|Māori]] {{lang|mi|kūmara}}; even though a proto-form is reconstructed above, apparent [[cognate]]s outside [[Eastern Polynesian languages|Eastern Polynesian]] are either definitely [[Loanword|borrowed]] from Eastern Polynesian languages or irregular, calling Proto-Polynesian status and age into question) may be connected with dialectal [[Quechua language|Quechua]] and [[Aymara language|Aymara]] ''k'umar ~ k'umara''; most Quechua dialects actually use ''apichu'' instead, but ''comal'' was attested at extinct [[Cañari language]] on the coast of what is now Ecuador in 1582.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sheppard |first1=Peter |date=April 2006 |title=Review of 'The Sweet Potato in Oceania: A Reappraisal' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40387337 |journal=Archaeology in Oceania |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=46–48 |doi=10.1002/j.1834-4453.2006.tb00608.x |jstor=40387337 |access-date=19 March 2024|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Adelaar and Muysken assert that the similarity in the word for sweet potato "constitutes near proof of incidental contact between inhabitants of the Andean region and the South Pacific." The authors argue that the presence of the word for sweet potato suggests sporadic contact between Polynesia and South America, but not necessarily migrations.<ref name="Adelaar2004">{{cite book|first1=Willem F. H. |last1=Adelaar|first2=Pieter C. |last2=Muysekn|title=The Languages of the Andes|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UiwaUY6KsY8C&pg=PA41|year= 2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-45112-3|page=41|chapter=Genetic relations of South American Indian languages}}</ref>

=== ''Ageratum conyzoides'' ===
''[[Ageratum conyzoides]]'', also known as billygoat-weed, chick weed, goatweed, or whiteweed, is native to the tropical Americas, and was found in Hawaii by [[William Hillebrand]] in 1888 who considered it to have grown there before [[James Cook|Captain Cook's]] arrival in 1778. A legitimate native name (''meie parari'' or ''mei rore'') and established native medicinal usage and use as a scent and in [[Lei (garland)|leis]] have been offered as support for the pre-Cookian age.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hillebrand |first1=William |title=Flora of the Hawaiian Islands |url=https://archive.org/details/mobot31753003034128 |date=1888 |publisher=Williams and Norgate |location=London}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brown |first1=Forest B. H. |title=Flora of Southeastern Polynesia, III. Dicotyledons |journal=Bishop Museum Bulletin, Honolulu |date=1935 |volume=130}}</ref>

=== Turmeric ===
[[Turmeric]] (''Curcuma longa'') originated in Asia, and there is linguistic and circumstantial evidence of the spread and use of turmeric by the Austronesian peoples into Oceania and Madagascar. Günter Tessmann in 1930 (300 years after European contact) reported that a species of ''Curcuma'' was grown by the [[Amahuaca]] tribe to the east of the Upper Ucayali River in Peru and was a dye-plant used for the painting of the body, with the nearby [[Witoto people]] using it as face paint in their ceremonial dances.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tessman |first1=Günter |title=Die Indianer Nordost-Perus |date=1930 |publisher=Friederichsen, de Gruyter, & Co. |location=Hamburg |pages=161, 324}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Tessman |first1=Günter|title=Menschen ohne Gott : ein Besuch bei den Indianern des Ucayali |date=1928 |publisher=Strecker und Schroder |location=Stuttgart}}</ref> David Sopher noted in 1950 that "the evidence for a pre-European, transpacific introduction of the plant by man seems very strong indeed".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sopher |first1=David E. |title=Turmeric in the Color Symbolism of Southern Asia and the Pacific Islands. |date=1950 |publisher=M.A. Thesis, University of California, Berkeley |location=Berkeley California |page=88}}</ref>

=== Physical anthropology ===
[[File:Isla Mocha 1.jpg|right|thumb|[[Mocha Island]] off the coast of the [[Arauco Peninsula]], Chile]]
In December 2007, several human skulls were found in a museum in [[Concepción, Chile]]. These skulls originated on [[Mocha Island]], an island which is located just off the coast of Chile on the Pacific Ocean, formerly inhabited by the Mapuche. [[craniometry|Craniometric]] analysis of the skulls, according to [[Lisa Matisoo-Smith]] of the [[University of Otago]] and [[José Miguel Ramírez Aliaga]] of the [[Universidad de Valparaíso]], suggests that the skulls have "[[Polynesian people|Polynesian]] features"&nbsp;– such as a pentagonal shape when they are viewed from behind, and rocker jaws.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Lawler |first1= Andrew |title=Beyond ''Kon-Tiki'': Did Polynesians Sail to South America?|journal=Science|date= June 11, 2010 |pages= 1344–1347 | pmid=20538927 | doi=10.1126/science.328.5984.1344 | volume=328 | issue=5984 |bibcode= 2010Sci...328.1344L }}</ref>

Rocker jaws have also been found at an excavation led José Miguel Ramírez in the coastal locality of [[Tunquén]], Central Chile.<ref name=playaanchatunq>{{Cite news |title=De la Polinesia a Tunquén: Evidencias de mestizaje con población local |url=http://www.upla.cl/noticias/2017/01/19/de-la-polinesia-a-tunquen-evidencias-de-mestizaje-con-poblacion-local/ |access-date=2022-05-02 |work=Playa Ancha Noticias |publisher=[[University of Playa Ancha]] |language=Spanish|archive-date=November 1, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181101072100/http://www.upla.cl/noticias/2017/01/19/de-la-polinesia-a-tunquen-evidencias-de-mestizaje-con-poblacion-local/}}</ref> The site of excavation corresponds to an area with pre-Hispanic tombs and [[Midden#Shells|shell middens]] ({{langx|es|conchal}}).<ref name=playaanchatunq/> A global review of rocker jaws among different populations show that while rocker jaws are not unique to Polynesians "[t]he rarity of rocker jaw in South American natives supports" the view of "Polynesian voyagers who ventured to the west coast of South America".<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Rocker jaw: global context for a Polynesian characteristic |journal=[[The Anatomical Record]] |last1=Scott |first1=Richard |volume=304 |pages=1776–1791 |last2=Stull |first2=Kyra E. |issue=8 |year=2021 |last3=Sbei |first3=Andrea N. |last4=McKinney |first4=Mason |last5=Scarlett R. |first5=Boling |last6=Irish |first6=Joal D.|doi=10.1002/ar.24566 |pmid=33159494 |s2cid=226276081 |url=https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/14313/8/Rocker%20jaw%20global%20context%20for%20a%20Polynesian%20characteristic.pdf }}</ref>

=== Disputed evidence ===
==== Araucanian chickens ====
In 2007, evidence emerged which suggested the possibility of pre-Columbian contact between the [[Mapuche|Mapuche people]] (Araucanians) of south-central Chile and Polynesians. Bones of [[Araucana|Araucana chickens]] found at [[El Arenal, Chile|El Arenal]] site in the [[Araucanía (historic region)|Arauco Peninsula]], an area inhabited by Mapuche, support a pre-Columbian introduction of [[landrace]]s from the South Pacific islands to South America.<ref>{{Cite journal
| last1 = Storey | first1 = A. A.
| last2 = Ramirez | first2 = J. M.
| last3 = Quiroz | first3 = D.
| last4 = Burley | first4 = D. V.
| last5 = Addison | first5 = D. J.
| last6 = Walter | first6 = R.
| last7 = Anderson | first7 = A. J.
| last8 = Hunt | first8 = T. L.
| last9 = Athens | first9 = J. S.
| last10 = Huynen
| doi = 10.1073/pnas.0703993104 | first10 = L.
| last11 = Matisoo-Smith | first11 = E. A.
| title = Radiocarbon and DNA evidence for a pre-Columbian introduction of Polynesian chickens to Chile
| journal = [[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences]]
| volume = 104
| issue = 25
| pages = 10335–10339
| year = 2007
| pmid = 17556540
| pmc =1965514
| bibcode = 2007PNAS..10410335S
| doi-access = free
}}</ref> The bones found in Chile were radiocarbon-dated to between 1304 and 1424, before the arrival of the Spanish. Chicken DNA sequences were matched to those of chickens in [[American Samoa]] and [[Tonga]], and found to be dissimilar to those of European chickens.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.livescience.com/history/070604_polynesian_chicken.html |title= Chicken Bones Suggest Polynesians Found Americas Before Columbus |journal=Live Science |date=June 4, 2007 |access-date=June 5, 2007 |last=Whipps |first=Heather }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://archive.archaeology.org/0801/topten/chicken.html|title=Top 10 Discoveries of 2007 – Polynesian Chickens in Chile – Archaeology Magazine Archive|work=archaeology.org}}</ref>

However, this finding was challenged by a 2008 study which questioned its methodology and concluded that its conclusion is flawed, although the theory it posits may still be possible.<ref>{{Cite journal
| last1 = Gongora | first1 = J.
| last2 = Rawlence | first2 = N. J.
| last3 = Mobegi | first3 = V. A.
| last4 = Jianlin | first4 = H.
| last5 = Alcalde | first5 = J. A.
| last6 = Matus | first6 = J. T.
| last7 = Hanotte | first7 = O.
| last8 = Moran | first8 = C.
| last9 = Austin | first9 = J. J.
| last10 = Ulm | first10 = S.
| last11 = Anderson | first11 = A. J.
| last12 = Larson | first12 = G.
| last13 = Cooper | first13 = A.
| doi = 10.1073/pnas.0801991105
| title = Indo-European and Asian origins for Chilean and Pacific chickens revealed by mtDNA
| journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
| volume = 105
| issue = 30
| pages = 10308–10313
| year = 2008
| pmid = 18663216
| pmc =2492461
| bibcode = 2008PNAS..10510308G
| doi-access = free
}}</ref> Another study in 2014 reinforced that dismissal, and posited the crucial flaw in the initial research: "The analysis of ancient and modern specimens reveals a unique Polynesian genetic signature" and that "a previously reported connection between pre-European South America and Polynesian chickens most likely resulted from contamination with modern DNA, and that this issue is likely to confound ancient DNA studies involving haplogroup E chicken sequences."<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Thomson|first1=Vicki A|first2=Ophélie |last2=Lebrasseur |first3=Jeremy J. |last3=Austin |first4=Terry L. |last4=Hunt |first5=David A. |last5=Burney |first6=Tim |last6=Denham |first7=Nicolas J. |last7=Rawlence |first8=Jamie R. |last8=Wood |first9=Jaime |last9=Gongor |first10=Linus Girdland |last10=Flink |first11=Anna |last11=Linderholm |first12=Keith |last12=Dobney |first13=Greger |last13=Larson |first14=Alan |last14=Cooper |title=Using ancient DNA to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens across the Pacific |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|date=April 1, 2014 |volume=111 |issue=13 |pages=4826–4831 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1320412111 |pmid=24639505 |pmc=3977275 |bibcode=2014PNAS..111.4826T|doi-access=free}}</ref>

However, in a 2013 study, the original authors extended and elaborated their findings, concluding:<ref>{{cite journal |title=Polynesian Chickens in the New World: a detailed application of a commensal approach|journal=[[Archaeology in Oceania]] |year=2013 |volume=48 |issue=2 |pages=101–119 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261656806 |doi=10.1002/arco.5007 |last1=Storey |first1=Alice A. |last2=Quiroz |first2=Daniel |last3=Beavan |first3=Nancy |last4=Matisoo-Smith |first4=Elizabeth }}</ref> 
{{blockquote|text=
This comprehensive approach demonstrates that the examination of modern chicken DNA sequences does not contribute to our understanding of the origins of Chile's earliest chickens. Interpretations based on poorly sourced and documented modern chicken populations, divorced from the archeological and historical evidence, do not withstand scrutiny. Instead, this expanded account will confirm the pre-Columbian age of the El Arenal remains and lend support to our original hypothesis that their appearance in South America is most likely due to Polynesian contact with the Americas in prehistory.
}}

A 2019 study of South American chickens "revealed an unknown genetic component that is mostly present in the Easter Island population that is also present in local chicken populations from the South American Pacific fringe".<ref name=gallinas2019>{{Cite journal |title=The Local South American Chicken Populations Are a Melting-Pot of Genomic Diversity |journal=[[Frontiers in Genetics]] |last1=Luzuriaga-Neira |first1=Agusto |last2=Pérez-Pardal |first2=Lucía |doi=10.3389/fgene.2019.01172 |year=2019 |last3=O’Rourke |first3=Sean M. |last4=Villacís-Rivas |first4=Gustavo |last5=Cueva-Castillo |first5=Freddy |last6=Escudero-Sánchez |first6=Galo |last7=Aguirre-Pabón |first7=Juan Carlos |last8=Ulloa-Núñez |first8=Amarilis |last9=Rubilar-Quezada |first9=Makarena |last10=Vallinoto |first10=Marcelo |last11=Miller |first11=Michael R.|last12=Beja-Pereira |first12=Albano|volume=10 |page=1172 |pmid=31803242 |pmc=6877731 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The Easter Island chicken's "genetic proximity with the SA continental gamefowl can be explained by the fact that both populations were not crossed with cosmopolitan breeds and therefore remain closer to the ancestral population that originated them. "<ref name=gallinas2019/> The genetic proximity might also "be indicative of a common origin of these two populations".<ref name=gallinas2019/>

