Olmec of african descent?
Printed From: History Community ~ All Empires
Category: Regional History or Period History
Forum Name: African History
Forum Discription: Talk about African History
URL: http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=14194
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Topic: Olmec of african descent?
Posted By: Huey Tlahtoani
Subject: Olmec of african descent?
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2006 at 16:36
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I apologize for any errors in spelling .
I would like further information on the subject of the Olmec people having some connection with African peoples. I believe this is derived from giant stone heads thought to be produced by Olmec people that bear a very distinct similarity with peoples of Africa.
Any takers?
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Replies:
Posted By: nezahualcoyotl
Date Posted: 21-Aug-2006 at 18:23
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I´ve seen a very good document called something like "universal rain" If I remember well it was a nathional geographic document. Sorry, but the name was in spanish, this is the translation.
It talks about a theory that shows this images and explain it more detailed.
I hope you like it.
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Posted By: Jalisco Lancer
Date Posted: 23-Aug-2006 at 01:52
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again, if any mesaomerican culture was influenced or contacted bya foreign culture, where are the probes about those contacts ? why there`s no evidence of iron tools or metallurgic ? what I`m trying to say is that when a culture is influenced by others, there are aspects printed as result from those contacts such as tooling, ideas, etc.
Regards |
Posted By: Jams
Date Posted: 06-Sep-2006 at 15:11
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Noone knows if they really may have seen Africans, and thus depicted them, but it seems really unlikely. I've read many theories, and some of them suggest that it was people from "black Egypt" and other such nonsense.
Untill someone come up with a really convincing reason to believe that idea, besides claiming that the stoneheads could look like Africans, I'd say there's really no reason to believe in ANY connection.
One thing is sure, the Olmecs influenced the other people in Mesoamerica a lot, even if they may be a proto group that have later merged with some of the other people. The recent findings in the el-mirador area sugests, that the southern Maya may have been somewhat contemporary with the Olmecs, btw.
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Posted By: Paul
Date Posted: 06-Sep-2006 at 17:29
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Using the Olmec heads to suggest Africans colonised Mexicon is rather like insisting flat headed giants colonised Easter island.
------------- Light blue touch paper and stand well back http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk - http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk - http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 06-Sep-2006 at 18:39
Not Quite the same. The Olmec heads are realistic representations of apparently real people, just on a very large scale. Decidedly different personalities exist in each head, there isn't heavy stylization as in the Easter Island heads. The Olmec heads have decidedly African features.
I personally feel the Olmec heads are considerably older than they're given credit for. ------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 10:38
Hi,
No. The Olmec heads are not realistic. They are squared peaces of stone with very little relief. For a realistic despiction of Olmecs you have to see their jades.
All scientist agree that there weren't West Africans in the Americas in pre-contact times. There is not a single arquelogical, genetic or any other piece of evidence whatsoever, Mande script was invented in 1820, and West Africans of contact times didn't have the material means to reach the Americas, and they even lacked the knowlegde of the sail at those times.
It is final. Olmecs were Amerindians.
Pinguin
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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 18:37
All Scientists Agree!!?? You couldn't get all scientists to agree on what to have for lunch, let alone something as controversial as this.
 The Olmec heads are much more than "squared pieces of stone" They are realistic representations, apparently of people who lived in the area where they were carved. Chiseled, carved stone, not relief. Have you even seen an Olmec head?
The west Africans of contact times may not have been seafaring, but we are talking several thousand years before contact [pre columbian]
Final? What sources are you using for that one? The case for diffusion has gotten stronger in the last ten years. With new discoveries almost weekly, to rule anything out is setting yourself up. There is so little known about West African civilizations BCE to say anything is final is absurd. ------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Paul
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 20:07
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If I suggested the vikings were negroid, people would look at the Scandinavians of today and reguard it proof that the claim was untrue. Surely the same holds with the Olmecs. Why aren't the Olmec of today black if their ancestors were? ------------- Light blue touch paper and stand well back http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk - http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk - http://www.toltecitztli.co.uk |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 29-Sep-2006 at 20:08
I don't want to debate the point. Actually, I know the African contact theory was developed by Afrocentrist "schollars" like Ivan Van Sertima and Clyde Winters, which are really a joke for the serious archaeologists.
However, these are some points you should know if you want to enter in a discussion.
(1) Native Americans didn't have inmunity for the diseases that affected them so much during the 16th century. Most of those diseases originated in Africa. If contact existed they would have developed inmunity.
(2) There is no physical remain of contact whatsoever. All the "proofs" that are always mentioned are hoaxes, including the "African bones" and the Mande script (the Mande script was invented in 1820). The plant interchange and thousand of other pseudo-historical claims are also false.
(3) There is no genetical marker of African ancestry in pre-contact peoples of the Americas, and not in today's Native American pure populations.
(4) West African kingdoms become important ONLY in the Middle Ages. By that time Olmec culture had already being replaced by the Maya. Chronology does not match.
(5) West Africa simply did not have the tech for long distance sailing into the open sea. Actually, Native Americans were more advanced than Africans of the time in navigation. If any contact existed would have happened the other way around.
I suggest you read this article before you attempt to answer. Is called "
Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs" http://www.thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=73 - http://www.thehallofmaat.com/modules.php?name=Articles&file=article&sid=73
It was written by a scientist and blow Van Sertima up.
Read it carefully, please.
Pinguin
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Posted By: AfrikaJamaika
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 03:44
One thing when debating this that you have to keep in mind.. Is that according to Spencer Wells A Genetic Scientist said that humanity started in Africa, and when the water levels were low the Africans traveled threw the water, into Asia, Australia, Europe, and they kept traveling until they completely made it across the whole entire earth....By that time their appearance was different..... See if the africans was the cause of all the other races on the earth who's to say that their were'nt black(african) people who's body hadn't gone threw the evolution stages in that same area during the times of The Olmecs? |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 07:59
No doubt about it Man originated in Africa. Perhaps near Kenya in a small group of human beings closely related to today Khoisan.
Africans went out to Arabian. Once there the following generations were not Africans anymore.
Who knows, that's not very clear. Evolution to the so called specialized "races" could have happened partly inside Africa as well as outside. More scientific work is needed to clarify the point
Semantics...
Olmecs were Native Americans. That's was theirs ethnic group. Of course Natives Americans, descend of Africans of 60.000 ago, like anyone else on this planet. But that's very far from saying they were of the Bantu Ethnic group, because they weren't. The closest living group to ancient Olmecs are the Mayans of Guatemala.
