Pre-Columbian Contact

It has been the focus of “the world’s longest and most expensive treasure hunt” and “one of the world’s deepest and most costly archaeological digs” …

Originally posted at Language Log reproduced here with permission The thesis of 1421 is that in the years 1421-1423

Claims for contact between the Old World and the New World often involve the diffusion

Skeptical Intelligencer Vol. 7, 2004, pp 19-22Reproduced with permission Introduction Before 1492 at least one group

Did the discovery, in Egyptian mummies, of the chemicals found in cocaine and tobacco prove an ancient contact with the Americas?

Egyptians, Phoenicians, Africans, Trojans, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Irish, Welsh, Germans, Poles, and various groups of Jews such as the wandering Hebrews, one or more of the Ten Lost Tribes, and refugees from the Bar Kokhba revolt have all been proposed as having crossed the Atlantic before 1492.

One common thread in the tapestry of “alternative” archaeology concerns the possibility of contact between