==== California canoes ====
[[File:Chumash Tomol 'Elye'wun paddlers, CINMS.jpg|thumb|right|''{{'}}Elye'wun'', a reconstructed Chumash [[tomol]]]]
Researchers including Kathryn Klar and Terry Jones have proposed a theory of contact between [[Native Hawaiians|Hawaiians]] and the [[Chumash people]] of [[Southern California]] between 400 and 800 CE. The sewn-plank canoes crafted by the Chumash and neighboring [[Tongva people|Tongva]] are unique among the indigenous peoples of North America, but similar in design to larger canoes used by Polynesians and Melanesians for deep-sea voyages. ''[[Tomol|Tomolo'o]]'', the [[Chumash language|Chumash]] word for such a craft, may derive from {{lang|haw|tumula{{okina}}au/kumula{{okina}}au}}, the Hawaiian term for the logs from which shipwrights carve planks to be sewn into canoes.<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 June 2005 |title=Did ancient Polynesians visit California? Maybe so. |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/20/MNG9GDBBLG1.DTL |access-date=31 January 2022 |publisher=San Francisco Chronicle}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Jones |first1=Terry L. |last2=Kathryn A. Klar |date=June 3, 2005 |title=Diffusionism Reconsidered: Linguistic and Archaeological Evidence for Prehistoric Polynesian Contact with Southern California |url=http://www.saa.org/publications/AmAntiq/70-3/Jones.html |url-status=dead |journal=American Antiquity |volume=70 |issue=3 |pages=457–484 |doi=10.2307/40035309 |jstor=40035309 |s2cid=161301055 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927085144/http://www.saa.org/Publications/AmAntiq/70-3/Jones.html |archive-date=September 27, 2006 |access-date=March 6, 2008|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=James D. |last2=Cecilia Garcia |last3=Eric J. Lien |date=January 23, 2008 |title=A Comparison of Chinese and American Indian (Chumash) Medicine |journal=Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=219–25 |doi=10.1093/ecam/nem188 |pmc=2862936 |pmid=18955312 |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>[http://cla.calpoly.edu/~tljones/ Terry Jones's homepage] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511194439/http://cla.calpoly.edu/~tljones/ |date=May 11, 2008 }}, California Polytechnic State University.</ref> The analogous [[Tongva language|Tongva]] term, {{lang|xgf|tii'at}}, is unrelated. If it occurred, this contact left no genetic legacy in California or Hawaii. This theory has attracted limited media attention within California, but most archaeologists of the Tongva and Chumash cultures reject it on the grounds that the independent development of the sewn-plank canoe over several centuries is well-represented in the material record.<ref>For the argument against the Chumash—Polynesian contact theory, see {{Cite journal |last=Arnold |first=J.E. |year=2007 |title=Credit Where Credit is Due: The History of the Chumash Oceangoing Plank Canoe |journal=American Antiquity |volume=72 |issue=2 |pages=196–209 |doi=10.2307/40035811 |jstor=40035811 |s2cid=145274737}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The Origins of a Pacific Coast Chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands |publisher=University of Utah Press |year=2001 |editor-last=Arnold |editor-first=Jeanne E. |location=Salt Lake City}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gamble |first=Lynn H. |year=2002 |title=Archaeological Evidence for the Origin of the Plank Canoe in North America |journal=American Antiquity |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=301–315 |doi=10.2307/2694568 |jstor=2694568 |s2cid=163616908}}</ref>

==== Clava hand-club and words for axes ====
Archaeological artefacts known as [[clava hand-club]]s found in [[Araucanía (historic region)|Araucanía]] and nearby areas of Argentina have a strong resemblance to the [[Wahaika|mere okewa]] found in [[New Zealand]].<ref name=mostnyclava/> The clava hand-clubs are also mentioned in the Spanish chronicles dating to the [[Conquest of Chile]].<ref name=mostnyclava/> According to [[Grete Mostny]], clava hand-clubs "appear to have arrived to the west coast of South America from the Pacific".<ref name=mostnyclava>{{Cite book |title=Prehistoria de Chile |last=Mostny |first=Grete |publisher=[[Editorial Universitaria]] |year=1983 |edition=6th |location=Santiago de Chile |pages=146–148 |language=Spanish |chapter=Período agroalfarero |author-link=Grete Mostny |orig-date=1981}}</ref> Polynesian clubs from [[Chatham Islands]] are reportedly the most similar to those of Chile.<ref name=Ramirez2010/> The clava hand-club is one of various Polynesian-like Mapuche artifacts known.<ref name=Ramirez2010>{{Cite journal |title=The Polynesian-Mapuche connection: Soft and Hard Evidence and New Ideas |journal=Rapa Nui Journal |last=Ramírez-Aliaga |first=José-Miguel |year=2010 |volume=24 |pages=29–33 |issue=1}}</ref>

Possible linguistic evidence for Austronesian-American contact is found in words for axes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Emory |first=Kenneth P. |date=1942 |title=OCEANIAN INFLUENCE ON AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURE. Nordenskiold's View |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20702896 |journal=The Journal of the Polynesian Society |volume=51 |issue=2 |pages=126–135 |jstor=20702896 |issn=0032-4000}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Neiburger |first=E. J. |date=2020 |title=Did Polynesians Visit the Prehistoric Americas? |url=https://web.s.ebscohost.com/abstract?direct=true&profile=ehost&scope=site&authtype=crawler&jrnl=00089559&AN=141360314&h=weBRg0%2bDkyfI2tGq8bH0tUku84ud4gLOCqJT9G%2bryqM1%2fqp%2br8%2byAaPJtYz2ae7%2fy1%2bBz1D%2bzRX15N%2fJgxhcXw%3d%3d&crl=c&resultNs=AdminWebAuth&resultLocal=ErrCrlNotAuth&crlhashurl=login.aspx%3fdirect%3dtrue%26profile%3dehost%26scope%3dsite%26authtype%3dcrawler%26jrnl%3d00089559%26AN%3d141360314 |journal=Central States Archaeological Journal |volume=67 |issue=1 |pages=36–43}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Terry L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ncWCVCaWMuAC&q=toki+adze+chief+colombia |title=Polynesians in America: Pre-Columbian Contacts with the New World |last2=Storey |first2=Alice A. |last3=Matisoo-Smith |first3=Elizabeth A. |last4=Ramírez-Aliaga |first4=José Miguel |date=2011-01-16 |publisher=Rowman Altamira |isbn=978-0-7591-2006-8 |pages=103–106 |language=en}}</ref> On Easter Island, the word for a stone axe is ''[[Wiktionary:toki|toki]]''; among the New Zealand Maori, the word ''toki'' denotes an [[adze]]. Similar words are found in the Americas: In the [[Mapuche language]] of [[Chile]] and [[Argentina]], the word for a stone axe is ''toki''; and further afield in [[Colombia]], the [[Yurumanguí language|Yurumanguí]] word for an axe is ''totoki''.<ref name="Adelaar2004"/> 

Stone adzes often had ceremonial value and were worn by Maori chiefs.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Lillios |first=Katina T. |date=1999-09-01 |title=Objects of Memory: The Ethnography and Archaeology of Heirlooms |url=https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021999319447 |journal=Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory |language=en |volume=6 |issue=3 |pages=235–262 |doi=10.1023/A:1021999319447 |issn=1573-7764|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The Mapuche word ''toki'' may also mean "chief" and thus may be related to the [[Cuzco Quechua language|Quechua]] word ''toqe'' ("militia chief") and the [[Aymara language|Aymara]] word ''toqueni'' ("person of great judgement").<ref name="Moulianetal2015">{{cite journal |last1=Moulian |first1=Rodrígo |last2=Catrileo |first2=María|last3=Landeo |first3=Pablo|author-link2=María Catrileo |date=2015 |title=Afines quechua en el vocabulario mapuche de Luis de Valdivia |trans-title=Akins Quechua words in the Mapuche vocabulary of Luis de Valdivia |url=https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0718-48832015000200004&script=sci_arttext|journal=[[Revista de lingüística teórica y aplicada]] |volume=53 |issue=2 |pages=73–96 |doi=10.4067/S0718-48832015000200004 |access-date=January 13, 2019|language=es|doi-access=free }}</ref> In the view of Moulian et al. (2015) the possible South American links complicate matters regarding the meaning of the word ''toki'' because they are suggestive of Polynesian contact.<ref name="Moulianetal2015" />

== Population Y ==
A 2015 study found some Indigenous American groups, particularly those in the Amazon, carry a small admixture (around 1-2% of the genome) related to groups in Southeast Asia and Australasia like [[Andamanese peoples]], [[Indigenous Australians]], [[Indigenous people of New Guinea|Papuans]] and the [[Lumad#Mamanwa|Mamanwa]] people of the Philippines. This ancestry component has been dubbed "Population Y". Some authors have suggested that this reflects a trans-Pacific migration, but scholars have suggested that this more likely reflects genetic heterogeneity in the initial founding population of Native Americans present in [[Beringia]], only some of which carried the "Population Y" ancestry. It has also been noted that a 40,000 year old individual from [[Tianyuan Cave]] in northern China also carries this ancestry, making it more likely that this ancestry was the result of contact in Eurasia, prior to the arrival of the ancestors of Native Americans in Beringia.<ref name=":1">Jennifer A. Raff [http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?m=16146&i=634462&view=articleBrowser&article_id=3531892&ver=html5 "Y Not a Pacific Migration? Misunderstandings of Genetics in Service of Pseudoscience]" ''The SAA Archaeological Record'' NOVEMBER 2019 - Volume 19 Number 5</ref>

== Claims of East Asian contact ==

=== Claims of contact with Ecuador ===
A 2013 genetic study suggested the possibility of contact between [[Ecuador]] and [[East Asia]], that would have happened no earlier than 6,000 years ago (4000 BC) via either a trans-oceanic or a late-stage coastal migration that did not leave genetic imprints in North America.<ref name=decoupling>{{Cite journal |doi = 10.1371/journal.pgen.1003460|pmid = 23593040|pmc = 3623769|title = Continent-Wide Decoupling of Y-Chromosomal Genetic Variation from Language and Geography in Native South Americans|journal = PLOS Genetics|volume = 9|issue = 4|pages = e1003460|year = 2013|last1 = Roewer|first1 = Lutz|last2 = Nothnagel|first2 = Michael|last3 = Gusmão|first3 = Leonor|last4 = Gomes|first4 = Veronica|last5 = González|first5 = Miguel|last6 = Corach|first6 = Daniel|last7 = Sala|first7 = Andrea|last8 = Alechine|first8 = Evguenia|last9 = Palha|first9 = Teresinha|last10 = Santos|first10 = Ney|last11 = Ribeiro-Dos-Santos|first11 = Andrea|last12 = Geppert|first12 = Maria|last13 = Willuweit|first13 = Sascha|last14 = Nagy|first14 = Marion|last15 = Zweynert|first15 = Sarah|last16 = Baeta|first16 = Miriam|last17 = Núñez|first17 = Carolina|last18 = Martínez-Jarreta|first18 = Begoña|last19 = González-Andrade|first19 = Fabricio|last20 = Fagundes De Carvalho|first20 = Elizeu|last21 = Da Silva|first21 = Dayse Aparecida|last22 = Builes|first22 = Juan José|last23 = Turbón|first23 = Daniel|last24 = Lopez Parra|first24 = Ana Maria|last25 = Arroyo-Pardo|first25 = Eduardo|last26 = Toscanini|first26 = Ulises|last27 = Borjas|first27 = Lisbeth|last28 = Barletta|first28 = Claudia|last29 = Ewart|first29 = Elizabeth|last30 = Santos|first30 = Sidney|display-authors = 29 | doi-access=free }}</ref> Further research did not support this but was rather "a case of a rare founding lineage that has been lost elsewhere by drift."<ref name="Kivisild">{{cite journal |last1=Kivisild |first1=Toomas |title=The study of human Y chromosome variation through ancient DNA |journal=Human Genetics |date=1 May 2017 |volume=136 |issue=5 |pages=529–546 |doi=10.1007/s00439-017-1773-z |pmid=28260210 |pmc=5418327 |language=en |issn=1432-1203}}</ref>

=== Claims of Chinese contact ===
[[File:Olmec mask at Met.jpg|thumb|right|upright|A jade [[Olmecs|Olmec]] mask from [[Central America]]. Gordon Ekholm, an archaeologist and curator at the [[American Museum of Natural History]], suggested that the Olmec art style might have originated in [[Bronze Age]] China.<ref>Pool, p. 92, who cites Gordon Ekholm (1964) "Transpacific Contacts" in ''Prehistoric Man in the New World'' JD Jennings and E. Norbeck, eds., Chicago: University of Chicago, pp. 489–510.</ref>]]
Some researchers have argued that the [[Olmec]] civilization came into existence with the help of Chinese refugees, particularly at the end of the [[Shang dynasty]].<ref>This theory is mentioned in the history book [[The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community]] (1963) by [[William Hardy McNeill|William H. McNeill]]</ref> In 1975, [[Betty Meggers]] of the [[Smithsonian Institution]] argued that the Olmec civilization originated around 1200 BCE due to Shang Chinese influences.<ref>Meggers.</ref> In a 1996 book, Mike Xu, with the aid of Chen Hanping, claimed that [[celt (tool)|celts]] from [[La Venta]] bear Chinese characters.<ref>Xu, ''Origin of the Olmec civilization''.</ref><ref>[http://www.chinese.tcu.edu/www_chinese3_tcu_edu.htm Dr. Mike Xu's Transpacific website] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010802024552/http://www.chinese.tcu.edu/www_chinese3_tcu_edu.htm |date=August 2, 2001 }}, comparing Olmec and Chinese Shang period artifacts.</ref> These claims are unsupported by mainstream Mesoamerican researchers.<ref>David C. Grove (1976) "Olmec origins and transpacific diffusion: reply to Meggers" [https://www.academia.edu/1553330/Olmec_origins_and_transpacific_diffusion_reply_to_Meggers]</ref>

Other claims of early Chinese contact with North America have been made. In 1882, approximately 30 brass coins, perhaps strung together, were reportedly found in the area of the [[Cassiar Gold Rush]], apparently near [[Dease Creek]], an area which was dominated by Chinese gold miners. A contemporary account states:<ref>{{cite journal|last=Dean|first=James|journal=[[The American Naturalist]]|date=January 1884|pages=98–99|volume=18|issue=1|jstor=2450831|doi=10.1086/273578|title=Anthropology|doi-access=free}}</ref><blockquote>In the summer of 1882 a miner found on De Foe (Deorse?) creek, Cassiar district, Br. Columbia, thirty Chinese coins in the auriferous sand, twenty-five feet below the surface. They appeared to have been strung, but on taking them up the miner let them drop apart. The earth above and around them was as compact as any in the neighborhood. One of these coins I examined at the store of Chu Chong in Victoria. Neither in metal nor markings did it resemble the modern coins, but in its figures looked more like an Aztec calendar. So far as I can make out the markings, this is a Chinese chronological cycle of sixty years, invented by [[Yellow Emperor|Emperor Huungti]], 2637 BCE, and circulated in this form to make his people remember it.</blockquote>