Pinguin
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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 19:07
The "scientist" you refer to is an assistant prof. of sociology and the other two??
Reply to My Critics
An attack on my thesis that Africans made contact with America before Columbus in two major pre-Christian periods (circa 1200 b.c. and circa 800 b.c.) in addition to the Mandingo contact period (1310/1311 A.D.) has been circulated in advance to hundreds of subscribers to a journal, Current Anthropology. Copies of this attack by Bernard de Montellano, Warren Barbour and Gabriel Haslip-Viera were also sent out to African-American scholars, some of whom were cited in the attack, dishonestly titled "Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs." The title's emphasis is meant to suggest that all revisions of African history by so-called "Blacks" belong to a common school, radiate from a common brain, and are cast in the same "racialist" hue and mode. This circular, which precedes my new book, REPLY TO MY CRITICS (scheduled to appear in Sept), seeks to highlight the brazen and malicious lies, slanders and misrepresentations that characterize this attack. Let it be noted that I was invited to respond to this attack but was forced to withdraw. The editor, after verbally agreeing that I could reprint my commentary, after the issue of the Journal appeared, did a dramatic about-turn when pressed to sign a written agreement to back up his word. He wrote that I could only reprint my "commentary" (15 pages) if I also reprinted the attack on me (50 pages) since "they form a unit." To feel the full absurdity of this, just imagine the Jewish Defense League being forced to republish an extended Nazi-type attack on their positions in order to republish a brief response to such a slanderous attack. LIE ONE: - "Van Sertima's expedition allegedly sailed or drifted westward to the Gulf of Mexico where it came in contact with inferior Olmecs. These individuals created Olmec civilization." - De Montellano, Barbour and Haslip-Viera. THE TRUTH: As far back as 1976, I made my position on this matter very clear. I never said that Africans created or founded American civilization. I said they made contact and all significant contact between two peoples lead to influences. "I think it is necessary to make it clear - since partisan and ethnocentric scholarship seems to be the order of the day - that the emergence of the Negroid face, which the archeological and cultural data overwhelmingly confirm, in no way presupposes the lack of a native originality, the absence of other influences or the automatic eclipse of other faces"-p. 147 of "They Came Before Columbus." See also Journal of African Civilizations, Vol 8, No. 2, 1986 "I cannot subscribe to the notion that civilization suddenly dropped onto the American earth from the Egyptian heaven." LIE TWO: None of the early Egyptians and Nubians looked like Negroes. "They have long, narrow noses..." "Short, flat noses are confined to the West African ancestors of African-Americans." Again, "there is no evidence that ancient Nubians ever braided their hair. This style comes from colonial and modern Ethiopia." THE TRUTH: Narrow noses have been found among millions of pure-blooded Africans. We can see this among the Elongated and Nilotic types. My critics know nothing about the variants of Africa, ancient or modern. All the six main variants of the African have been found in the Egyptian and Nubian graves. For examples of ancient braided Nubian hair, see Frank Snowden's "Before Color Prejudice," As for Egypto-Nubians only having narrow noses, see Egyptian pharaohs in Vol 10 and 12 of the JAC and major Nubian pharaohs in Peggy Bertram's essay (JAC, Vol.12) -Ushanaru, Plate 8, p 173; Taharka as the god Amun from Kawa Temples, Plate 9, p. 173; Shabaka, Plate 12, p. 176. Tanwetamani, Plate 16, p. 180. To say that these are narrow noses is to exhibit a colossal ignorance of African types in ancient Egypt and Nubia. The agenda behind this is to bolster their case that they could not have been models for any of the Olmec stone heads. LIE THREE; Modern Egyptians look exactly as they did thousands of years ago. The composition of the Egyptian has not changed over the last 5000 years. Invasions by the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Arabs and Romans left them looking the same today as in the dawn of history. THE TRUTH: This is a hasty misreading of the work of scholars like A.C. Berry, R. J. Berry and Ucko who point out that there is a remarkable degree of homogeneity in this area for 5000 years. What a superficial reading of this fails to note is that the period ends with the close of the native dynasties BEFORE the invasions of the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman and Arab foreigners LIE FOUR: Faced with the startlingly Negroid features of some of the http://72.14.209.104/olmec_heads.htm - Olmec stone heads , my critics try 4 ways out: (a) They are "spitting images of the native;" (b) they appear dark because some of them were carved out of dark volcanic stone; (c) some were made of white basalt which turned dark over time; (d) ancient Egyptians and Nubians were remote in physiognomy from sub-Saharan Negroes and none of them could have been models for any of the "Negro-looking" heads. Having said all that, they then claim that "races are not linked to specific physiognomic traits." THE TRUTH: No need to shoot them down on this. They turned the gun on themselves. LIE FIVE: Nothing African has been found in any archeological excavation in the New World. THE TRUTH: In the drier centers of the Olmec world - at Tlatilco, Cerro de las Mesas and Monte Alban - the Polish craniologist, Andrez Wiercinski, found indisputable evidence of an African presence. The many traits analyzed in these Olmec sites indicated individuals with Negroid traits predominating but with an admixture of other racial traits. This is what I have said. The work of A. Vargas Guadarrama is an important reinforcement of Wiercinski's study. He found that the skulls he examined at Tlatilco, which Wiercinski had classified as Negroid, were "radically different" from other skulls on the site, bearing indisputable similarities to skulls in West Africa and Egypt. LIE SIX: Van Sertima presents no evidence that a New World cotton (gossypium hirsutum var. punctatum) was transferred from Guinea to the Cape Verde in 1462 by the Portuguese and there is no hard proof that West Africans made a round trip to America before Columbus. THE TRUTH: I cited evidence in 12 categories to establish Mandingo voyages to the New World circa1310/1311 A.D. This included eyewitness reports from nearly a dozen Europeans, even Columbus himself, metallurgical, linguistic, botanical, navigational, oceanographic, skeletal, epigraphic, cartographic, oral, documented and iconographic evidence. With regard to New World cotton in Africa before 1462, Stephens spoke in two tongues to pacify isolationist colleagues. LIE SEVEN: My critics claim that I said the bottle gourd came in with Old World voyagers. THE TRUTH: I was at pains to point out that this is ONE PLANT THAT COULD DRIFT TO AMERICA WITHOUT THE LOSS OF SEED VIABILITY. "Bottle gourds got caught in the pull of currents from the African coast and drifted to America across the Atlantic. Thomas Whitaker and G.F. Carter showed that these gourds are capable of floating in seawater for 7 months without loss of seed viability" - "They Came Before Columbus," 204. They indulge in an even more vicious dishonesty with regard to cotton, claiming that I said "Old World cottons came into America with a fleet of Nubians circa 700 B.C." I never linked cotton transfer to Nubian contact. LIE EIGHT: My critics admit "we cannot unequivocally date the heads" but they single out one which they say Ann Cyphers confidently dated about 1011 B.C. Note the date! This is 200 years AFTER the Egyptian contact period c. 1200 B.C. Yet they claim that the dating of this one head proves "Negro-looking heads" were being carved, mutilated, and buried prior to 1200 B.C. THE TRUTH: The stone heads could not have been buried before they were carved. LIE NINE: Egyptians stopped building pyramids "thousands of years" before 1200 B.C. No relationship whatever exists between Old World/New World pyramids. THE TRUTH: Enormous obelisks, calling for the same complex engineering skills of the pyramid age were built at Karnak as late as 1295 B.C. A pyramid was also built as Dashur circa 1700 B.C. Bart Jordan, the mathematical child prodigy, to whom Einstein granted special audience, established startling coincidences between Old World and New World pyramids. He agrees with me that "The overwhelming incidence of coincidence argues overwhelmingly against a mere coincidence." LIE TEN: My critics claim that I have trampled upon the self-respect and self-esteem of native Americans and they have come forward to champion their cause. THE TRUTH: My people (for I am part Macusi and part African) would be horrified to have, as champions of our cause, De Montellano, Barbour, and Haslip-Viera, who disgrace us with the charge that "native Americans would have sacrificed and eaten the Africans if they came."
