A visit to Callanish, on the lonely Isle of Lewis causes a lightbulb moment for Gavin. At first sight, it seems highly unlikely that Minoan ships from sunny Crete would have ever ventured to the stormy, wet wilds of the Hebrides. What if they hadn’t been coming to Lewis, like tourists? What if they’d actually been en route to somewhere else? When they reached Callanish, our ancient travellers had been returning home from a much longer journey – one they had made on the wings of the Gulf Stream? Forget Christopher Columbus. It was the Minoans who first discovered America…
Further reading:
The American Journal of Human Genetics (AM J Hum Genet) 2003, Nov 73 (5) 1178–1190: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180497/
The Mummies of Cladh Hallan, BBC, 18 March 2003
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/03_march/17/mummies.shtml