Grant Keddie, curator of archeology at the [[Royal B.C. Museum]], identified these as good luck temple tokens which were minted in the 19th century. He believed that claims that these were very old made them notorious and he wrote that "The temple coins were shown to many people and different versions of stories pertaining to their discovery and age spread around the province to be put into print and changed frequently by many authors in the last 100 years."<ref name="Question">{{cite journal |last1=Keddie |first1=Grant |title=The Question of Asiatic Objects on the North Pacific Coast of North America: Historic or Prehistoric? |journal=Contributions to Human History |date=1990 |issue=3 |url=http://staff.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Asiatic-Objects.pdf |access-date=February 8, 2020 |publisher=Royal British Columbia Museum |issn=0832-8609}}</ref>

A group of Chinese Buddhist missionaries led by [[Hui Shen]] before 500 CE claimed to have visited a location called [[Fusang]]. Although Chinese mapmakers placed this territory on the Asian coast, others have suggested as early as the 1800s<ref>Anonymous (1892). "The Land of Fu-Sang,' ''Science'' 20:148; reprinted in [[William R. Corliss]], ed. (1978) ''Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts'', Glen Arm, Maryland: Sourcebook Project, {{ISBN|0-915554-03-8}} p. 767</ref> that Fusang might have been in North America, due to perceived similarities between portions of the California coast and Fusang as depicted by Asian sources.<ref>{{cite book |last=Feder |first=Kenneth L. |title=Frauds, Myths and Mysteries |edition=Third |publisher=Mayfield |year=1999 |pages=103–104 |isbn=978-0-7674-0459-4 }}</ref>

In his debunked [[Pseudohistory|pseudohistorical]] book ''1421: The Year China Discovered the World'', British author [[Gavin Menzies]] claimed that the [[Ming treasure voyages|treasure fleets]] of [[Ming dynasty|Ming]] admiral [[Zheng He]] arrived in America in 1421.<ref name="GM">[[Gavin Menzies|Menzies, Gavin]]. ''[[1421: The Year China Discovered the World]]'' (Transworld Publishers, 2003).</ref> The consensus among professional historians is that Zheng He only reached the eastern coast of Africa, and they dismiss Menzies's claims as entirely without evidence.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://1421exposed.com/|title=The 1421 myth exposed|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180318191709/http://1421exposed.com/|archive-date=March 18, 2018|url-status=dead|access-date=March 22, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Zheng He in the Americas and Other Unlikely Tales of Exploration and Discovery |url=http://www.csicop.org/sb/2004-09/tales.html |access-date=March 22, 2007 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070317044419/http://www.csicop.org/sb/2004-09/tales.html |archive-date = March 17, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com:80/arb/article.php?article=201|title=1421: The Year China Discovered the World by Gavin Menzies|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030705160338/http://www.asianreviewofbooks.com/arb/article.php?article=201|archive-date=July 5, 2003|url-status=dead|access-date=March 22, 2007}}</ref><ref name="finlay2004">{{cite journal |last=Finlay |first=Robert |url=http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/1421.pdf |title=How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America |journal=[[Journal of World History]] |volume=15 |issue=2 |year=2004 |doi=10.1353/jwh.2004.0018 |pages=229–242 |s2cid=144478854 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109021554/http://www.michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/1421.pdf |archive-date=November 9, 2013 }}</ref>

In 1973 and 1975, [[doughnut]]-shaped stones that resembled stone anchors which were used by Chinese fishermen were discovered off the coast of California. These stones (sometimes called the ''Palos Verdes stones'') were initially thought to be up to 1,500 years old and therefore, they were thought to be proof of pre-Columbian contact by Chinese sailors. Later geological investigations showed that they were made of a local rock which is known as [[Monterey Formation|Monterey shale]], and it is currently believed that they were used by Chinese settlers who fished off the coast during the 19th century.<ref>[[Kenneth L. Feder|Feder, Kenneth L.]] (2010). ''Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum''. Westport, CN: Greenwood. p. 209. {{ISBN|978-0-313-37919-2}}</ref>

=== Claims of Japanese contact ===
[[Image:Otokichi.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Otokichi]], a Japanese castaway in America in 1834, depicted here in 1849]]
Archaeologist Emilio Estrada and co-workers wrote that pottery which was associated with the [[Valdivia culture]] of coastal Ecuador and dated to 3000–1500 BCE exhibited similarities to pottery which was produced during the [[Jōmon period]] in Japan, arguing that contact between the two cultures might explain the similarities.<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 17782632 | doi=10.1126/science.135.3501.371 | volume=135 | issue=3501 | title=Possible Transpacific Contact on the Coast of Ecuador | journal=Science | pages=371–2 | last1 = Estrada | first1 = E | last2 = Meggers | first2 = BJ | last3 = Evans | first3 = C| year=1962 |author-link2=Betty Meggers | bibcode=1962Sci...135..371E | s2cid=33126483 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | title=A Transpacific Contact in 3000BC | author1=Evans, Clifford | author2= Meggers, Betty | journal=Scientific American |date=January 1966 | volume=214 | issue=1 | pages=28| doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0166-28 | bibcode=1966SciAm.214a..28M }}</ref> Chronological and other problems have led most archaeologists to dismiss this idea as implausible.<ref>Valdivia, Jomon Fishermen, and the Nature of the North Pacific: Some Nautical Problems with Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) Transoceanic Contact Thesis Gordon F. McEwan, D. Bruce Dickson American Antiquity, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July 1978), pp. 362–371.</ref><ref>''Prehistory of the Americas'' By Stuart J. Fiedel pp 188–189.</ref> The suggestion has been made that the resemblances (which are not complete) are simply due to the limited number of designs possible when incising clay.

Alaskan anthropologist Nancy Yaw Davis claims that the [[Zuni people]] of [[New Mexico]] exhibit linguistic and cultural similarities to the Japanese.<ref name="Zuni">Davis, Nancy Yaw (200). ''The Zuni Enigma''. W. W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|978-0-393-32230-9}}</ref> The [[Zuni language]] is a [[language isolate|linguistic isolate]], and Davis contends that the culture appears to differ from that of the surrounding natives in terms of blood type, [[endemic disease]], and religion. Davis speculates that [[Buddhist]] priests or restless peasants from Japan may have crossed the Pacific in the 13th century, traveled to the [[American Southwest]], and influenced Zuni society.<ref name="Zuni" />

In the 1890s, lawyer and politician [[James Wickersham]]<ref>Wickersham, James (1892). "Origin of the Indians--The Polynesian Route." ''American Antiquarian'', 16:323-335, partly reprinted in [[William R. Corliss]], ed. (1978) ''Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts'', Glen Arm, Maryland: Sourcebook Project, {{ISBN|0-915554-03-8}} pp. 705–709</ref> argued that pre-Columbian contact between Japanese sailors and Native Americans was highly probable, given that from the early 17th century to the mid-19th century several dozen Japanese ships are known to have been carried from Asia to North America along the powerful [[Kuroshio Current]]s. Japanese ships landed at places between the [[Aleutian Islands]] in the north and Mexico in the south, carrying a total of 293 people in the 23 cases where head-counts were given in historical records. In most cases, the Japanese sailors gradually made their way home on merchant vessels. In 1834, a dismasted, rudderless Japanese ship was wrecked near [[Cape Flattery]] in the [[Pacific Northwest]]. Three survivors of the ship were enslaved by [[Makah people|Makahs]] for a period before being rescued by members of the [[Hudson's Bay Company]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historylink.org/File/9065|title=Japanese Castaways of 1834: The Three Kichis |website=www.historylink.org|access-date=January 30, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://kuow.org/post/japanese-retrace-path-history-making-castaways-180-years-later|title=Japanese Retrace Path Of History-Making Castaways, 180 Years Later|last=Banse|first=Tom|access-date=January 30, 2018|language=en}}</ref> Another Japanese ship went ashore in about 1850 near the mouth of the [[Columbia River]], Wickersham writes, and the sailors were assimilated into the local Native American population. While admitting there is no definitive proof of pre-Columbian contact between Japanese and North Americans, Wickersham thought it implausible that such contacts as outlined above would have started only after Europeans arrived in North America and began documenting them.

== Claims of Indian contact ==
[[File:Sculptures at the Chennakesava Temple, Somanathapura, Mysuru, Karnataka, India (2002)0821.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Chennakesava Temple, Somanathapura|Somnathpur]] figures at the sides hold maize-like objects in their left hands]]
In 1879, [[Alexander Cunningham]] wrote a description of the carvings on the [[Stupa]] of [[Bharhut]] in central India, dating from c. 200 BCE, among which he noted what appeared to be a depiction of a custard-apple (''[[Annona squamosa]]'').<ref>{{cite book|title = The Stupa of Bharhut| author=Cunningham, Alexander| year=1879| publisher=W.H.Allen| place=London|url=https://archive.org/stream/stpabharhutabud00offigoog#page/n58/mode/2up/| page=47}}</ref> Cunningham was not initially aware that this plant, indigenous to the New World tropics, was introduced to India after [[Vasco da Gama]]'s discovery of the sea route in 1498, and the problem was pointed out to him. A 2009 study claimed to have found carbonized remains that date to 2000 BCE and appear to be those of custard-apple seeds.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=Radiocarbon| volume=51| issue=3| year=2009| pages=923–930| title=Possible evidence of pre-Columbian transoceanic voyages based on conventional LSC and AMS 14C dating of associated charcoal and a carbonized seed of custard apple (''Annona squamosa'' L.)| author1=Pokharia, Anil Kumar | author2=Sekar, B. | author3= Pal, Jagannath| author4= Srivastava, Alka| doi=10.1017/S0033822200033993| doi-access=free| bibcode=2009Radcb..51..923K}}</ref>

[[File:Smith Copan elephant.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Copán stela B was claimed by Smith as representing elephants]]
[[Grafton Elliot Smith]] claimed that certain motifs present in the carvings on the Mayan stelae at [[Copán]] represented the [[Asian elephant]], and wrote a book on the topic entitled ''Elephants and Ethnologists'' in 1924. Contemporary archaeologists suggested that the depictions were almost certainly based on the (indigenous) [[Baird's tapir|tapir]], with the result that Smith's suggestions have generally been dismissed by subsequent research.<ref>{{cite journal|title= Elephants and Maya Art|author=Yetts, W. Perceval| journal=The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs| volume= 45| issue= 261| year= 1924| pages=262–265, 268–269| jstor=862358 }}</ref>

Some objects depicted in carvings from [[Karnataka]], dating from the 12th century, that resemble ears of maize (''[[Zea mays]]''—a crop native to the New World), were interpreted by Carl Johannessen in 1989 as evidence of pre-Columbian contact.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Economic Botany| year= 1989| volume=43| issue=2| pages= 164–180| title= Maize ears sculptured in 12th and 13th century A.D. India as indicators of pre-columbian diffusion| author1=Johannessen, Carl L. | author2=Parker, Anne Z.| doi=10.1007/bf02859857| bibcode= 1989EcBot..43..164J| s2cid= 27633077}}</ref> These suggestions were dismissed by multiple Indian researchers based on several lines of evidence. The object has been claimed by some to instead represent a "Muktaphala", an imaginary fruit bedecked with pearls.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=Economic Botany| year=1993| volume=47| issue=2| pages=202–205 | title= Maize ears not sculpted in 13th century Somnathpur temple in India| author1=Payak, M.M.| author2=Sachan, J.K.S| doi=10.1007/BF02862023| bibcode=1993EcBot..47..202P| s2cid=21225997}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal| author1=Veena, T.| author2=Sigamani, N.| title=Do objects in friezes of Somnathpur temple (1286 AD) in South India represent maize ears?| pages=395–397| journal=Current Science| volume=61| issue=6| year=1991|url=http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Downloads/article_id_061_06_0395_0397_0.pdf}}</ref>

== Claims of African and West Asian contact ==
=== Claims of African contact ===
{{See also|Olmec alternative origin speculations}}
[[File:San Lorenzo Monument 4.jpg|right|thumb|Several [[Olmec colossal heads]] have features that some diffusionists link to African contact]]
Proposed claims for an African presence in [[Mesoamerica]] stem from attributes of the [[Olmec]] culture, the claimed transfer of African plants to the Americas,<ref>John L. Sorenson, Carl L. Johannessen, Scientific Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages, Sino-Platonic Papers, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, no.133, 2004</ref> and interpretations of European and Arabic historical accounts.