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 19:07
Mayans of Guatemala:
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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 19:19
) There is no physical remain of contact whatsoever. All the "proofs" that are always mentioned are hoaxes, including the "African bones" and the Mande script (the Mande script was invented in 1820). The plant interchange and thousand of other pseudo-historical claims are also false.
Olmec, recovered from an archeological site by Mexican scientists.------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 19:22
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What happens to you guys?
Doesn't Africa have enough cultures and "greatness"?
How come you have to go through the world claiming cultures that doesn't not belong to you.
Afrocentrism is pseudoscience.
Well, any educated people knows. Just get informed.
How West Africans arrived to the Americas? Swimming?
They didn't even have sails in West Africa by the time the Olmec culture developed
 Pinguin
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 28-Feb-2007 at 22:10
more evidenceAfrocentrism in 'Lear' overlooks native peoplehttp://www.yaledailynews.com/authors/view/928 - James Terry The production of Shakespeare's "King Lear" currently playing at the Yale Repertory Theatre is set among the Olmecs of ancient Mexico, and the cast is entirely African-American. One might mistake this for a misguided attempt at surrealism, but the program tells us otherwise: "Although the Olmec origins are still a mystery to us, archaeological evidence indicates that Africans made their way to the New World thousands of years before European colonizers and formed the civilization's foundations." In fact, we are told, "The Africans who made their way to Mesoamerica thousands of years ago created a prodigious civilization." Indeed, something is prodigious here, but I'm afraid it isn't just the accomplishments of the ancient Olmecs. Claims that Africans "created" complex societies in ancient America may come as a surprise to those who have studied the archaeological evidence, as that evidence indicates nothing of the sort. But these claims will come as no surprise to those familiar with popular strains of archaeological fraud that look beyond the Americas for the origins of complex American societies. The Afrocentric pseudo-history accompanying the Rep's "King Lear" takes its place in a long, ignoble history of fanciful theories involving Vikings, Phoenicians, lost tribes of Israel, refugees from Atlantis or the lost continent of Mu, and of course those ever-popular extraterrestrials. What these theories have in common is the assumption that Amerindians on their own could not have risen above the level of "savagery," which is the level to which they were assigned by racialized theories of cultural evolution during Europe's colonial expansion. Only outsiders, it was held, could explain the existence of "high culture" among the savages. The racism underlying this assumption is one of the hardiest of Eurocentrism's many weeds, and what we see on display at the Yale Rep is merely a newer, Afrocentric variety. Unfortunately, the Afrocentric narrative is neither more credible nor less offensive than the Eurocentric predecessors on which it is modeled. Director Harold Scott and lead actor Avery Brooks credit Ivan Van Sertima as the primary source for their ideas regarding the Olmecs. In his 1976 book "They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America," Van Sertima argues that African voyagers came to America around 700 B.C., conquered the "less advanced" natives and introduced them to the arts of civilization. For their part, the conquered indigenes came to "revere" their African overlords. Van Sertima's theory has been debunked elsewhere. What should be stressed here is that Van Sertima has no grasp of Mesoamerican religion or cosmology and even seems a bit confused by the region's chronology and cultural geography. Methodologically he is unscrupulous; works of art supporting his argument are held to be realistic portraits of Africans; those that don't are too "stylized" to be analytically useful. His narrative proceeds with a willful indifference to archaeological data; it relies mostly on secondary sources, most of which were discredited or outdated even before he wrote his book in the 1970s. But evidence and logic have little to do with the Afrocentric argument that the Olmecs were African. The impetus here is racial chauvinism. Van Sertima's narrative of conquerors carrying civilization to grateful natives should seem familiar: it was -- and remains -- one of Europe's self-aggrandizing myths, used to justify colonization and slavery across the globe. That fantasy has now been assigned to black actors, but nothing else has changed. Eurocentric methods, categories and norms are put to Afrocentric ends. Van Sertima's statement that the ancient Americans were "less advanced" bears the stamp of Eurocentric theories of cultural evolution. Many of his secondary sources come from this same tradition: they are Eurocentric attempts to prove that "Caucasian" Egyptians founded ancient American "civilizations." Van Sertima merely replaces "Caucasian" with "black," "Nubian-Egyptian." In this case Afrocentrism is just what scholars such as Gerald Early claim it to be: Eurocentrism in blackface. Contrary to the crackpot fantasies of Afrocentrists and Eurocentrists, archaeological research in Mesoamerica suggests, unequivocally, that indigenous cultures developed in situ. To date no artifacts from across the seas have been found in controlled archaeological context in Mesoamerica; no transfers of technology from Africa or Europe, such as metallurgy or the wheel, were present when the Spaniards arrived, and none have been excavated. What we do find, however, is ample evidence for cultural change, from hunter-gather societies, to villages, to cities. It is a history of population growth accompanied by increasing social complexity. There are no sudden, mysterious florescences, no ex nihilo creations requiring recourse in diffusionist myth-making. The ancient Mesoamericans, it turns out, were much like humans everywhere: sometimes noble, sometimes savage, often ingenious; they created art and cities and elaborate philosophical systems. And they did it all on their own. Unfortunately the program for "King Lear" tells another story, one that is an affront to the First Peoples of the Americas. Worse, that affront is now being distributed to New Haven schools as part of the Rep's outreach program. It is a sure bet that nobody associated with this production would tolerate claims that Africans did not build Great Zimbabwe; but apparently the legacy of Native Americans is still available to be plundered. None of this is as bitter as the original Eurocentric version, but that hardly makes it palatable. (James Terry is a graduate student in the History of Art Department.) |
Posted By: Jams
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2007 at 08:30
I just realized that you're Kawashkar
Small world, eh!
