< Back to Volume 17, Number 1
Volume 17: Number 1: Article 2
The Fringe of American Archaeology: Transoceanic and Transcontinental Contacts in Prehistoric America
Alice B. Kehoe, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Pre-Columbian contacts between the Americas and travelers from other
continents and islands are highly probable, but the topic is taboo to
mainstream American archaeologists. Probability rests upon the Paleolithic
antiquity of boats, sets of favorable winds and currents, documented
crossings by a variety of small boats, seafaring by Polynesians, Norse,
and Basques, and cultural similarities including domesticates, complex
technologies, and intellectual fantasies such as calendar astrology.
Refusal to investigate transoceanic contacts derives from American Manifest
Destiny ideology, which legitimates conquest by declaring American First
Nations to have been bestial savages incapable of even accepting travelers,
and from an obsolete notion of scientific method supposing that replicability
is a principal criterion of science and, thus, to validate hypotheses
of "laws" of cultural development requires an independent case (natural
experiment). Postulating the Americas to have been totally independent
of "Old World" contacts before 1492 allows archaeologists to useAmerican
dataas natural experimentvalidatingtheir hypothesized "laws."
Keywords: Pre-Columbian, American Indians, American archaeology, boats,
ocean crossings
FULL TEXT:
The Fringe of American Archaeology: Transoceanic and Transcontinental Contacts in Prehistoric America
To purchase back issues contact Allen Marketing & Management: 1-800-627-0629
