A chance meeting with Carl L Johannessen, Emeritus Professor of Geography at the University of Oregon, whilst lecturing in Xian. We have often relied on his life-time’s research and also that of John Sorenson – they are the world’s leading authorities on the transmission of plants, animals, artefacts, diseases and much else between continents before Christopher Columbus set sail. Their research proves unequivocally that “… a considerable number of transoceanic voyages in both directions across both major oceans were completed between the seventh millennium BCE and the European age of discovery. Scientists’ growing knowledge of early maritime technology and its accomplishments increasingly give us confidence that vessels and nautical skills capable of the long distance travels implied were indeed developed by the times indicated…”
Further reading:
Archive of Cultural exchanges – http://www.archivesofculturalexchanges.org/
Sorenson and Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact With the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography http://www.amazon.com/Pre-Columbian-Contact-Americas-Across-Oceans/dp/0934893217
Allison, M. J., et al. “A Case of Hookworm Infestation in a Pre-Columbian American.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 41 (1974): 103–106.
Araujo, Adauto, et al. “Paleoepidemologia da Ancilostomose.” [CE1] Paleoparasitologia no Brasil (1988): 144–51.
Peter Lang, 1990.Buckland[CE2] , P. C., and E. Panagiotakopulu. “Ramses II and the Tobacco Beetle.” Antiquity 75 (2001): 549–56.
Carter[CE3] , G. F. Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts 2, no. 4 (2002).
Chadwick, R. E. “Toward a Theory of Trans-Atlantic Diffusion.” Ph.D., diss., Tulane University, 1975.
Jeffreys, M. D. W. “Pre-Columbian Maize in Africa.” Nature 172 (1953): 965–66.
Johannessen, Carl L., and Sorenson, John L. World Trade and Biological Exchanges Before 1492. New York: iUniverse, 2009.
Heyerdahl, Thor. “Feasible Ocean Routes to and from the Americas in Pre-Columbian Times.” American Antiquity 28 (1963), Bradshaw Foundation podcast.
Riley, Carroll L., et al., eds. Man Across the Sea. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.
Hristov, Romeo, and Santiago Genovés. “Mesoamerican Evidence of Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Contacts.” Ancient Mesoamerica 10 (1999): 207–13. See also http://www.unm.edu/~rhristov/