Anyway, this page is really strangely formatted, with the text to the far right?
I think it's pretty sad when people do plants just to "prove" some point, it show they really do know they're wrong and lying themselves. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 04-Mar-2007 at 08:37
Just Sir, small world isn't it? I am Omar E. Vega, alias Kawashkar and allias Pinguin Perhaps you know me from "EgyptianSearch" of the times when I pulled the legs of Clyde Winters and his Mandinga writting theory
Yes, it is pretty sad when all the evidence shows otherwise. Olmecs were Native Americans and the Natives peoples of the region should be recognized as the only inheritors of that culture. That's a matter of justice.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Jams
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2007 at 08:12
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Actually it was the Biodiversity forum! ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2007 at 08:44
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Yes, I remember now. I was ban from there because I complain about certain racist oppinions against the Yamanas, the natives of southern Patagonia. It is a small world. Isn't?
Kawashkar/Pinguin
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Posted By: Jams
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2007 at 15:21
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(Sorry about this off topic post)
You were banned? That's odd, you never wrote anything offensive that I could tell. Oh well. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 05-Mar-2007 at 21:38
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Well, in one moment I had the bad idea of saying that Hitler was the man that had killed more Europeans ever in history. I was banned for that. It was in the context of defending the Yamanas, natives of the southern tip of South America.
Glad to meet you here.
Omar Vega (Pinguin/Kawashkar)
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Posted By: Jams
Date Posted: 07-Mar-2007 at 03:17
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Well, Hitler was surely responsible for the most deaths ever. ------------- |
Posted By: Joe Boxer
Date Posted: 10-Jul-2007 at 11:40
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Stalin was. ------------- Mughal-e-Azam |
Posted By: Decebal
Date Posted: 10-Jul-2007 at 11:58
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Meh, it's hard to assign blame and say that one person was so much worse than the other... This discussion again.... What about the anonymous inventor of gunpowder? Or what about certain figures in Chinese history, such as An Lu Shan or Hong Xiuquan , who are both held responsible for 20-30 million deaths each? Or what about Genghis Khan or Tamerlane? Can we stop diverting discussions to topics such as "who's the worst criminal", please? There have been lots of mass murderers in history and even more topics on AE about their relative "merits". Surely, we don't need to hijack other threads for this purpose... ------------- What is history but a fable agreed upon? Napoleon Bonaparte Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.- Mohandas Gandhi 
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Posted By: Patch
Date Posted: 11-Jul-2007 at 10:29
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While not suggesting that the Olmecs came from Africa there is evidence from reputable sources that the earliest inhabitants of South America were of Negroid appearance. Human remains of people similar to the Australian Aborigines have been found in South America predating the arrival of those of Mongloid appearance.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/430944.stm - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/430944.stm
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 11-Jul-2007 at 16:19
It may be. Not precisely Australian aboriguines as you claim, but people similar to the Ainus of Japan, that were quite common in Ancient times in Asia, and some of whose descendents are the Indonesians and Polynesians.
Now, some loonies think the Patagones were australoids. Believe me, I know that people because they are fellow Chileans and they looked Amerindian. Pure Amerindian. The rest is fantasy.
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Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 13-Jul-2007 at 15:14
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Well actually there is more evidence(not just skeletons) That point to an African prescence in the New World. Taken from "They Came Before Columbus" by Ivan Van Sertima: "The Indians gave proof that they were trading with black people. They brought to the Spanish concrete evidence of this trade: "The Indians of Espanola (Current day Haiti and Dominican Republic) said there had come black people who have the tops of their spears made of metal which they call gua-nin, of which he (Coloumbus) had sent samples to the Sovereigns to have them assayed,when it was found that out of 32 parts, 18 were of gold, 6 of silver and 8 of Copper"
"The origin of the word guanin may be tracked down in the Mande languages of West Africa, through Mandingo, Kabunga, Toronka, Kankanka, Bambara, Mande, and Vei. In Vei, we have the form of the word ka-na which transliterated into native phonetics, would give us gua-nin.
"In Columbus's journal "gold" is given as coa-na while gua-nin is recorded as an island where there is much gold. But Fray Bartolome- de las Casas, the Spanish scholar who traveled with Columbus and who was often appalled by his linguistic blunders, even in the use of Castilian Spanish, wrote in the margin of the journal 'This guanin is no island but that gold which according to the Indians had an odor for which they valued it much.' Similarily in Raccolta, the Italian account of the voyage, one reads "there were pieces of gua-nin as large as the caravel's poop' "
" On his third voyage he (Columbus) came upon more evidence of the contact between Guinea and the New World. From a settlement along the South American coast on which his men landed on Tuesday, August 7, the natives brought handkerchiefs of cotton very sysmetrically woven nd worked in colors like those brought from Guinea,from the rivers of Sierra Leone and of no differnece. Not only were they alike in style and color but also in function. These handkerchiefs he said ' resembled almayzars- Guinea headdresses and loin cloths. 'Each one is a cloth so woven in colors that is appeared an almayzar with one tied on the head and the other covering the rest.'
"These were the earliest documented traces of the African presence. Within the first and second decades of the so-called "discovery", African settlements and artifacts were to be sighted by the Spanish. When they were not reported as mere asides they were ignored or suppressed. But history is not easily buried. In the oral tradtions of the Native Americans and Guinea Africans, in the footnotes of the Spanish and Portugese documents, part of the story lies. Another part lies emblamed under American and African earth. As this earth is now being lifted by archaelogical picks and trowels, a new skeleton emerges of the history of these adjaecent worlds."
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 13-Jul-2007 at 22:57
Come on. Ivan Van Sertima is a clown. A very smart guy that had make a fortune saling fantasies to Black people. Nothing of what he say in that book correspond to anything real.