The Olmec culture existed in what is now southern Mexico from roughly 1200 BCE to 400 BCE. The idea that the Olmecs are related to Africans was first suggested by José Melgar, who discovered the first [[Olmec colossal heads|colossal head]] at Hueyapan (now [[Tres Zapotes]]) in 1862.<ref>Stirling, p. 2, who cites Melgar, Jose (1869) "Antigüedades mexicanas, notable escultura antigua", in ''Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística'', época 2, vol. 1, pp. 292–297, Mexico, as well as Melgar, Jose (1871) "Estudio sobre la antigüedad y el origen de la Cabeza Colosal de tipo etiópico que existe en Hueyapan del cantón de los Tuxtlas" in ''Boletín de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística'', época 2, vol. 3, pp. 104–109; Mexico.</ref> More recently, [[Ivan Van Sertima]] speculated an African influence on Mesoamerican culture in his book ''They Came Before Columbus'' (1976). His claims included the attribution of [[Mesoamerican pyramids]], calendar technology, [[mummification]], and mythology to the arrival of Africans by boat on currents running from Western Africa to the Americas. Heavily inspired by [[Leo Wiener]] (see below), Van Sertima suggested that the [[Aztec]] god [[Quetzalcoatl]] represented an African visitor. His conclusions have been severely criticized by mainstream academics and considered [[pseudoarchaeology]].<ref>"[http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/vansertima.pdf CA Forum on Anthropology in Public: Robbing Native Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101051651/http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/current/vansertima.pdf |date=November 1, 2020 }}", ''Current Anthropology'', Vol. 38, no. 3 (June 1997), 419–441.</ref>

[[Leo Wiener]]'s ''Africa and the Discovery of America'' suggests similarities between the [[Mandinka people]] of West Africa and native Mesoamerican religious symbols such as the winged serpent and the sun disk, or [[Quetzalcoatl]], and words that have [[Mandé]] roots and share similar meanings across both cultures, such as "kore", "gadwal", and "qubila" (in Arabic) or "kofila" (in Mandinka).<ref>Leo Wiener, ''Africa and the Discovery of America'' (Philadelphia: Inness and Sons, 1922), Vol. 3, p. 259.</ref><ref>Leo Wiener, "Africa and the Discovery of America", ''American Anthropologist'', New Series, Vol. 23, No. 1 (January–March 1921), pp. 83–94.</ref>

Malian sources describe what some consider to be visits to the New World by a fleet from the [[Mali Empire]] in 1311, led by [[Abu Bakr II]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1068950.stm|title=Africa's 'greatest explorer'|author=Joan Baxter |date=December 13, 2000 |work=[[BBC News]]|access-date=February 12, 2008}}</ref> According to the only known primary-source-based copy of Christopher Columbus's journal (transcribed by [[Bartolomé de las Casas]]), the purpose of [[Voyages of Christopher Columbus#Third voyage|Columbus's third voyage]] was to test both (1) the claims of King [[John II of Portugal]] that "canoes had been found which set out from the coast of Guinea [West Africa] and sailed to the west with merchandise" and (2) the claims of the native inhabitants of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola that "there had come to Española from the south and south-east, a black people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they call ''guanin'', of which he had sent samples to the Sovereigns to have them assayed, when it was found that of 32 parts, 18 were of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of copper".<ref>{{cite book|last=Morison|first=Samuel Eliot|title=Journals & Other Documents on the Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus|year=1963|publisher=The Heritage Press|location=New York|pages=262, 263}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Thacher|first=John Boyd|title=Christopher Columbus: his life, his work, his remains, as revealed by original printed and manuscript records, together with an essay on Peter Martyr of Anghera and Bartolomé De Las Casas, the first Historians of America|url=https://archive.org/details/christophercolum02thac|year=1903|publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons|location=New York|pages=379, 380}}</ref><ref name="LasCasas1906">{{cite book |last1=Las Casas |first1=Bartolomé de |editor1-last=Olson |editor1-first=Julius E. |editor2-last=Bourne |editor2-first=Edward Gaylord |title=The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503: The Voyages of the Northmen |year=1906 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |volume=1 |page=327 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P7EBAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA327 |language=en |chapter=Las Casas on the Third Voyage}}</ref>

Brazilian researcher [[Niede Guidon]], who led the excavations of the [[Pedra Furada]] sites, "said she believed that humans...might have come not overland from Asia but by boat from Africa", with the journey taking place 100,000 years ago, well before the accepted dates for the earliest human migrations that led to the prehistoric settlement of the Americas. [[Michael R. Waters]], a [[Geoarchaeology|geoarchaeologist]] at [[Texas A&M University]], noted the absence of genetic evidence in modern populations to support Guidon's claim.<ref>Romero, Simon (March 27, 2014). "[https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/americas/discoveries-challenge-beliefs-on-humans-arrival-in-the-americas.html?_r=0 Discoveries Challenge Beliefs on Humans' Arrival in the Americas]". ''The New York Times''. Retrieved December 4, 2014.</ref>

=== Claims of Arab contact ===
Early Chinese accounts of Muslim expeditions state that Muslim sailors reached a region called Mulan Pi ("magnolia skin") ({{zh|t=木蘭皮|p=Mùlán Pí|w=Mu-lan-p'i}}). Mulan Pi is mentioned in ''[[Lingwai Daida]]'' (1178) by [[Zhou Qufei]] and ''[[Zhu fan zhi|Zhufan Zhi]]'' (1225) by [[Chao Jukua]], together referred to as the "[[Sung Document]]". Mulan Pi is normally identified as Spain and Morocco of the [[Almoravid dynasty]] (Al-Murabitun),<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WVPFCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA135 |title=Making the New World Their Own: Chinese Encounters with Jesuit Science in the Age of Discovery|author= Qiong Zhang |publisher=Brill |pages=134–135 |isbn=978-9004284388 |date=June 5, 2015}}</ref> though some fringe theories hold that it is instead some part of the Americas.<ref name=Needham /><ref name=Li />

One supporter of the interpretation of Mulan Pi as part of the Americas was historian [[Hui-lin Li]] in 1961,<ref name=Needham>{{Cite book|title=The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China|volume=3|author=[[Joseph Needham]] & Colin A. Ronan|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1986|isbn=978-0-521-31560-9|pages=119–20}}</ref><ref name=Li>{{Cite journal|author=Hui-lin Li|title=Mu-lan-p'i: A Case for Pre-Columbian Transatlantic Travel by Arab Ships|journal=[[Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies]]|volume=23|year=1960–1961|pages=114–126|doi=10.2307/2718572|author2=Li, Hui-lin|jstor=2718572}}</ref> and while [[Joseph Needham]] was also open to the possibility, he doubted that Arab ships at the time would have been able to withstand a return journey over such a long distance across the Atlantic Ocean, pointing out that a return journey would have been impossible without knowledge of prevailing winds and currents.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Shorter Science and Civilisation in China|volume=3|author=[[Joseph Needham]] & Colin A. Ronan|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|year=1986|isbn=978-0-521-31560-9|page=120}}</ref>

[[File:Al Masudi's Map of the World.JPG|thumb|Al-Mas'udi's atlas of the world includes a continent west (or south) of the [[Old World]]]]
According to [[Muslim]] historian [[Al-Masudi|Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Mas'udi]] (871–957), [[Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad]] sailed over the Atlantic Ocean and discovered a previously unknown land (''{{transliteration|ar|Arḍ Majhūlah}}'', {{langx|ar|أرض مجهولة}}) in 889 and returned with a shipload of valuable treasures.<ref>Tabish Khair (2006). ''Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing'', p. 12. Signal Books. {{ISBN|1-904955-11-8}}</ref><ref>[[Ali al-Masudi]] (940). ''Muruj Adh-Dhahab'' (''The Book of Golden Meadows''), Vol. 1, p. 268.</ref> The passage has been alternatively interpreted to imply that Ali al-Masudi regarded the story of Khashkhash to be a fanciful tale.{{cn|date=June 2024}}

=== Claims of ancient Phoenician contact ===
{{Main article|Theory of Phoenician discovery of the Americas}}
In 1996, [[Mark McMenamin]] proposed that [[Phoenicia]]n sailors discovered the [[New World]] c.&nbsp;350&nbsp;BC.<ref name="Scott">Scott, J. M. 2005. ''Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity.'' Cambridge University Press, pp. 182–183.</ref> The Phoenician state of [[Carthage]] minted gold [[stater]]s in 350&nbsp;BC bearing a pattern in the reverse exergue of the coins, which McMenamin initially interpreted as a map of the Mediterranean with the Americas shown to the west across the Atlantic.<ref name="Scott"/><ref>[[Mark McMenamin|McMenamin, M. A.]] 1997. The Phoenician World Map. ''Mercator's World'' 2(3): 46–51.</ref> McMenamin later demonstrated that these coins found in America were modern forgeries.<ref>{{cite book |last1=McMenamin |first1=Mark A. |author-link1=Mark McMenamin |title=Phoenicians, Fakes and Barry Fell: Solving the Mystery of Carthaginian Coins Found in America |date=2000 |publisher=Meanma Press |isbn=978-1-893882-01-0 |page=22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=42FlAAAACAAJ |access-date=February 8, 2020 |language=en |quote=The putative Carthaginian coins must now be removed from the body admissible evidence favoring a pre-Columbian transatlantic crossing. It gives me some chagrin to admit this, as I had earlier come out mildly in support of the authenticity of these coins (McMenamin 1999b, 2000a, 2000b). Weak evidence (involving measurements of die axis; the Arkansas coin has a die axis [33 degrees] differing from the Alabama type coins [12 to 20 degrees]) in support of the authenticity of these coins (McMenamin 2000b) is superseded by the strong evidence in the current work.}}</ref>

=== Claims of ancient Judaic contact ===
[[File:Bat Creek Exam 5-28-10.JPG|right|thumb|The [[Bat Creek inscription]]]]
The [[Bat Creek inscription]] and [[Los Lunas Decalogue Stone]] have led some to suggest the possibility that [[Jews|Jewish]] seafarers may have traveled to America after they fled from the [[Roman Empire]] at the time of the [[Jewish–Roman Wars]] in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.<ref>{{cite journal|last=McCulloch |first=J. Huston |title=Did Judean Refugees Escape to Tennessee? |journal=Biblical Archaeology Review |volume=19 |date=July–August 1993 |pages=46–53, 82–83}}</ref>

However, American archaeologists Robert C. Mainfort Jr. and Mary L. Kwas argued in ''American Antiquity'' (2004) that the Bat Creek inscription was copied from an illustration in an 1870 [[Freemasonry|Masonic]] reference book and introduced by the Smithsonian field assistant who found it during excavation activities.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Mainfort |first1=Robert C. |last2=Kwas |first2=Mary L. |title=The Bat Creek Stone Revisited: A Fraud Exposed |journal=American Antiquity |date=2004 |volume=69 |issue=4 |pages=761–769 |jstor=4128448 |doi=10.2307/4128448|s2cid=161826727 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=McCulloch |first=Huston |title=The Bat Creek Stone |url= https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/mcculloch.2/arch/batcrk.html |work=OSU Arts and Sciences |publisher=Ohio State University |access-date=July 31, 2019}}</ref>

As for the Decalogue Stone, there are mistakes which suggest that it was carved by one or more novices who either overlooked or misunderstood some details on a source Decalogue from which they copied it. Since there is no other evidence or archaeological context in the vicinity, it is most likely that the legend at the nearby university is true—that the stone was carved by two anthropology students whose signatures can be seen inscribed in the rock below the Decalogue, "Eva and Hobe 3-13-30."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ungar-Sargon |first1=Batya |title=The Mystery Stone |url= https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/125339/the-mystery-stone |work=Tablet Magazine |date=February 27, 2013 |access-date=July 31, 2019}}</ref>

Scholar [[Cyrus H. Gordon]] believed that [[Phoenicia]]ns and other Semitic-speaking groups had crossed the Atlantic in antiquity, ultimately arriving in both North and South America.<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/09/obituaries/09GORD.html |work=The New York Times |first=Eric |last=Pace |title=Cyrus Gordon, Scholar of Ancient Languages, Dies at 92 |date=April 9, 2001}}</ref> This opinion was based on his own work on the Bat Creek inscription.<ref>{{cite journal | first1=Robert C. Jr. |last1=Mainfort |first2=Mary L. |last2=Kwas |title=The Bat Creek Stone: Judeans in Tennessee? |journal=Tennessee Anthropologist |volume=XVI |issue=1 |date=Spring 1991 |url= http://ramtops.co.uk/bat1.html |via=Ramtops.co.uk |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070816103039/http://ramtops.co.uk/bat1.html |archive-date=August 16, 2007 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Similar ideas were also held by [[John Philip Cohane]]; Cohane even claimed that many geographical placenames in the United States have a Semitic origin.<ref>{{cite book |first=Cyrus Herzl |last=Gordon |title=Before Columbus: Links Between the Old World and Ancient America |publisher=Crown |date=1971 |page=138}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Weigand |first=Phil C. |date=1978 |title=Review of ''In Search of Noah's Ark'' by Dave Balsiger, Charles E. Sellier; ''Remote Kingdoms'' by Tertius Chandler; ''The Key'' by John Philip Cohane; ''Gods of the Cataclysm: A Revolutionary Investigation of Man and His Gods Before and After the Great Cataclysm'' by Hugh Fox |journal=American Anthropologist |volume=80 |issue=3 |pages=731–733 |doi=10.1525/aa.1978.80.3.02a00760|doi-access=free }}</ref>

