~ Robert Sharer and Wendy Ashmore (1979)

There is no testable, verifiable, physical evidence to support the hypothesis that Africans ever visited Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. This is not to say that ancient African civilizations were not capable of making the journey -- the evidence is simply not present in the archaeological record to date (Feder 2002). Therefore, archaeologists agree that there was no contact between ancient or medieval Africans and Mesoamericans prior to Columbus' journey.

In spite of this, proponents of the African discovery hypothesis continue to utilize pseudoscientific tactics to promote their unsubstantiated claims, such as:

Exclusive use of outdated material. The majority of articles and studies cited by van Sertima and other Afrocentric authors is significantly outdated from a scientific point of view (pre-1950).

Lack of original data. Very few primary sources of research - such as archaeological site reports or articles published by professional archaeologists in peer-reviewed journals - are cited by Afrocentric authors. Secondary summaries and subjective interpretations are utilized instead.

Selective exclusion of data. Concrete evidence that contradicts Afrocentric claims, such as the well-established chronological sequence of the Olmec head and stela sculptures, is simply disregarded.

Emphasis on the possible, not the factual. Proving that a civilization had the skills and tools to accomplish a journey is not the same as proving they actually accomplished it.

Ideological accusations. Researchers who point out the weaknesses of Afrocentric exploration are generally accused of being racists and/or part of a larger Eurocentric conspiracy to downplay African accomplishments.

"...without concrete evidence for support, [Afrocentric scholars] have given credit to far-away foreign cultures. This is both academically irresponsible and unfair to the cultures that truly produced them" (Follensbee 1996).

Both Africa and Mesoamerica are birthplaces of unique human civilizations and cultural achievements. As Feder (2002) states, there is no need to exaggerate the intellectual contributions of any civilization on any continent, or to state that one must have inspired another. Archaeologists are able to study and honor the true accomplishments of all peoples through the application of sound scientific principles. That is an achievement worthy of remembrance.

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It was stated that "Archaeology has a responsibility to prevent pseudo-archaeologists from robbing humanity of the real achievements of past cultures." but this is crapeau. This is exactly what has done over the last 200 years-the deception and robbing of ancient cultures and putting a European face on it. Recently there have been changes/improvements but this is a modern view.

It is actually a very interesting subject. I think it is rather reasonable to suspect that the Olmecs were Polynesian people or perhaps Australian. They don't strike me as Asians but that is possible as well.

Interesting stuff but the problem is that it is ALL conjecture. We simply don't know.

Just after 9/11, when people were trying to go after Arabs, they ended up shoout Sikhs, Asian Indians and Pakistanis!!

Put an APB out for someone with that face and guess who will be stopped: DRO (driving while olmec)!!

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
No scholars in the field...zero, nada, none...think the Olmecs were black.

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I don't know what you mean by that. What do you mean by scholar? I have read lots of books on the subject - all conjecture - but these people were scholars.

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Originally posted by Horemheb:
No scholars in the field...zero, nada, none...think the Olmecs were black.

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Forgot to add, keep in mind I was raised in England, not sure what has changed but I was brought up to understand that the Australians were Black and so were many of the Polynesian people with various degrees of Asian admixture. I suppose they don't teach that anymore because of the genetic differences.

Still looks rather like a Black person to me.

Of course we know that is not African Black but it certainly is Negroid phenotypically speaking.

There is no evidence of a black African presence in early Meso-America.

There are Afrocentrics who make this claim based on the fact that the Olmec statue heads have "negroid" features, when as we all know that "negroid" features like "caucasoid" features are found in populations around the globe.

The hypothesis that Africans made it to the new world during the Middle Ages is something that needs to be studied. First there is evidence such an endevour was done by the brother of Mansa Musa named Abu Bakari II. According to a Syrian Historian,al-Omari, who spoke to Mansa Musa his brother Abu Bakari II was said to have made such a trek to the new world.

And for people that don't believe Africans had sea worthy vessesls need to look no further than pirqoues used by modern Africans around the Niger river. These piroques can carry tons and could easily travel to areas like the Carribean or Brazil. The reason being is that even without sails a current that goes from off the Atlantic near Senegal carries people from this region to the Carribean and Brazil.

Not the most scholary but I recommend Dawn Voyage: The Black African discovery of America by Michael Bradley. In this book he cites an experiment with a simple African fishing vessel that made it into the Carribean with ease. He also cites witness from Portugeese sources that comment on the boats that African used and assembled.