For credibility, I bet the Book of Mormon and its "lamanites" bull is more precise
Sorry,
Pinguin
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Posted By: Malik
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 07:02
Interesting |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 11:44
Yes. As interesting as the myth of big foot and Snow-white
Pinguin
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Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 12:20
| Saying something is crap has no basis unless you bring evidence against it. I could have said everything you said is BS but I didnt instead I brought evidence to prove a point. Now I sense you saying my source is biased. Funny considering that most of the mainstream history that is taught in schools takes their information from mainly European sources of the era and we all know what most (notice I didnt say all) of them thought about other people around the world (Let alone those oh so primitive and savage Africans) |
Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 12:25
Oh yea and btw I might add this man has credible sources from which he gets his information and he lists them after each chapter in the book. You should read it sometime 
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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 12:26
Doctor Ivan Van Sertima is a full professor of African studies at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. He and many of his ideas are highly respected in the Academic community and has a higher degree of credibility than the pretenders you quote.
Pinguin, I am getting tired of your abusiveness and the lack of credible responses. It's typical of someone with no real credible response to ridicule the person he's debating.
"Nothing of what he says corresponds to anything real" back it up,[ with sources, credible ones, facts, not biased, opinionated garbage]
Back it up or shut up.
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:22
| I still dont see how this disproves the possiblilty of African trade in the New World. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:37
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How? It is not a matter of disprove it. The opposite is what you need. It is a matter of proving it!
Any crazy fellow can claim anything. The fantasies has to be proven. There is NOT A SINGLE proof of contact with Africans. Even more, there is lot of evidence there was not contact at all.
Come on. West Africans didn't even colonize Cape Verde :) :) They lacked the sail! Actually Amerindians were more advanced than them in navigation.
This afrolunacy is just a stupid theory to rise the pride in A.A. schools that has no ground on reality.
It is not an innocent theory, though, because it is robbing the heritage of an Amerindian people that own its in justice.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:46
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Why would they want to colonize Cape Verde anyway? its a palce that lacks resources and good rainfall. Come on Think about it. And how can you disprove the lingual evidence that Coloumbus recorded himself? |
Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:52
| Not to mention that you seemed to ignore my post about Ivan's sources.If he was making all this up why would he bother with putting sources at the end of every chapter. In order to effectively disprove him, you need to go and discredit EVERY SINGLE source he gave in the book including the historical EUROPEAN ones |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:53
|
Just to make sure everyone knows pinguins agenda, the real one, this is a post taken from ratehispanics-
Originally Posted by pinguin
Why don't you go back to your Black alley then and leave Latino people alone?
We know you came here for the chicks, what else someone like you would be looking for, And we know you have a duty to f---k as many women you can, so you can say it proudly I f---k this and I f---k that. You want to show that Black men are not so unbelievable ugly like many people suspect. You Blacks don't even have an education enough to keep your sexual lifes for yourself like my people do. You are so ordinary an low class, that only the worst of us could be attracted to you. You know that very well. And for your Black chicks, although I respect them because they are women, and I would never say they are "bitches" like you do with all women, I don't feel much attracted to them. I am just sorry they have to stand a kind of people like you that can't form stable families at all and that live most theirs lifes at jail. Men that never take responsabilities and that only worry about theirs d--k. No wonder you can even get 60 at IQ test! Yeah! Black women is the only valuable you people have. I respect them. Pinguin Pinguin, I don't waste my time on racist morons.
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:55
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Hah! I guess that says something about where he gets his info from too huh?
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:56
That your intercept jokeful messages of other sites that lacks the rules, and seriousness of this one, don't change the fact that
YOU DON'T HAVE ANY PROOF AT ALL OF CONTACT.
And that Van Sertima is considered a charlatan by the scientific community.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:57
| Oh I have proof its just people like you that choose to remain ignorant of it. |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 13:58
 Van Sertima is a charlatan, though.
Sorry. Afro-Olmecs are something as real as the minotaur or the unicorn
Pinguin
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 14:03
And do you want I believe you? You don't have anything but envy for the achievements of Amerindian peoples.
Look. These are Afroamerican guys making a ridiculous presentation with U.S. government fundings
Talk me about ignorants
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Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 14:10
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Heeheh once again YOU are the one without credible non-racist sources. Its people like you that come out every time someone who actully thinks for themself comes out and says "HEy there may have been more to black history than the slave trade" and says hah what lunatics, even though they have credible sources nd evidence. I see you are STILL ignoring my posts about this guys sources. Once again I ask you what you have to say about his sources from Columbus and other European sources. Well ill continue with you later.
Bye
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 14:17
Columbus, just like many other earily conquistadors, were initially unable to imagine a fourth continent. The world they encountered was completely alien to the, so they tried to explain everthing in Old World terms. Columbus initially considered Cuba to be Japan, and was convinced the Caribs were the soldiers of the Khan. The Spanish conquistadors who conquered Peru several times described temples as mosques. All this is simply a natural reaction to meeting something completely unknown, it is no evidence that Affricans, Muslims or Mongolians really arrived in the New World. ------------- |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 14:20
Nope. Your only argument is crying racism. This site is about history, not about social problems.
History is a matter of FACT and not justice. Actually, I am not very interested at all in the history of Africa, but I know quite a lot of its details, anyways. What interest me is the history of the Americas.
Never forget that is people like you that is behaving in a racist manner robbing the heritage of Amerindians.
You are the last of robbers of Amerindians, and people like me won't allow that. No sir.
With respect of sources, there is lot of material about pre-colombian and colonial history in the Americas. I have read many of those books, and I have not found evidence in there of anything Van Sertima claims.
Now, when you learn that Spaniards called llamas "lambs of this land", then you should realize theirs descriptions where not much precise at all, so theirs chronicles are a fertil ground to fantasious speculators. In fact, Spaniards where looking for the foutain of youth, the cities of silver and El Dorado!
With respect to Van Sertima, I have studied his sources already... they are all made up. You won't believe me, but that's the truth.
Archeologist have lot of more material than that. It is possible today to trace the origin of Amerindian civilizations at 5.500 years ago in Caral, Peru. All the rest is baloony.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Strange
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 23:51
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This is just going to turn into a pointless 20 page argument with both sides thowing crap at each other and that goes nowhere. I think the point that I and people like Ivan Van Sertima are trying to make is that ancient Africans were more sophisticated than most in the mainstream think and with a great deal of the stereotypes that distort history being racially based, I think racism deserves to be discussed in a history discussion and not just thrown in the closet.