== Claims of European contact ==
=== Solutrean hypothesis ===
{{Main article|Solutrean hypothesis}}
[[File:Arch1 clovispoints2.jpg|thumb|right|Examples of Clovis and other Paleoindian point forms, markers of archaeological cultures in northeastern North America]]
The [[Solutrean hypothesis]] argues that Europeans migrated to the New World during the [[Paleolithic]] era, circa 16,000 to 13,000 BCE. This hypothesis proposes contact partly on the basis of perceived similarities between the flint tools of the [[Solutrean culture]] in modern-day France, Spain, and Portugal (which thrived circa 20,000 to 15,000 BCE), and the [[Clovis culture]] of North America, which developed circa 9,000 BCE.<ref>{{cite journal
 |title        = The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: a possible Palaeolithic route to the New World
 |first1       = Bruce
 |last1        = Bradley
 |first2       = Dennis
 |last2        = Stanford
 |author-link2 = Dennis Stanford
 |journal      = [[World Archaeology]]
 |year         = 2004
 |volume       = 36
 |issue        = 4
 |pages        = 459–478
 |url          = http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20%26%20Stanford%202004.pdf
 |doi          = 10.1080/0043824042000303656
 |citeseerx    = 10.1.1.694.6801
 |s2cid        = 161534521
 |access-date  = June 19, 2015
 |archive-date = March 20, 2013
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20130320033824/http://planet.uwc.ac.za/nisl/Conservation%20Biology/Karen%20PDF/Clovis/Bradley%20%26%20Stanford%202004.pdf
 |url-status   = dead
}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
 | last=Carey |first=Bjorn
 | date=February 19, 2006
 | url=http://www.livescience.com/history/060219_first_americans.html
 | title=First Americans may have been European
 | work=Live Science
 }}</ref>
The Solutrean hypothesis was proposed in the mid-1990s.<ref>Meltzer, David J. (2009). ''First Peoples in the New World'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009, p. 188</ref> It has little support amongst the scientific community, and genetic markers are inconsistent with the idea.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fagundes |first1=Nelson J.R. |last2=Kanitz |first2=Ricardo |last3=Eckert |first3=Roberta |last4=Valls |first4=Ana C.S. |last5=Bogo |first5=Mauricio R. |last6=Salzano |first6=Francisco M. |last7=Smith |first7=David Glenn |last8=Silva |first8=Wilson A. |last9=Zago |first9=Marco A. |last10=Ribeiro-dos-Santos |first10=Andrea K. |last11=Santos |first11=Sidney E.B. |last12=Petzl-Erler |first12=Maria Luiza |last13=Bonatto |first13=Sandro L. |display-authors=3 |date=2008 |title=Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the Americas |journal=American Journal of Human Genetics |volume=82 |issue=3 |pages=583–592 |doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.11.013 |pmc=2427228 |pmid=18313026}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kashani |first1=Baharak Hooshia |first2=Ugo A. |last2=Perego |first3=Anna |last3=Olivieri |first4=Norman |last4=Angerhofer |first5=Francesca |last5=Gandini |first6=Valeria |last6=Carossa |first7=Hovirag |last7=Lancioni |first8=Ornella |last8=Semino |first9=Scott R. |last9=Woodward |first10=Alessandro |last10=Achilli |first11=Antonio |last11=Torroni |display-authors=3 |date=January 2012 |title=Mitochondrial haplogroup C4c: A rare lineage entering America through the ice-free corridor? |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |volume=147 |issue=1 |pages=34–39 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.21614 |pmid=22024980 |quote=Recent analyses of mitochondrial genomes from Native Americans have brought the overall number of recognized maternal founding lineages from just four to a current count of 15. However, because of their relative low number, almost nothing is known about some of these lineages. This leaves a considerable void in understanding the events that led to the colonization of the Americas following the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). In this study, we identified and completely sequenced 14 mitochondrial DNAs belonging to one extremely rare Native American lineage known as haplogroup C4c. Its age and geographical distribution raise the possibility that C4c marked the Paleo-Indian group(s) that entered North America from Beringia through the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. The similarities in ages and geographical distributions for C4c and the previously analyzed X2a lineage provide support to the scenario of a dual origin for Paleo-Indians.}}</ref>

=== Claims of ancient Roman contact ===
Evidence of contacts with the civilizations of [[Classical Antiquity]]—primarily with the [[Roman Empire]], but sometimes also with other contemporaneous cultures—have been based on isolated archaeological finds in American sites that originated in the Old World. For example, the Bay of Jars in Brazil has been yielding ancient clay storage jars that resemble [[Amphora#Ancient Rome|Roman amphorae]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://webmuseum.mit.edu/detail.php?type=related&kv=87136&t=objects |title=MIT Museum Collections – Objects |publisher=MIT Museum |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009085241/http://webmuseum.mit.edu/detail.php?type=related&kv=87136&t=objects |archive-date=9 October 2014}}</ref> for over 150 years. It has been proposed that the origin of these jars is a Roman shipwreck, although it has also been suggested that they could be 15th- or 16th-century Spanish olive oil jars.

Archaeologist Romeo Hristov argues that a Roman ship, or the drifting of such a shipwreck to American shores, is a possible explanation for the alleged discovery of artifacts that are apparently ancient Roman in origin (such as the [[Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head|Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca bearded head]]) in America. Hristov claims that the possibility of such an event has been made more likely by the discovery of evidence of travels by Romans to [[Tenerife]] and [[Lanzarote]] in the [[Canary Islands]], and of a Roman settlement (from the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE) on Lanzarote.<ref>{{citation|last1=Hristov|first1=Romeo H.|last2=Genovés T.|first2=Santiago|year=1999|title=Mesoamerica evidence of pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts|journal=Ancient Mesoamerica|volume=10|pages=207–213|doi=10.1017/S0956536199102013|issue=2|s2cid=163071420 }}</ref>

[[File:0 Mosaico pavimentale – Grotte Celloni – Pal. Massimo.JPG|thumb|Floor mosaic depicting a fruit which looks like a [[pineapple]]. Opus vermiculatum, Roman artwork of the end of the 1st century BCE/beginning of the 1st century CE.]]
In 1950, an Italian botanist, Domenico Casella, suggested that a depiction of a [[pineapple]] (a fruit native to the New World tropics) was represented among wall paintings of Mediterranean fruits at [[Pompeii]]. According to [[Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski]], this interpretation has been challenged by other botanists, who identify it as a pine [[conifer cone|cone]] from the [[stone pine|umbrella pine tree]], which is native to the Mediterranean area.<ref>{{cite book |last=Jashemski |first=Wilhelmina |title=The natural history of Pompeii |year=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-80054-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3xfjyTqqR7IC&pg=PA81 |page=81}}</ref> The leaves shown in the depiction (as with stone carvings from [[Nineveh]])<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Collins |first=J. L. |date=1951 |title=Antiquity of the Pineapple in America |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3628620 |journal=Southwestern Journal of Anthropology |volume=7 |issue=2 |pages=145–155 |doi=10.1086/soutjanth.7.2.3628620 |jstor=3628620 |s2cid=87859413 |issn=0038-4801|url-access=subscription }}</ref> make the pine cone identification problematic.

Roman and other European coins have been found in the United States.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Epstein |first1=Jeremiah F. |last2=Buchanan |first2=Donal B. |last3=Buttrey |first3=T. V. |last4=Carter |first4=George F. |last5=Cook |first5=Warren L. |last6=Covey |first6=Cyclone |last7=Jett |first7=Stephen C. |last8=Lee |first8=Thomas A. |last9=Mundkur |first9=Balaji |last10=Paulsen |first10=Allison C. |last11=Prem |first11=Hanns J. |last12=Reyman |first12=Jonathan E. |last13=Dorado |first13=Miguel Rivera |last14=Totten |first14=Norman |title=Pre-Columbian Old World Coins in America: An Examination of the Evidence [and Comments and Reply] |journal=Current Anthropology |date=1980 |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=1–20 |doi=10.1086/202398 |jstor=2741739 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2741739 |issn=0011-3204|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Jeremiah Epstein, an American anthropologist, rejected the suggestion that these coins can be cited as evidence of Pre-Columbian contact between Europe and the Americas pointing out the lack of any pre-Columbian archaeological contexts relating to these finds, the lack of detail concerning the discoveries, and the possibility of forgery (at least two were clearly forgeries).<ref>{{cite news |title=An Expert Doubts Roman Coins Found in U.S. Are Sea-Link Clue |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/10/archives/an-expert-doubts-roman-coins-found-in-us-are-sealink-clue-vikings.html |access-date=18 June 2024 |work=The New York Times |date=10 December 1978}}</ref>

==== Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head ====
{{Main|Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head}}
A small [[terracotta]] sculpture of a head, with a beard and European-like features, was found in 1933 in the [[Toluca Valley]], {{convert|72|km|mi}} southwest of [[Mexico City]], in a burial offering under three intact floors of a [[Spanish conquest of Mexico|pre-colonial]] building dated to between 1476 and 1510. The artifact has been studied by Roman art authority Bernard Andreae, director emeritus of the German Institute of Archaeology in Rome, Italy, and Austrian anthropologist [[Robert von Heine-Geldern]], both of whom stated that the style of the artifact was compatible with small Roman sculptures of the 2nd century. If genuine and if not placed there after 1492 (the pottery found with it dates to between 1476 and 1510),<ref>Forbes, Jack D. ''The American Discovery of Europe'' University of Illinois Press; 2007 {{ISBN|978-0-252-03152-6}} p. 108</ref> the find provides evidence for at least a one-time contact between the Old and New Worlds.<ref>Hristov and Genovés (1999).</ref>

According to [[Arizona State University]]'s Michael E. Smith, a leading Mesoamerican scholar named John Paddock used to tell his classes in the years before he died that the artifact was planted as a joke by Hugo Moedano, a student who originally worked on the site. Despite speaking with individuals who knew the original discoverer (García Payón), and Moedano, Smith says he has been unable to confirm or reject this claim. Though he remains skeptical, Smith concedes he cannot rule out the possibility that the head was a genuinely buried post-Classic offering at [[Calixtlahuaca]].<ref>Smith, Michael E., "[http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/tval/RomanFigurine.html The 'Roman Figurine' Supposedly Excavated at Calixtlahuaca]". Accessed: February 13, 2012. [https://archive.today/20120805122505/http://www.public.asu.edu/~mesmith9/tval/RomanFigurine.html Archived] at WebCite, February 13, 2012.</ref>

=== 14th- and 15th-century European contact ===
{{further|Priory of Sion|Westford Knight}}
[[Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney]] and feudal baron of [[Roslin Castle|Roslin]] (c. 1345&nbsp;– c. 1400), was a Scottish [[Nobility|nobleman]] who is best known today from a modern legend which claims that he took part in explorations of [[Greenland]] and North America almost 100 years before [[Christopher Columbus]]'s voyages to the Americas.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/historicalfigures/henrysinclair/ |title=Earl Henry Sinclair |publisher=Orkneyjar |access-date=February 3, 2011 |archive-date=March 26, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160326190318/http://orkneyjar.com/history/historicalfigures/henrysinclair/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1784, he was identified by [[Johann Reinhold Forster]]<ref name=forst>Johann Reinhold Forster, ''History of the Voyages and Discoveries Made in the North'', Printed for G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London, 1786</ref> as possibly being the Prince [[Zichmni]] who is described in letters which were allegedly written around 1400 by the [[Zeno brothers]] of [[Venice]], in which they describe a voyage which they made throughout the [[North Atlantic]] under the command of Zichmni.<ref name="ZENO, NICOLÒ,">T. J. Oleson, [http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/zeno_nicolo_1E.html "Zeno, Nicolò"] in ''Dictionary of Canadian Biography'', vol. 1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed October 1, 2014</ref> According to ''The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online'', "the Zeno affair remains one of the most preposterous and at the same time one of the most successful fabrications in the history of exploration."<ref name="biographi">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=592 |title=Zeno, Nicolo and Antonio |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online|first=T. J. |last=Oleson}}</ref>

Henry was the grandfather of [[William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness]], the builder of [[Rosslyn Chapel]] near [[Edinburgh]], Scotland. The authors [[Robert Lomas]] and [[Christopher Knight (author)|Christopher Knight]] believe some carvings in the chapel were intended to represent ears of New World corn or [[maize]],<ref name="THK">Christopher Knight and [[Robert Lomas]]. ''The Hiram Key''. Fair Winds Press, 2001 {{ISBN|1-931412-75-8}}.</ref> a crop unknown in Europe at the time of the chapel's construction. Knight and Lomas view these carvings as evidence supporting the idea that Henry Sinclair traveled to the Americas well before Columbus. In their book they discuss meeting with the wife of the botanist Adrian Dyer and explain that Dyer's wife told them that Dyer agreed that the image thought to be maize was accurate.<ref name="THK"/> In fact Dyer found only one identifiable plant among the botanical carvings and instead suggested that the "maize" and "aloe" were stylized wooden patterns, only coincidentally looking like real plants.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Turnbull|first1=Michael TRB|title=Rosslyn Chapel|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/places/rosslynchapel_1.shtml|publisher=BBC|access-date=December 14, 2016|date=August 6, 2009}}</ref> Specialists in medieval architecture have variously interpreted the carvings as stylised depictions of wheat, strawberries, or lilies.<ref>Mark Oxbrow & I. Robertson. ''Rosslyn and the Grail''. Mainstream Publishing, 2005 {{ISBN|1-84596-076-9}}.</ref><ref name="The ship of dreams">Historian Mark Oxbrow, quoted in [http://heritage.scotsman.com/myths.cfm?id=515952005 "The ship of dreams"] by Diane MacLean, Scotsman.com, May 13, 2005</ref>

[[Henry Yule Oldham]] suggested that the [[Bianco world map]] depicted part of the coast of [[Brazil]] before 1448. This was immediately opposed by members of the [[Royal Geographical Society]] but later repeated by American and European historians. This was later refuted by [[Abel Fontoura da Costa]], who proved that it actually depicted [[Santiago, Cape Verde|Santiago]], the largest island of the [[Cape Verde]] archipelago.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Souza |first1=Thomas Oscar Marcondes de |title=A Supposed Discovery of Brazil before 1448 |journal=The Hispanic American Historical Review |date=1946 |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=593–598 |doi=10.2307/2507682 |jstor=2507682 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2507682 |access-date=15 August 2022 |issn=0018-2168|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

[[File:La historia general de las Indias.jpg|thumb|upright|A 1547 edition of Oviedo's ''La historia general de las Indias'']]
Some{{who?|date=March 2025}} have conjectured that Columbus was able to persuade the [[Catholic Monarchs]] of [[Crown of Castile|Castile]] and [[Aragon]] to support his planned voyage only because they were aware of some recent earlier voyage across the Atlantic. Some{{who?|date=March 2025}} suggest that Columbus himself visited Canada or Greenland before 1492, because according to [[Bartolomé de las Casas]] he wrote he had sailed 100 leagues past an island he called [[Thule]] in 1477. Whether Columbus actually did this and what island he visited, if any, is uncertain. Columbus is thought to have visited [[Bristol]] in 1476.<ref>"It is most probable that Columbus visited Bristol, where he was introduced to English commerce with Iceland." [[Silvio Bedini|Bedini, Silvio A.]] and David Buisseret (1992). ''The Christopher Columbus encyclopedia, Volume 1'', University of Michigan press, republished by Simon & Schuster, {{ISBN|0-13-142670-2}}, p. 175.</ref> Bristol was also the port from which [[John Cabot]] sailed in 1497, crewed mostly by Bristol sailors. In a letter of late 1497 or early 1498, the English merchant John Day wrote to Columbus about Cabot's discoveries, saying that land found by Cabot was "discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found 'Brasil' as your lordship knows".<ref>Seaver (1995) p. 222</ref> There may be records of expeditions from Bristol to find the "[[Brazil (mythical island)|isle of Brazil]]" in 1480 and 1481.<ref>Seaver, K.A.(1995) ''The Frozen Echo'' Stanford University Press {{ISBN|0-8047-3161-6}} p. 221.</ref> Trade between Bristol and Iceland is well documented from the mid-15th century.