Africans could have easily made contact with Medieval Meso-Americans,but the question is wheather they made it back to Africa.

Arabs and Indians are a Eurasian people but does that make their origins Caucasian (as in the Caucus region)?

What are the accepted modern explanations for the "Mongoloid" phenotype?

We all know that (atleast those of us with rational thoughts) humanity originated in Africa, that people with dark skin are tropically adapted and that tropical African variatations in skin color and phenotype are due to climate and land elevation.

What about the adaptations of Eurasians, East Asians and Native Americans?

Why do we say "Caucasian" to mean a person of European ancestry?

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The term Caucasian meaning the so-called white or European race originated with Johann Frederich Blumenbach (1752-1840), a German professor of natural history in Göttingen. Blumenbach is arguably the founder of scientific anthropology. He viewed mankind as an object of natural history--an animal like any other, although superior to the rest. He surveyed characteristics of human races, mapped their distribution, and invented comparative physiological anatomy.

While he observed many traits, he felt that the skull was the ultimate measure and indicator of race. Based on skull measurements, he classified five races: American, Caucasian, Ethiopian, Malayan, and Mongolian.

He selected a skull from Georgia (the one next to Russia) that he thought was the ideal of the Caucasian race, so named because of the Caucasus mountains that form Georgia's northern border. He thought that the Caucasus region was the home of a hypothetical race (for a time called Aryans, later Indo-Europeans), who many believe spoke a protolanguage from which many modern languages derive. By the way, the word "Caucasus" is from the Greek Kaukasos (Mt Caucasus), which gave the region its name.

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It would seem to me that there is no substantial evidence that "Middle Eastern" people and "Sub-Continental" people should be considered "Caucasian". For one Semitic people do not even speak an Indo-European language they speak Afro-Asiatic. Languages such as Persian and Sanskrit do appear to be somewhat related to European languages and Indo-European and Indo-Iranians may have a common lineage and adaptive traits but I am skeptical of the claims of East Indians being of Caucasian descent.

One explanation for the East Indian phenotype is the Aryan Invasion theory in which massive waves of Caucasians warrior tribes ofught their way through central Asia down to the Indus valley, conquering the people and enforcing their culture on the natives and through intermarriage separated the population intoa social structure depending on light skin to be the factor in elevating status which is an explanation for the Hindu caste system, I'm sure most people are familiar with this.

I doubt this is true considerig the lack of archeological evidence as well as the fact that many Indians have very dark skin, very narrow features and bone straight hair while others have the same skin tone, broader features and wavier hair. There appears to be alot of variation in India and the trends don't necessarily go along the lines of lighter skin equaling closer in appearance to Europeans.

And what of East Asia? What are the theories for the existence of the epicanthic fold and oblique palpebral fissures of the eye?

If Native Americans are descended from a "Mongoloid" people why is it that so few of them have such eye features?

I've also heard that the long accepted Bering
Strait theory has been taken into question by archeologists and alternate theories such as island hopping over the pacific island chains to the Americas was a another way in which they came here.

And what of these Olmecs? Aren't there also "Negroid" featured people living in the Amazon forests? I once asked my Earth science teacher about this back in high school and she proposed different theories that there were different waves of people into the Americas and that such "Black" people in South America may have traveled across Africa into South America when the two landmasses were still connected!

Caucasiod, Negroid and Mongoloid have been rejected by the anthropological community as scientific terms and have at times only been used for lack of a better term (contrary to the insistance of Evil Euro that when anthropologists use such terms it means they believe in the old racial concepts).

Actually, its know postulated that the very first Americans were like Melanesians or Aboringees from Australia. Some physical anthropologist found some already existing people in parts of South America and also the crania of Luzia seem to point to a Australoid pressence along with a Melanesian pressence before the ancestors of modern native Americans came to the Americas.

The broad features of many Meso-Americans and others in the Americas might be explain in this manner.

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Originally posted by tdogg:
Can you say Double-standard? The so-called Caucasoid can consist of people from any where in the world while the so-called Negroid is confined to Africa below the Sahara.

Using the logic of the Euro-Nuts, why can Ancient Egyptians be Caucasoid, but Olmecs can’t be Negroid?

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Olmecs were Negroid phenotypically speaking, but they are not closely related to Africans gentically speaking.

The issue really is how you define race. Is race a matter of superficial traits or a matter or heritrage/lineage.