MAYBE Africans never traded with or made contact with the New World and MAYBE some of Ivan Van Sertima's ideas are far fetched but instead of meeting his and others' theories with hostility as you have,.... they should be considered and not ruled out as a possibilty. And even if such theories are complete fallacies, they SHOULD force us all to rethink our beliefs on Ancient Africa with a more open mind instead of putting the African peoples ablilties in a box...whether that be the young african american who thinks his race is worthless and uncabable OR the average joe who when he thinks of Africa sees only huts and bone-in-the-nose savages.
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Posted By: Malik
Date Posted: 14-Jul-2007 at 23:52
Pinguin" ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ from rate hispanic I'd advise everybody to ignore this guy,as you can see he is a LUNATIC |
I am also with my Puerto Rican and Cuban brothers of dark skin against
the perpertual bugging of Black Americans against them. I am with my
fellow Indian brothers of Mexico against the gringo.Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 01:37
Out of context. You don't have sense of humour at all. You should put all the posts in that crazy site to have an idea.
Besides, what more lunatic that Ivan Van Sertima
|
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 01:44
Well, I DO BELIEVE SS Africans were more sophisticated than what the Eurocentrist have shown. I have been studying the influences of African arts in modern culture, including music, scupture and painting, and I believe people should know more about it. Besides, even if not so, I appreciate the so called "primitive" people, that includes Amerindians of the Jungle, the Polynesians, the Inuits, the Australoids and all the nomadic people of the planet. Nobody should be ashame of those cultures.
However, for me it is unbelievable irritating that to increase the ego of Africans Americans you have to sacrifice the heritage of Amerindians. That's not acceptable at all. And I really know Van Sertima and others are lying in this topic, nothing else. People must realize that.
If you wish, open a thread on African heritage in arts and I follow you. But let the heritage of Amerindians for them to keep it.
Pinguin
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Posted By: Malik
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 02:46
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Originally Posted by pinguin
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 02:57
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I see Isaiah. You are become a fun of the stupid post in that site. Your fault. That has nothing to do with the discussion in here. |
Posted By: Malik
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 03:13
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Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 03:24
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Thanks Isaiah!
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Posted By: Malik
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 03:27
More quotes to come 
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Posted By: rider
Date Posted: 15-Jul-2007 at 08:47
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Closed! ------------- |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 08-Aug-2009 at 12:37
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Re-opened!
Serious discussion ( wether pro or con ) of the evidence is encouraged.
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Posted By: MERN
Date Posted: 07-Nov-2009 at 21:16
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It seems to me that if Van Sertima's ideas were credible, they'd be more mainstream. I've seen his name before in other "Afrocentric" literature ("Egyptians were black", "Moors were black", "Israelites werw black", "Hannibal/Cleopatra/Beethoven was black", etc...). That doesn't give his credibility much of a boost. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 11-Nov-2009 at 10:52
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You mean if his ideas were more mainstream they would be more credible. Yes, and they would no longer have the same potential to stimulate and power up imaginations as they did in their original form.
Ivan Van Sertima is Professor Emeritus at Rutgers U. The State Uni. of New Jersey. Until his retirement 2 years ago he was chair of the African Studies Dept. When he wrote "They Came Before Columbus", no one had challenged the accepted histories before this. This was in the early 70's and Black Nationalism was just reaching it's peak. There was bound to be some distortions once the book was published.
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Posted By: MERN
Date Posted: 11-Nov-2009 at 15:24
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red clay: "You mean if his ideas were more mainstream they would be more credible. " Normally no, but in history that's generally the case, since in history ideas are not just fanciful guess-work,. but are often based on textual/archaeological evidence, so it an author has ideas and is able to back them up with sufficient evidence, then more and more other scholars will accept them. It works in much the same way with science, I figure. There are exception ofcourse, but for the most part I thin that rule remains valid. If Van Sertima's ideas were indeed strong, then even if not accepted whole-heartedly, would atleast be mentioned and discussed more often and with more seriousness than they normally are. I recall reading many years ago a book that discussed his, and other Afrocentric's, ideas and they don't seem to be taken too seriously, atleast by that author and the scholarly sources he cited. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 12-Nov-2009 at 05:43
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In Academia there is quite often the attitude "ignore it and no one will review it, it will go away." Like it or not, racism was much more prevalent than you think, and you have a highly educated black man challenging accepted history as written by white historians. The only thing they could do was ignore it.
Btw- Van Sertima never said anything about Egypt or any place else in regards those cultures being black. That comes from Clyde Winters.
|
Posted By: MERN
Date Posted: 12-Nov-2009 at 08:04
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To red clay: I wouold have agreed with you years or decadees ago, but in todays environment, where scholars actually go out of their way to accomodate "non-conventional" approachesto history, and where "multi-culturalism" rules the day (often provoking a backlash from closet-racists screaming "white guilt!"), Van Sertima's ideas would be more acceptable or atleast tolerated. That that hasn't happened shows that even with all the "anti-Eurocentrism" that is around today, his ideas have little merit. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 13-Nov-2009 at 03:48
| His book was first published in 1976, most of the negative reactions to his ideas took place then. What you see now are people parroting what was written by others in 1976. Not all of his ideas had substance, but as time goes on more of it looks less controversial. |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 07-Jan-2010 at 00:40
Van Sertima may have been right on some points while wrong on others. But the main issue is that there are some representations of Negroid types in ancient Mexico ( besides Indians and some Caucasoid types )
 Mexico, Olmec Colossal head Treszapotes II (c. 12 th-9th century BC ) and a relief from Egypt ( 14 th century BC, Horemheb tomb, depicting Nubian war captives )
 ( TresZapotes. F).
Many others exist in stone, terracotta etc.
|
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 09-Jan-2010 at 12:49
| Hello. New here. The images may be intriguing, but this is afrocentrism at its best. |
Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 11-Jan-2010 at 20:03
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I happen to believe that the so called Olmec heads, do represent African people! Anyone with a brain and at least one good eye, cannot deny the obvious similarity to many people found now in Africa and also now in the Americas!
The only thing is; 1. do we trust the dating? And, if so, 2. how do we explain them and the current dating? Regards, ------------- http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/ |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 31-Mar-2010 at 16:19
| there is hardcore proof that olmecs were from Africa. |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 02-Jun-2010 at 10:15
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Kenndo made a post here. The post and showed article was about a script called Ajami, stated to be a 1000 years old. Nothing was about the Olmecs or of relevance to the topic.