[[Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés]] records several such legends in his ''Historia general de las Indias'' of 1526, which includes biographical information on Columbus. He discusses the then-current story of a Spanish caravel that was swept off its course while on its way to England, and wound up in a foreign land populated by naked tribesmen. The crew gathered supplies and made its way back to Europe, but the trip took several months and the captain and most of the men died before reaching land. The caravel's [[ship pilot]], a man called [[Alonso Sánchez]], and a few others made it to Portugal, but all were very ill. Columbus was a good friend of the pilot, and took him to be treated in his own house, and the pilot described the land they had seen and marked it on a map before dying. People in Oviedo's time knew this story in several versions, though Oviedo himself regarded it as a myth.<ref>Columbus, Christopher; Cohen, J. M. (translator) (May 5, 1992). ''The Four Voyages'', pp. 27–37. New York: Penguin Books. {{ISBN|0-14-044217-0}}.</ref>

In 1925, Soren Larsen wrote a book claiming that a joint Danish-Portuguese expedition landed in Newfoundland or Labrador in 1473 and again in 1476. Larsen claimed that [[Didrik Pining]] and [[Hans Pothorst]] served as captains, while [[João Vaz Corte-Real]] and the possibly mythical [[John Scolvus]] served as navigators, accompanied by [[Álvaro Martins]].<ref>Soren, Larsen. (1925) ''The Pining voyage: The Discovery of North America Twenty Years Before Columbus''.</ref> Nothing beyond circumstantial evidence has been found to support Larsen's claims.<ref>Thomas L. Hughes, ''[http://www.ghi-dc.org/publications/ghipubs/bu/033/79.pdf The German Discovery of America: A Review of the Controversy over Didrik Pining's Voyage of Exploration in 1473 in the North Atlantic] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927204928/http://www.ghi-dc.org/publications/ghipubs/bu/033/79.pdf |date=September 27, 2007 }}'' in: ''[[German Historical Institute]] Bulletin'', No. 33 (Fall 2003)</ref>

The historical record shows that [[Basque people|Basque]] fishermen were present in [[Newfoundland and Labrador]] from at least 1517 onward (therefore predating all recorded European settlements in the region except those of the Norse). The Basques' fishing expeditions led to significant trade and cultural exchanges with Native Americans. A fringe theory suggests that Basque sailors first arrived in North America prior to Columbus' voyages to the New World (some sources suggest the late 14th century as a tentative date) but kept the destination a secret in order to avoid competition over the fishing resources of the North American coasts. There is no historical or archaeological evidence to support this claim.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.abc.es/espana/20150514/abci-balleneros-vascos-estuvieron-america-201505131925.html |title = El mito de que los balleneros vascos estuvieron en América antes que Cristóbal Colón|date = May 13, 2015}}</ref>

=== Irish and Welsh legends ===
[[File:Saint brendan german manuscript.jpg|thumb|upright|Saint Brendan and the whale, from a 15th-century manuscript]]
{{See also|Great Ireland}}
The legend of Saint [[Brendan the Navigator|Brendan]], an [[Irish people|Irish]] monk from what is now [[County Kerry]], involves a fantastical journey into the Atlantic Ocean in search of Paradise in the 6th century. Since the discovery of the New World, various authors have tried to link the Brendan legend with an early discovery of America. In 1977, the voyage was successfully recreated by [[Tim Severin]] using a replica of an ancient Irish [[currach]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/16/did-st-brendan-reach-north-america-500-years-before-the-vikings/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210223018/http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/16/did-st-brendan-reach-north-america-500-years-before-the-vikings/|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 10, 2015|title=Did St. Brendan Reach North America 500 Years Before the Vikings? – National Geographic Society (blogs)|first=Andrew|last=Howley|website=voices.nationalgeographic.com|access-date=October 22, 2017|date=May 16, 2013}}</ref>

According to a British myth, [[Madoc]] was a prince from [[Wales]] who explored the Americas as early as 1170. While most scholars consider this legend to be untrue, it was used to bolster British claims in the Americas vis-à-vis those of Spain.<ref>Williams, Gwyn A (1979): ''Madoc: The Making of a Myth''. London: Eyre Methuen</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Llwyd |first1=Humphrey |location=Cardiff |type=Print |last2=Williams|first2=Ieuan|title=Cronica Walliae|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I2FnAAAAMAAJ|year=2002|publisher=[[University of Wales Press]] |isbn=978-0-7083-1638-2}}</ref>
The "Madoc story" remained popular in later centuries, and a later development asserted that Madoc's voyagers had intermarried with local Native Americans, and that their Welsh-speaking descendants still live somewhere in the United States. These "Welsh Indians" were credited with the construction of a number of landmarks throughout the [[Midwestern United States]], and a number of white travelers were inspired to go look for them. The "Madoc story" has been the subject of much speculation in the context of possible pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. No conclusive archaeological proof of such a man or his voyages has been found in the New or Old World; however, speculation abounds connecting him with certain sites, such as [[Devil's Backbone (rock formation)|Devil's Backbone]], located on the Ohio River at Fourteen Mile Creek near [[Louisville, Kentucky]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://newsandtribune.com/clarkcounty/x519388801/The-Madoc-legend-lives-in-Southern-Indiana-Documentary-makers-hope-to-bring-pictures-to-author-s-work |title=The Madoc legend lives in Southern Indiana: Documentary makers hope to bring pictures to author's work|author=Curran, Kelly|date=8 January 2008 |access-date=16 October 2011|publisher=News and Tribune, Jeffersonville, Indiana}}</ref>

At [[Fort Mountain State Park]] in Georgia, a plaque formerly mentioned a 19th-century interpretation of the ancient stone wall that gives the site its name. The plaque repeated a claim by Tennessee governor [[John Sevier]] that [[Cherokees]] believed "a people called Welsh" had built a fort on the mountain long ago to repel Indian attacks.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://planetanimals.com/logue/Ftmount.html|title=Fort Mountain's Mysterious Wall|work=Touring the Backroads of North and South Georgia|publisher=Native American Tour|access-date=3 April 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160131225825/http://planetanimals.com/logue/Ftmount.html|archive-date=31 January 2016|df=dmy-all}}</ref> <!-- "October 2015"?? -->The plaque has been changed, leaving no reference to Madoc or the Welsh.<ref>{{cite web| url=https://historyofyesterday.com/prince-madoc-the-legend-of-how-the-welsh-colonized-north-america-14e8c99648ff| website=historyofyesterday.com| title=Prince Madoc: The Legend of How the Welsh Colonized North America| access-date=5 July 2021}}</ref>

Biologist and controversial amateur epigrapher [[Barry Fell]] claims that Irish [[Ogham]] writing has been found carved into stones in the Virginias.<ref>Sisson, David (September 1984)[https://web.archive.org/web/20050321123920/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1189/is_v256/ai_3410276 "Did the Irish discover America?"]. ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]''. Retrieved July 23, 2006.</ref> Linguist [[David H. Kelley]] has criticized some of Fell's work but nonetheless argued that genuine Celtic Ogham inscriptions have in fact been discovered in America.<ref>{{cite journal |first=D. H. |last=Kelley |title=Proto-Tifinagh and Proto-Ogham in the Americas: Review of Fell; Fell and Farley; Fell and Reinert; Johannessen, et al.; McGlone and Leonard; Totten |journal=The Review of Archaeology |date=Spring 1990 |volume=11 |issue=1 |url=http://www.reviewofarchaeology.com/pastissues.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080709172608/http://www.reviewofarchaeology.com/pastissues.html |archive-date=July 9, 2008 |quote=I have no personal doubts that some of the inscriptions which have been reported [in the Americas] are genuine Celtic ogham. [...] Despite my occasional harsh criticism of Fell's treatment of individual inscriptions, it should be recognized that without Fell's work there would be no [North American] ''ogham'' problem to perplex us. We need to ask not only what Fell has done wrong in his epigraphy, but also where we have gone wrong as archaeologists in not recognizing such an extensive European presence in the New World.}}</ref> However, others have raised serious doubts about these claims.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Oppenheimer |first1=Monroe |last2=Wirtz |first2=Willard |title=A Linguistic Analysis of Some West Virginia Petroglyphs |journal=The West Virginia Archeologist |volume=41 |issue=1 |date=Spring 1989 |url=http://cwva.org/ogam_rebutal/wirtz.html |access-date=August 8, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110418055631/http://cwva.org/ogam_rebutal/wirtz.html |archive-date=April 18, 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

== Claims of transoceanic travel originating in the New World ==
=== Claims of Egyptian coca and tobacco ===
[[File:RAMmummy.jpg|right|thumb|The [[mummy]] of [[Ramesses II]]]]
Traces of [[coca]] and [[nicotine]] which are found in some Egyptian mummies have led to speculation that [[Ancient Egyptians]] may have had contact with the New World. The initial discovery was made by a German [[toxicologist]] Svetlana Balabanova after examining the mummy of a priestess named [[Henut Taui]]. Follow-up tests on the hair shaft, which were performed in order to rule out the possibility of contamination, revealed the same results.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/ethnic/mummy.htm |title=American Drugs in Egyptian Mummies |author=S A Wells |access-date=8 October 2021}}</ref>

A television show reported that examinations of numerous [[Sudan]]ese mummies which were also undertaken by Balabanova mirrored what was found in the mummy of Henut Taui.<ref name="Curseof">"Curse of the Cocaine Mummies" written and directed by Sarah Marris. (Producers: Hilary Lawson, Maureen Lemire and narrated by Hilary Kilberg). A TVF Production for Channel Four in association with the Discovery Channel, 1997.</ref> Balabanova suggested that the tobacco may be accounted for since it may have also been known in China and Europe, as indicated by analyses run on human remains from those respective regions. Balabanova proposed that such plants native to the general area may have developed independently, but have since gone extinct.<ref name="Curseof" /> Other explanations include fraud, though curator Alfred Grimm of the Egyptian Museum in [[Munich]] disputes this.<ref name="Curseof" /> Skeptical of Balabanova's findings, Rosalie David, Keeper of Egyptology at the [[Manchester Museum]], had similar tests performed on samples which were taken from the Manchester mummy collection and she reported that two of the tissue samples and one hair sample tested positive for the presence of nicotine.<ref name="Curseof" />

However, mainstream scholars remain skeptical, and they do not see the results of these tests as proof of ancient contact between Africa and the Americas, especially because there may be possible Old World sources of cocaine and nicotine.<ref>{{cite web|last=Edlin |first=Duncan |url=http://www.hallofmaat.com/precolumbian/the-stoned-age/ |title=The Stoned Age?: Did the discovery, in Egyptian mummies, of the chemicals found in cocaine and tobacco prove an ancient contact with the Americas? |website=Hall of Maat |date=October 11, 2003 |access-date=February 3, 2011}}</ref><ref name="Buckland">{{cite journal | last1 = Buckland | first1 = P.C. | last2 = Panagiotakopulu | first2 = E | title = Rameses II and the tobacco beetle | journal = Antiquity | volume = 75 | issue = 549–56| page = 2001 }}</ref> Two attempts to replicate Balabanova's findings of cocaine failed, suggesting "that either Balabanova and her associates are misinterpreting their results or that the samples of mummies tested by them have been mysteriously exposed to cocaine".<ref>Counsell, D. C., "Intoxicants in Ancient Egypt? Opium, nymphea, coca, and tobacco," in David, Ann Rosalie, ed. ''Egyptian Mummies and Modern Science'', Cambridge University Press, 2008, {{ISBN|978-0-521-86579-1}} p. 213</ref>

A re-examination of the mummy of [[Ramesses II]] in the 1970s revealed the presence of fragments of tobacco leaves in its abdomen. This finding became a popular topic in fringe literature and the media and it was seen as proof of contact between Ancient Egypt and the New World. The investigator [[Maurice Bucaille]] noted that when the mummy was unwrapped in 1886 the abdomen was left open and "it was no longer possible to attach any importance to the presence inside the abdominal cavity of whatever material was found there, since the material could have come from the surrounding environment."<ref>Bucaille, M. ''Mummies of the Pharaohs: Modern Medical Investigations'' NY: St. Martin's Press pp 186–188</ref> Following the renewed discussion of tobacco sparked by Balabanova's research and its mention in a 2000 publication by Rosalie David, a study in the journal ''[[Antiquity (journal)|Antiquity]]'' suggested that reports of both tobacco and cocaine in mummies "ignored their post-excavation histories" and pointed out that the mummy of Ramesses II had been moved five times between 1883 and 1975.<ref name="Buckland" />

=== Claims of travel in Roman times ===
[[Pomponius Mela]] writes,<ref name="Pomponius">[[Pomponius Mela]]. ''[https://archive.org/details/pomponiimalaedes00mela De situ orbis libri III]'', chapter 5.</ref> and is copied by [[Pliny the Elder]],<ref>[[Pliny the Elder]], ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'', Book 2, chapter 67.</ref> that [[Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer (consul)|Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer]] (died 59 BCE), [[proconsul]] in [[Gaul]], received "several Indians" (''Indi'') who had been driven by a storm to the coasts of [[Germania]] as a present from a foreign king, listed by Mela, in different manuscripts, as ''rege Boorum/Boiorum/Botorum''<ref name="Podossinov2014">{{cite book|first=Alexander V. |last=Podossinov |title=The Periphery of the Classical World in Ancient Geography and Cartography|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/36855017|year=2014|publisher=Peeters Publishers|editor=Alexander V. Podossinov|isbn=978-9-04292-923-4|pages=133–145|chapter=The Indians in Northern Europe? On the Ancient Roman Notion of the Configuration of Eurasia |series=Colloquia Antiqua|volume=12}}</ref> and usually identified in recent scholarship as king of the [[Boii]],<ref name="Podossinov2014" /><ref name="Lerner2020">{{cite book|first=Jeffrey D. |last=Lerner |title=Silk Roads: From Local Realities to Global Narratives|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/94849825 |year=2020|publisher=Oxbow Books|editor1=Jeffrey D. Lerner|editor2=Yaohua Shi|isbn=978-1-78925-470-9|pages=267–284|chapter=The Case for Shipwrecked Indians in Germany }}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Robert |last=Morstein-Marx |title=Julius Caesar and the Roman people|year=2021|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=173|isbn=978-1-108-83784-2}}</ref> though Tausend (1999) argued that it might be corrupted name of the [[Goths]];<ref name=Tausend1999>{{Cite journal |last1=Tausend |first1=Klaus |year=1999 |title=Inder in Germanien |journal=Orbis Terrarum |language=de |volume=5 |pages=115–125 }}</ref> Pliny identifies the king as the ruler of the [[Suebi]] instead:

<blockquote>

''Ultra Caspium sinum quidnam esset, ambiguum aliquamdiu fuit, idemne Oceanus an tellus infesta frigoribus sine ambitu ac sine fine proiecta. Sed praeter physicos Homerumque qui universum orbem mari circumfusum esse dixerunt, Cornelius Nepos ut recentior, auctoritate sic certior; testem autem rei Quintum Metellum Celerem adicit, eumque ita rettulisse commemorat: cum Galliae pro consule praeesset, Indos quosdam a rege Boiorum dono sibi datos; unde in eas terras devenissent requirendo cognosse, vi tempestatium ex Indicis aequoribus abreptos, emensosque quae intererant, tandem in Germaniae litora exisse. Restat ergo pelagus, sed reliqua lateris eiusdem adsiduo gelu durantur et ideo deserta sunt.''<ref name="Lerner2020" />
</blockquote>

<blockquote>
For a long time it was doubtful what there was beyond the Caspian bay: whether the same Ocean, or a land infested with cold, spreading out without circumference and boundless. But, in addition to the natural Philosophers and Homer, who have said that the whole universe was surrounded by sea, [[Cornelius Nepos]], as more recent in authority and hence more certain, is available. Moreover he adds Quintus Metellus Celer as a witness to the fact, and asserts that he related this account: that while he was in charge of the Gauls as proconsul, certain Indians were given to him by a king of the Boii as a gift; and that in inquiring whence they had arrived into these regions, he learned that, driven from Indian waters by the violence of tempests, they had passed over the seas which intervened and finally had come through onto the shores of Germany. Therefore, there remains the sea, but the remaining places of this same side are held in the grip of continual cold and hence are deserted.<ref name="Pomponius"/>
</blockquote>

Both Mela and Pliny listed this incident as evidence supporting the notion that all lands of the world, including northern parts of Europe and Asia, are surrounded by [[Oceanus#Geography|Oceanus]], and that it is theoretically possible to sail from India to Europe through a northern passage.<ref name="Podossinov2014" /><ref name="Lerner2020" />

Since Metellus Celer died just after his consulship, before he ever got to [[Gallia Narbonensis|Transalpine Gaul]] (in the area of present-day southern France),<ref>{{cite book|first=T. Corey |last=Brennan |title=The Praetorship in the Roman Republic|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-511460-4|page=578|chapter=Cilicia and the Gauls in the Late Republic|volume=II}}</ref> the authors accepting the historicity of the incident either date it to 62 BCE, when Celer was governing [[Cisalpine Gaul]] (in the area of present-day northern Italy),<ref>{{cite book|first=T. Corey |last=Brennan |title=The Praetorship in the Roman Republic|year=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-511460-4|page=582|chapter=Cilicia and the Gauls in the Late Republic|volume=II}}</ref><ref name="Podossinov2014" /><ref name="Lerner2020" /> or interpret texts of Mela and Pliny as garbled accounts of Celer's encounter with some Indians at an earlier date, when he served as [[Pompey]]'s legate in Asia.<ref>{{cite book|first=Frank E. |last=Romer |title=Pomponius Mela's Description of the World|year=1998|publisher=The University of Michigan Press|page=114|isbn=0-472-10773-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Duane W.|last=Roller |title=A Guide to the Geography of Pliny the Elder|year=2022|publisher=Cambridge University Press|pages=32–103|chapter=Book 2 - Cosmology|doi=10.1017/9781108693660.005}}</ref>

Richard Hennig suggested that the castaways mentioned by Mela and Pliny were possibly [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|American Indians]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Richard |last=Hennig |title=Terrae incognitae. Eine Zusammenstellung und kritische Bewertung der wichtigsten vorcolumbischen Entdeckungsreisen an Hand der darüber vorliegenden Originalberichte|volume=1: Altertum bis Ptolemäus|year=1944|publisher=E. J. Brill|pages=289–292|edition=2nd}}</ref> Other interpretations of the incident were also proposed. Bengtson (1954), McLaughlin (2016) and Lerner (2020) argued that Celer might have encountered actual merchants from India, who reached Europe from [[Phasis (town)|Phasis]] on the [[Black Sea]] coast.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bengtson |first1=Hermann |year=1954 |title=Q. Caecilius Metellus Celer (cos 60) und die Inder |journal=Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte |language=de |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=229–236 |jstor=4434397}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Raoul |last=McLaughlin |title=The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy & the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia & Han China|year=2016|publisher=Pen & Sword Books|chapter=Caspian Routes and the Crimea }}</ref><ref name="Lerner2020" /> Other authors interpret supposed Indians as misidentified speakers of [[Finno-Ugric languages]] originating from the areas east of the [[Bothnian Bay]]<ref name=Tausend1999 /> or [[Vistula Veneti|Baltic Veneti]].<ref name="Podossinov2014" /> An article in the ''Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York'' published in 1891 suggests that the word "Indos" is so indefinite as to be subject to speculation, and that copyist errors may have changed "Jernos" (Irish) or "Iberos" (Spaniards) to Indos.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hurlbut |first1=George C. |title=Geographical Notes |journal=Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York |date=1891 |volume=23 |pages=80–111 |doi=10.2307/196577 |jstor=196577 |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/196577 |access-date=4 December 2024 |issn=1536-0407|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

=== Icelander DNA finding ===
In 2010, Sigríður Sunna Ebenesersdóttir published a genetic study showing that over 350 living Icelanders carried mitochondrial DNA of a new type, C1e, belonging to the C1 clade which was until then known only from Native American and East Asian populations. Using the [[deCODE genetics]] database, Sigríður Sunna determined that the DNA entered the Icelandic population not later than 1700, and likely several centuries earlier. However Sigríður Sunna also states that "while a Native American origin seems most likely for [this new haplogroup], an Asian or European origin cannot be ruled out".<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1002/ajpa.21419|pmid=21069749|title=A new subclade of mtDNA haplogroup C1 found in icelanders: Evidence of pre-columbian contact?|journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology|volume=144|issue=1|pages=92–9|year=2011|last1=Ebenesersdóttir|first1=Sigríður Sunna|last2=Sigurðsson|first2=Ásgeir|last3=Sánchez-Quinto|first3=Federico|last4=Lalueza-Fox|first4=Carles|last5=Stefánsson|first5=Kári|last6=Helgason|first6=Agnar}}</ref>

In 2014, a study discovered a new mtDNA subclade C1f from the remains of three people found in north-western Russia and dated to 7,500 years ago. It has not been detected in modern populations. The study proposed the hypothesis that the sister C1e and C1f subclades had split early from the most recent common ancestor of the C1 clade and had evolved independently, and that subclade C1e had a northern European origin. Iceland was settled by the Vikings in the 9th century and they had raided heavily into western Russia, where the sister subclade C1f is now known to have resided. They proposed that both subclades were brought to Iceland through the Vikings, and that C1e went extinct on mainland northern Europe due to population turnover and its small representation, and subclade C1f went extinct completely.<ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0087612|pmid=24503968|title=Mitochondrial Genome Sequencing in Mesolithic North East Europe Unearths a New Sub-Clade within the Broadly Distributed Human Haplogroup C1|journal=PLOS ONE|volume=9|issue=2|pages=e87612|year=2014|last1=Der Sarkissian|first1=Clio|last2=Brotherton|first2=Paul|last3=Balanovsky|first3=Oleg|last4=Templeton|first4=Jennifer E. L.|last5=Llamas|first5=Bastien|last6=Soubrier|first6=Julien|last7=Moiseyev|first7=Vyacheslav|last8=Khartanovich|first8=Valery|last9=Cooper|first9=Alan|last10=Haak|first10=Wolfgang|pmc=3913659|bibcode=2014PLoSO...987612D|doi-access=free}}</ref>

=== Norse legends and sagas ===
[[File:Thorfinn Karlsefni 1918.jpg|thumb|upright|Statue of Thorfinn Karlsefni]]
In 1009, legends report that Norse explorer [[Thorfinn Karlsefni]] abducted two children from [[Markland]], an area on the North American mainland where Norse explorers visited but did not settle. The two children were then taken to Greenland, where they were baptized and taught to speak Norse.<ref>[https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17946/17946-h/17946-h.htm Eirik the Red's Saga by John Sephton] paragraph 14</ref>

In 1420, Danish geographer [[Claudius Clavus Swart]] wrote that he personally had seen "[[pygmies]]" from Greenland who were caught by Norsemen in a small skin boat. Their boat was hung in [[Nidaros Cathedral]] in [[Trondheim]] along with another, longer boat also taken from "pygmies". Clavus Swart's description fits the Inuit and two of their types of boats, the [[kayak]] and the [[umiak]].<ref name=ADE163 /><ref name=ANA /> Similarly, the Swedish clergyman [[Olaus Magnus]] wrote in 1505 that he saw in [[Oslo Cathedral]] two leather boats taken decades earlier. According to Olaus, the boats were captured from Greenland pirates by one of the [[Haakon (disambiguation)|Haakons]], which would place the event in the 14th century.<ref name=ADE163 />

In [[Ferdinand Columbus]]'s biography of his father Christopher, he says that in 1477 his father saw in [[Galway]], Ireland, two dead bodies which had washed ashore in their boat. The bodies and boat were of exotic appearance, and have been suggested to have been [[Inuit]] who had drifted off course.<ref>Seaver (1995), p. 208</ref>

=== Claims of Inuit travel to the Old World ===
It has been suggested that the Norse took other indigenous peoples to Europe as slaves over the following centuries, because they are known to have taken Scottish and Irish slaves.<ref name=ADE163>{{cite book |title= The American Discovery of Europe|last= Forbes |first= Jack D. |year= 2007 |publisher= University of Illinois Press |isbn= 978-0-252-03152-6 |page= 163|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=cd8yZn7MfSQC&q=American+Discovery+of+Europe|access-date= December 20, 2011}}</ref><ref name=ANA>{{cite book |title= Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples|last= Forbes |first= Jack D. |year= 1993|publisher= University of Illinois Press |isbn= 978-0-252-06321-3 |pages= 18–21| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=6aLAeB5QiHAC&q=Trondheim+cathedral+Inuit&pg=PA20 |access-date= December 20, 2011}}</ref>

There is also evidence of Inuit coming to Europe under their own power or as captives after 1492. In [[Scotland]], they were known as the [[Finn-men]]. A substantial body of Greenland Inuit folklore first collected in the 19th century told of journeys by boat to [[Akilineq]], depicted as a rich country across the ocean.<ref>{{cite book |title= In Order to Live Untroubled: Inuit of the Central Arctic, 1550–1940 |last= Fossett|first= Renée |year= 2001 |publisher= University of Manitoba Press|isbn= 978-0-88755-647-0 |pages= 75–77 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yK7cac_mXGgC&q=Inuit+in+Europe+Trondheim&pg=PA80}}</ref>

=== Claims of Inca travel to Oceania ===
Peruvian historian [[José Antonio del Busto Duthurburu]] popularized the theory that [[Inca]] ruler [[Topa Inca Yupanqui]] may have led a maritime exploration voyage across the Pacific Ocean around 1465, eventually reaching [[French Polynesia]] and [[Rapa Nui]] (Easter Island). Different Spanish chroniclers of the 16th century recount stories told to them by Inca peoples, in which Yupanqui embarked on a sea voyage, eventually reaching two islands referred to as ''Nina Chumpi'' ("fire belt") and ''Hawa Chumpi'' ("outer belt", also spelled ''Avachumpi, Hahua chumpi''). According to the stories, Yupanqui returned from the expedition bringing back with him black-skinned people, gold, a chair made of brass, and the skin of a horse or an animal similar to a horse. Del Busto speculated the "black-skinned people" may have been [[Melanesians]], while the animal skin may have belonged to a Polynesian [[wild boar]] that was misidentified.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.elvirrey.com/libro/tupac-yupanqui-descubridor-de-oceania_70118589 | title=TÚPAC YUPANQUI, DESCUBRIDOR DE OCEANÍA - Librería el Virrey }}</ref> Critics have pointed out that Yupanqui's expedition—assuming it ever took place—could have reached the [[Galápagos Islands]] or some other part of the Americas instead of Oceania.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Túpac Yupanqui, descubridor de Oceanía. Nuku Hiva, Mangareva, Rapa Nui |last=del Busto Duthurburu |first=José Antonio |publisher=Ediciones Lux |year=2019 |isbn=978-612-47958-0-0 |language=Spanish}}</ref>