A new thread is made. His post is moved to :
http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28448 - http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=28448
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Posted By: InTheFade
Date Posted: 26-Jul-2010 at 22:06
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History is being slowly destroyed. Many in academia feel dates and records are not important, calling this Euro-centric. Instead they teach curriculum that is pseudo-history. They seek not to enlighten the mind but prey on the hearts of the ignorant masses. Pride, hatred and superstitions are being substituted for logic, goodwill and science. We need to take back history from self serving groups that will have history destroyed or twisted to their own sick agendas. ------------- Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 26-Apr-2011 at 21:23
| The Olmec heads do have some distinctively African features. But how did they manage to cross the ocean? |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 27-Apr-2011 at 08:16
The same way everyone else has since forever, boats. And the olmec heads are just a tiny part of the Archeaological evidence. ------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 27-Apr-2011 at 08:25
| If you ask me voting will be:There are very much Polynesian features on heads.During last glacial period ,dry lands on this side of America,had been passed by X-men people. |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 27-Apr-2011 at 08:47
Did they have the technology to build craft of that size? These boats would have to be big enough to carry many weeks of provisions for a large number of people |
Posted By: Pytheus
Date Posted: 27-Apr-2011 at 15:44
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I always find the whole idea that people even take the idea the Olmecs were from Africa seriously laughable. I guess it's like 9/11 conspiracy theory, the jets were just holograms projected over missiles, thousands believe it. There isn't even a credible theory they were from Africa, just a fraud perpetrated by a conman who ranks alongside conspiracy theorists and faith healers.
Van Sertima is destroyed here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQM7KHJmeM - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RQM7KHJmeM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrdBnujVEnE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrdBnujVEnE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIA8DZKS9nE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIA8DZKS9nE&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
|
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 28-Apr-2011 at 11:09
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It's easy to attack someone who is no longer alive to defend his ideas. I don't believe the Olmecs were African, and neither did Van Sertima. He was trying to bring out the fact that the Olmec didn't live in total isolation from the rest of the world.
In fact, recent work has shown influences from both Africa and China as well as Japan. ------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 28-Apr-2011 at 11:25
    These are not carefully selected items, they are just a handful of artifacts out of the thousands that exist in museums in Mexico. Evidence of cross oceanic contact from both sides of the continent does not mean the Olmecs were from somewhere else. It does indicate that the Olmec did not live isolated from the rest of the world. Something that even a mainstream person such as Betty Meggers of the Smithsonian has seemingly accepted.
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 28-Apr-2011 at 11:35
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Red,colorless statues due to aging,always give wrong view about color:black.But i prefer colorless.That does not means they were not painted once. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 28-Apr-2011 at 13:48
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The facial features and the stylistic hair treatments are what's important. Some are stone, black stone. Others are ceramic, which may or may not have been painted.
The fact that all were found in the general vicinity of Oaxaca Mexico is also important. What is also evident here is the apparent fact that race had little or no importance what so ever.
What your looking at is evidence of a Global Trade Network. These folks were not Olmec, they were there to trade with them. Much like our "Trade Legations" we have today. That doesn't imply colonization.
Actually, There is much more evidence for China having more contact over a period of time than there is for Africa. ------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 28-Apr-2011 at 20:22
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I believe the Olmecs were native people who could of had some Austerloid/Polynesian mixture. I have seen mexicans with wide lips and nose, it is even present in South East Asia, so it is not exclusive to africa. I find it sad that others are trying to steal the history of the native americans. ------------- |
Posted By: Nick1986
Date Posted: 29-Apr-2011 at 08:06
| The Mexicans you mentioned could have been descended from black slaves. Alternatively, a tribe of Africans may have migrated to the Americas during the last Ice Age, founded the Olmec civilisation and gradually become absorbed by the Asian-descended majority, hence the black Olmecs' disappearance. However, this still doesn't explain why they left Africa and how they crossed the sea without advanced boats |
Posted By: Ince
Date Posted: 29-Apr-2011 at 08:56
|
Those facial features are also present among the Australoids /Polynesians and bones of Australoids were already discoverd in the Americas so they did cross over to Americas from asia before the more mongoloid native americans.
------------- |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 29-Apr-2011 at 09:15
|
Nick,we Europeans(Africans?),were not first on earth's soil!Diversity in DNA genes would have been followed few years after now.Migration's part could not be neglected also!Features of face show us Polynesian/Mongol influence.Absence of color confuse our minds. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 29-Apr-2011 at 14:12
This isn't the first time I've fielded this, but I'll take it easy on you. If it was Pinguin I'd already be journalisticly defleshing him.
Most of this is easy. There was no migration, no Africans. During the last Ice age people did migrate here. However they were the Solutrean culture, from Europe. They more than likely worked their way along the Pack Ice, using skin boats. The Africans were too far South, no ice. And in this time frame your correct, they didn't have the sailing technology, yet.
The people who began the Olmec Civilization were Native Americans. Considering the approx. date they use as the earliest for the Olmec is 4,000 bce, there were seaworthy boats being used at that time. Again the evidence for cross oceanic contacts from both sides is sitting there, like the Gorilla in your living room. Trade! Money! Power! Greed is one of the strongest motivators you can think of. Strong enough to compel men to "figure a way" regardless.
One other thing to consider. At this time the Ocean levels were much lower than now. There would have been more land exposed in the S Atlantic. Less time spent in open water and more available stopping places.
Ince, no one is trying to swipe anyone's culture or heritage. Where I think the Olmec were absolutely Native American, The observable evidence is too strong for me to believe they developed and lived in complete isolation from the rest of the world. But remember, influences run both ways.
Consider this, we have put humans in space and on the Moon, why would an ocean stop us?
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: unclefred
Date Posted: 08-May-2011 at 17:11
| It's much more likely imo, that it is Polynesian influence that we find in Olmec sculpture. In fact, the heads themselves appear Polynesian. Polynesian DNA is evident in Mexico, as well. The Olmec themselves have origin stories of coming to the Mexico coast on three flotillas of boats. |
Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 09-May-2011 at 08:31
|
Certainly the Polynesians made it here. The huge stone heads do have a Polynesian appearance. But that doesn't explain the obvious Nok style sculptures or those of obviously Chinese or Japanese people. When the objects were excavated, no one in their right mind would have proposed anything other than that they were Olmec in origin. That is why you have things like a Jade mask of a Chinese person labeled"Olmec".
Unk, my degrees are in ceramics. Way back when, Asian pottery was my "thing". Using the methods I was taught, the stylistic influences of some of the Pueblo pottery as well as others, are to "Japanese" to overlook. Even a mainstream rock such as Betty Meggars of the Smithsonian is starting to agree with that one.
There are also early periods where influences from Mycenae are so prevalent, it's hard to not notice it. Again, the Olmec were home grown. However they didn't develope in total isolation from the rest of the world. In fact, if just half of the reported contacts actually happened, the Coasts of the Americas were very busy.