== Claims based on religious traditions or symbols ==
=== Claims of pre-Columbian contact with Christian voyagers ===
During the period of [[Spanish colonization of the Americas]], several indigenous myths and works of art led a number of Spanish chroniclers and authors to suggest that Christian preachers may have visited [[Mesoamerica]] well before the [[Age of Discovery]]. [[Bernal Díaz del Castillo]], for example, was intrigued by the presence of cross symbols in Maya hieroglyphs, which according to him suggested that other Christians may have arrived in ancient Mexico before the Spanish [[conquistadors]]. [[Fray Diego Durán]], for his part, linked the legend of the Pre-Columbian god [[Quetzalcoatl]] (whom he describes as being chaste, penitent, and a miracle-worker) to the Biblical accounts of Christian apostles. [[Bartolomé de las Casas]] describes Quetzalcoatl as being fair-skinned, tall, and bearded (therefore suggesting an Old World origin), while [[Fray Juan de Torquemada]] credits him with bringing agriculture to the Americas. Modern scholarship has cast serious doubts on several of these claims, since agriculture was practiced in the Americas well before the emergence of Christianity in the Old World, and Maya crosses have been found to have a very different symbolism from that present in Christian religious traditions.<ref name=autogenerated2>{{Cite web | url=https://arqueologiamexicana.mx/mexico-antiguo/quetzalcoatl-blanco-y-de-ojos-azules |title = Quetzalcóatl ¿blanco y de ojos azules?|date = June 28, 2016}}</ref>

According to Pre-Columbian myth, Quetzalcoatl departed Mexico in ancient times by travelling east across the ocean, promising he would return. Some scholars have argued that [[Aztec]] emperor [[Moctezuma Xocoyotzin]] believed Spanish [[conquistador]] [[Hernán Cortés]] (who arrived in what today is Mexico from the east) to be Quetzalcoatl, and his arrival to be a fulfilling of the myth's prophecy, though others have disputed this claim.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gaceta.unam.mx/hernan-cortes-y-el-regreso-de-quetzalcoatl/|title=Hernán Cortés y el regreso de Quetzalcóatl|date=April 9, 2019|website=Gaceta UNAM}}</ref> Fringe theories suggest that Quetzalcoatl may have been a Christian preacher from the Old World who lived among indigenous peoples of ancient Mexico, and eventually attempted to return home by sailing eastwards. [[Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora]], for example, speculated that the Quetzalcoatl myth might have originated from a visit to the Americas by [[Thomas the Apostle]] in the 1st century CE. Later on, [[Servando Teresa de Mier|Fray Servando Teresa de Mier]] argued that the cloak with the image of the [[Virgin of Guadalupe]], which the [[Catholic Church]] claims was worn by [[Juan Diego]], was instead brought to the Americas much earlier by Thomas, who used it as an instrument for [[evangelization]].<ref name=autogenerated2 />

Mexican historian [[Manuel Orozco y Berra]] conjectured that both the cross hieroglyphs and the Quetzalcoatl myth might have originated on a visit to Mesoamerica by a Catholic [[Norsemen|Norse]] missionary in medieval times. However, there is no archaeological or historical evidence to suggest that the [[Norse colonization of North America|Norse explorations]] ever made it as far as ancient Mexico or Central America.<ref name=autogenerated2 /> Other proposed identities for Quetzalcoatl (attributed to their proponents pursuing religious agendas) include [[St. Brendan]] or even [[Jesus Christ]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wirth |first1=Diane E. |date=2002 |title=Quetzalcoatl, the Maya Maize God, and Jesus Christ |url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol11/iss1/3/ |journal=Journal of Book of Mormon Studies |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages= 4–15|jstor=10.5406/jbookmormstud.11.1.0004 |s2cid=193717645 |access-date=4 December 2023}}</ref>

A popular thread of [[conspiracy theory]] originating with ''[[The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail|Holy Blood, Holy Grail]]'' has it that the Templars used a fleet of 18 ships at [[La Rochelle]] to escape arrest in France. The fleet allegedly left laden with knights and treasures just before the issue of the warrant for the arrest of the Order in October 1307.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Karen Rall |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GpLSrOvPhJUC&pg=PA26 |title=The Templars and the Grail |publisher=Quest Books |year=2003 |isbn=978-0835608077 |page=26}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Tim Wallace-Murphy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xf_uvy6h1OoC&pg=PA17 |title=Templars in America |publisher=Weiser Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-1578633173 |page=17}}</ref> This, in turn, was based on a single item of testimony from serving brother Jean de Châlon, who says he had "heard people talking that [Gerard de Villiers had] put to sea with 18 galleys, and the brother Hugues de Chalon fled with the whole treasury of the brother Hugues de Pairaud."<ref name="Finke, 1907">{{Cite book |last=Finke |first=Heinrich |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kITUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA339 |title=Papsttum und untergang des Templerordens |publisher=verlag der Aschendorffschen buchh. |year=1907 |location=Münster |pages=338–39 |isbn=9780837069005 |quote=Item dixit, quod potentes ordinis prescientes istam confusionem fugiunt et ipse obviavit fratri Girardo de Villariis ducenti quinquaginta equos, et audivit dici, quod intravit mare cum XVIII galeis, et frater Hugo de Cabilone fugiit cum tot thesauro fratris Hugonis de Peraudo.}}</ref> However, aside from being the sole source for this statement, the transcript indicates that it is hearsay, and this serving brother seems to be prone to making some of the wildest and most damning of claims about the Order, which have led some to doubt his credibility.<ref name="Dafoe">{{Cite web |url=http://blog.templarhistory.com/2010/08/brethren-persecuted-part-2/ |title=Brethren Persecuted Part Two: Revenge Destroys Everything |last=Dafoe |first=Stephen |website=Knight Templar Magazine, the official publication of the York Rite Masonry Grand Encampment of Knights Templar of the United States of America |access-date=29 October 2012 |archive-date=October 24, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121024010355/http://blog.templarhistory.com/2010/08/brethren-persecuted-part-2/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> What destination, if any, was reached by this fleet is uncertain. A fringe theory suggests the fleet may have made its way to the Americas, where the Knights Templar interacted with the aboriginal population. Helen Nicholson of [[Cardiff University]] has cast doubt on the existence of this voyage, arguing that the Knights Templar did not have ships capable of navigating the Atlantic Ocean.<ref>Nicholson, Helen (2001). ''The Knights Templar: A New History''. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton. pp. 12, 191–92. {{ISBN|0-7509-2517-5}}.</ref>

=== Claims of ancient Jewish migration to the Americas ===
{{Main article|Ten Lost Tribes}}
Since the first centuries of [[European colonization of the Americas]] and up until the 19th century, several European intellectuals and theologians tried to account for the presence of the Amerindian aboriginal peoples by connecting them to the [[Ten Lost Tribes]] of Israel, who according to Biblical tradition, were deported following the conquest of the Israelite kingdom by the [[Neo-Assyrian Empire]]. In the past as well as in the present, these efforts were and still are being used to further the interests of religious groups, both Jewish and Christian, and they have also been used to justify European settlement of the Americas.<ref name=autogenerated1>{{Cite web | url=https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/native-americans-jews-the-lost-tribes-episode/ | title=Native Americans and Jews: The Lost Tribes Episode}}</ref>

One of the first people to claim that the indigenous peoples of the Americas were descendants of the Lost Tribes was the Portuguese rabbi and writer [[Menasseh Ben Israel]] (1604-1657), who in his book ''The Hope of Israel'' argued that the discovery of the alleged long-lost Jews heralded the imminent coming of the Biblical [[Messiah]].<ref name=autogenerated1 /> In 1650, a [[Norfolk]] preacher, [[Thomas Thorowgood]], published ''Jewes in America or Probabilities that the Americans are of that Race'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1660Thor.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029184039/http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1660Thor.htm |url-status=dead |title=Oliver's Bookshelf, The Premier Web-Site for Early Mormon History|archive-date=October 29, 2013}}</ref> for the New England missionary society. Tudor Parfitt writes:<blockquote>The society was active in trying to convert the Indians but suspected that they might be Jews and realized they better be prepared for an arduous task. Thorowgood's tract argued that the native population of North America were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Parfitt|first=Tudor|title=The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth|publisher=Phoenix|year=2003|pages=66}}</ref></blockquote>

In 1652 [[Hamon L'Estrange|Sir Hamon L'Estrange]], an English author writing on history and theology, published ''Americans no Jews, or improbabilities that the Americans are of that Race'' in response to the tract by Thorowgood. In response to L'Estrange, Thorowgood published a second edition of his book in 1660 with a revised title and included a foreword written by [[John Eliot (missionary)|John Eliot]], a [[Puritan]] missionary who had translated the Bible into an Indian language.<ref>{{cite book|last=Parfitt|first=Tudor|title=The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth|publisher=Phoenix|year=2003|pages=66, 76}}</ref>

[[Elias Boudinot]], a signatory to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, made similar claims in his 1816 book titled ''A Star in the West: A Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel; Preparatory to Their Return to Their Beloved City, Jerusalem''.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tz_YAAAAMAAJ&q=A+Star+in+the+West,+or+a+Humble+Attempt+to+Discover+the+Long+Lost+Ten+Tribes+of+Israel,+Preparatory+to+Their+Return+to+Their+Beloved+City,+Jerusalem%3B | title=A Star in the West: Or, A Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, Preparatory to Their Return to Their Beloved City, Jerusalem | last1=Boudinot | first1=Elias | date=1816 }}</ref>

=== Latter Day Saint movement's teachings ===
[[File:Izapa Stela 5.svg|right|thumb|upright|[[Izapa Stela 5]]]]
{{Main articles|Archaeology and the Book of Mormon|Genetics and the Book of Mormon|Native American people and Mormonism}}
The [[Book of Mormon]], a [[sacred text]] of the [[Latter Day Saint movement]], states that some ancient inhabitants of the New World are descendants of Semitic peoples who sailed from the Old World. [[Mormonism|Mormon]] groups such as the [[Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies]] attempt to study and expand on these ideas.

In a 1998 letter to the [[Institute for Religious Research]], the [[National Geographic Society]] stated that "Archaeologists and other scholars have long probed the hemisphere's past and the society does not know of anything found so far that has substantiated the Book of Mormon."<ref>[http://mit.irr.org/national-geographic-society-statement-on-book-of-mormon "National Geographic Society Statement on the Book of Mormon"]. August 12, 1998. Letter from Julie Crain addressed to Luke Wilson of the Institute for Religious Research.</ref>

Some LDS scholars hold the view that archaeological studies of the Book of Mormon's claims are not meant to vindicate the literary narrative. For example, [[Terryl Givens]], professor of English at the [[University of Richmond]], points out that there is a lack of historical accuracy in the Book of Mormon in relation to modern archaeological knowledge.<ref name="Givens2004">{{cite book|last=Givens|first=Terryl|title=The Latter-day Saint Experience in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IEEkTWyIpZkC&pg=PA145|access-date=November 8, 2014|year= 2004|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-32750-6|pages=145–}}</ref>

In the 1950s, Professor M. Wells Jakeman popularized the belief that the [[Izapa Stela 5]] represents the Book of Mormon prophets Lehi and Nephi's [[tree of life vision]] and was a validation of the historicity of the claims of pre-Columbian settlement in the Americas.<ref>*{{aut|Brewer, Stewart W.}}, (1999); [http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=180 "The History of an Idea: The Scene on Stela 5 from Izapa, Mexico, as a Representation of Lehi's Vision of the Tree of Life"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040915054621/http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=jbms&id=180 |date=September 15, 2004 }}, (p. 12)</ref> His interpretations of the carving and its connection to pre-Columbian contact have been disputed.<ref name="Paulson2000">{{cite book|last=Paulson|first=Matthew A.|title=Breaking the Mormon Code|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pbi_OfkPhzwC&pg=PA236|access-date=November 8, 2014|year= 2000|publisher=WingSpan Press|isbn=978-1-59594-067-4|pages=236–}}</ref> Since that time, scholarship on the Book of Mormon has concentrated on cultural parallels rather than "smoking gun" sources.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lund|first=John|title=MesoAmerica And The Book of Mormon|date=November 22, 2007|publisher=Granite Publishing & Distribution|isbn=978-1891114403|pages=286}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Allen|first=Joseph|title=Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon|date=June 15, 1989|publisher=S.A. Publishers|isbn=9780842523936|pages=437}}</ref><ref name="Wirth2007">{{cite book|last=Wirth|first=Diane|title=Decoding Ancient America: A Guide to the Archaeology of the Book of Mormon|year= 2007|publisher=Horizon Publishers, an Imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.|isbn=978-0882908205|pages=150–}}</ref>

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=20em}}
* [[Ancient maritime history]]
* {{annotated link|Antillia}}
* {{annotated link|Atlantis Expedition}}
* {{annotated link|Burrows Cave}}
* [[Columbian exchange]]
* {{annotated link|Davenport Tablets}}
* [[Diffusion (anthropology)]]
* [[Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas]]
* {{annotated link|Gwennan Gorn}}
* [[Hyperdiffusionism]]
* [[Hyperdiffusionism in archaeology]]
* [[Institute for the Study of American Cultures]]
* [[Jean Cousin (navigator)]]
* [[Jewish Indian theory]]
* {{annotated link|Kensington Runestone}}
* {{annotated link|Kon-Tiki expedition}}
* {{annotated link|Maine penny}}
* {{annotated link|Newport Tower (Rhode Island)}}
* [[Origins of Paleoindians]]
* [[Pre-Columbian rafts]]
* {{annotated link|Vinland Map}}
* {{annotated link|Westford Knight}}
* [[Magna Bowl]]
{{div col end}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

{{Commons category|Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact hypotheses}}
{{Pre-Columbian North America}}
{{Ancient seafaring}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pre-Columbian Trans-Oceanic Contact}}
[[Category:Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact| ]]
[[Category:Anthropology]]
[[Category:Fringe science]]
[[Category:Hyperdiffusionism]]
[[Category:Pseudohistory]]
[[Category:Theories of history]]