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: unclefred
Date Posted: 09-May-2011 at 12:07
| I have no training but am very interested in the ceramics of the americas. Especially the Peruvian, such as the Moche. Some have mentioned a possible Mycenean link. |
Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 09-May-2011 at 12:29
|
Dry passages during glacial periods could be revealed,If NASA/Roscosmos/ESA published their radar satellites maps.Resolution of those is less than 0.5m!!!"Secret sea" passages all around the world will show us simple migration roads.Mystery veil about human civilization migrations on earth,would be teared forever. |
Posted By: Sander
Date Posted: 16-Jun-2011 at 19:40
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The idea that America was out of touch with non-american cultures can only be supported if one closes the eyes and mind for all the evidence. This terracotta head is actually post-Olmec, from the classic Mesoamerican period (ca. 200-900 AD) The Africoid features speak for themselves. On top of that we see the facial scarification of African communities.  Jalapa Museum, Vera Cruz Mexico ( classic period ca. 200-900 AD)
Regarding the Olmecs. As I argued before, they were overwhelmingly Amerindians, and not Africans as some have claimed. But the evidence does show that there were some caucasoids and negroids in the region in Olmec times. Several Mesoamerican histories also speak of (bearded) fair-skinned and black people from the east, across the sea, who visited the region in ancient times.
Polynesians reached the Americas as well but seem to have little to do with the Olmecs since even by the earliest dates they were only in eastern Polynesia by circa 100 AD which is way post-Olmec.
 |
Posted By: Don Quixote
Date Posted: 22-Aug-2011 at 01:29
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There is no genetic evidence, AFAIK, to support that the Olmecs were Africans.
------------- |
Posted By: Felakuti
Date Posted: 18-Sep-2011 at 19:58
Sorry, but IF THE EVIDENCE shows that any of these people WERE BLACK, then the person with dodgy credibility is the one who rejects such evidence. Egypt is a case in point. By UNANIMOUS testimony of the ancients, the ancient Egyptians were people we would describe today as blacks: Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) Greek philosopher, scientist, and tutor to Alexander the Great. Aristotle is said to have written 150 philosophical treatises. "Too black a hue marks the coward as witness Egyptians and Ethiopians and so does also too white a complexion as you may see from women, the complexion of courage is between the two." (Physiognomics, Vol. VI, 812a) Aristotle makes reference to the hair form of Egyptians and Ethiopians: "Why are the Ethiopians and Egyptians bandy-legged? Is it because the bodies of living creatures become distorted by heat, like logs of wood when they become dry? The condition of their hair supports this theory; for it is curlier than that of other nations, and curliness is as it were crookedness of the hair." (Physiognomics, Book XIV, p. 317) .................... Now, when you REJECT this, and similar testimony from some of the leading lights of European scholarship, YOUR credibility becomes very very suspect. |
Posted By: Amah Jones
Date Posted: 14-Oct-2013 at 13:36
 The world's first civilizations were indeed all black civilizations. From the ancient Egyptians to Nimrod's Babylon; and, from the Sumerians to the Elamites----they were all black people. We Africans know our descendants no matter where they're found on earth because Africans are generally black, but not all black people are, geographically-speaking, from the continent of Africa. African migration in ancient antiquity meant that black people moved, settled, and colonized just about all corners of the globe. They were the first in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and everywhere else, including Meso-America. The Olmecs were not Polynesians (who themselves are descended from Africans), but Africans of mostly Mandinka (Mende) and possibly Yoruba extractions. There also similarities between the Olmec script, Vai script (of the Mende), and to some extent, the Nsibidi script of Nigeria's Ibibio-Ekoi. 1. http://www.oocities.org/athens/academy/8919/decip1.html - http://www.oocities.org/athens/academy/8919/decip1.html 2. http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2008/12/nimrod-afro-asiatic-chief.html - http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2008/12/nimrod-afro-asiatic-chief.html 3. http://biblicalanthropology.blogspot.com/2011/06/kushite-marriage-pattern-drove-kushite.html - http://biblicalanthropology.blogspot.com/2011/06/kushite-marriage-pattern-drove-kushite.html 4.http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2011/06/nimrod-was-kushite-ruler.html 5. http://www.nairaland.com/189030/african-script - http://www.nairaland.com/189030/african-script
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Posted By: medenaywe
Date Posted: 14-Oct-2013 at 14:46
I erased blank post Amah Jones,hope you do not mind about it!Welcome aboard.
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Posted By: red clay
Date Posted: 15-Oct-2013 at 09:54
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Amah, you are proposing the extreme of Afro Centrisim. That's Clyde Winters and not VanSertima.
Before anyone takes another swing at him, I'll remind all that the late Dr. Ivan Van Sertima, was Chair of the African Studies Dept. at Rutgers, the State Uni. of New Jersey. Time has restored his credibility. When Sertima first published his ideas in the early 70's, there were a lot of folks that were just not ready to accept them.
But for many including myself, there isn't enough time to pass for Winters ideas to be accepted.
So, Amah, no not every Civ. was black, and the idea that the Hopewell/Adena were black is just afrocentric wishful thinking. Or to quote Van Sertima," must have been something Clyde [Winters] had for dinner".
BTW, The Mende script came too late to have influenced the Olmec. However there is evidence of a type of Chinese script found on ritual vessals excavated at the Jana Island funerary complex. CA 4,000BCE
What's most important here is the idea that the Americas were not isolated from the rest of the world.
------------- "Arguing with someone who hates you or your ideas, is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter what move you make, your opponent will walk all over the board and scramble the pieces". Unknown. |
Posted By: opuslola
Date Posted: 06-Dec-2013 at 17:52
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This is a topic- Afro-centrism, in Egypt and other places, has been bashed to pieces at hundreds of web sites. Certainly, at one time, there was a great barrier between the indigenous people of the Northern coastal part of Africa (I.e. the Med area) and that of those who mostly lived below that barrier (I.e. below the Sahara!).
There even seems to have been a barrier between middle African and our present S. Africa since the Boer/Dutch settlers of present day S. Africa and surrounding territories, whereby this area was mostly un-inhabited by Dark skinned(Negro/ Negroid)natives. This information is from some Dutch information I read a long time ago. And, please do not jump upon me by my usage of the above terms! The NAACP still uses the term "colored people" for God's sake. Just like the "American Negro College Fund"! Politically Correct my ass! Hell, today children are kept from reading the books of Samuel Clemens just because of language! I fart at those people who try to hide or distort our history! Regards, Ron ------------- http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/ |