Subject:      Re: trans-Pacific contacts
From:         yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky)
Date:         1996/08/10
Newsgroups:   alt.mythology,alt.archaeology,sci.archaeology

ARTICLE 32 OF 49

William R. Belcher (wbelcher@students.wisc.edu) wrote:

: Yuri, please, all I ask is that you read some
: other books that Campbell - check out some *recent* materials on
: Mesoamerican prehistory or Pacific prehistory - don't rely on someone who
: is not an expert in the field to water this material down for you and put
: it into a framework that the original investigators had not even dreamed
: of.

William,

This is good advice you're giving.

But I am already aware of other good sources for this.

The case for trans-Pacific diffusion to the Americas has been made
by a number of scholars. Among them, Joseph Needham was one of the
leaders. The following is based on his, and Lu Gwei-Djen's, book
TRANS-PACIFIC ECHOES AND RESONANCES; LISTENING ONCE AGAIN, World
Scientific, 1985.

I have read this book a few years ago.

The basic observation to be made is that the case for trans-Pacific
influence is widely accepted by Asian, and especially by the Chinese
scholars. _There_ it is the _mainstream_ view. Also, the Europeans are
quite receptive to this view. In the Americas, there's plenty of
opposition.

And now, I will provide a basic summary of what the book is saying.

On p. 4, the authors note:

      Culture-traits, influences and stimuli of all kinds
      could certainly have been brought to Meso-America by
      involuntary travellers, survivors swept away on
      dismasted junks, rafts and vessels of all kinds. But it
      would be a great mistake to suppose that there were no
      intentional voyages from China into the Pacific at many
      times in history. One significant period was between the
      - 3rd and the + 2nd century, especially under the
      Emperor Chhin Shih Huang Ti and Han Wu Ti...

On p. 5:

      In connection with the navigability of the Pacific by
      sailing-rafts, it is necessary to emphasise the regime
      of winds and currents, especially in the North Pacific.
      ... ...such voyages would have been helped by the
      climate of the North Pacific... .


On p. 8:

      ... the Meso-Americans were distinguished above all
      other peoples by their massive employment of human
      sacrifice to the gods, without which they thought the
      sun would not stay his course; but when one finds human
      sacrifices at tombs, then it begins to look more like
      practices characteristic of the ancient Old World. The
      six young men sacrificed at the tomb of Pa-Kal at
      Palenque invite comparison with those who were killed at
      the royal tombs of Shang.

The book is a concise summary of various arguments for diffusion. I
will give the following chapter headings:

RECORDING AND WRITING (p. 15)

      That the pictographic and ideographic principle of the
      scripts of the Meso-American peoples evoked the
      parallels of the Old World, has been appreciated for
      nearly two centuries.

      As for _quipu_, common to South America and ancient
      China, as is so well known, its relevance as recording
      device of strings and knots preceding ideographic script
      in both culture-areas was appreciated already by von
      Humboldt...

ARTISTIC ELEMENTS; ART, ARCHITECTURE AND MUSIC

A great wealth of evidence is provided here, and in the following
chapters.

RELIGION, MYTH AND FOLKLORE

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, COSMOLOGY AND CALENDRICAL ASTRONOMY

TECHNOLOGY

In this chapter, the following items are very relevant, and are
carefully analyzed with many references given:

- the spear-thrower
- the invention of the wheel
- the bow-drill
- techniques associated with the military art
- the blow gun
- concave mirrors
- suspension bridge
- adobe brick
- irrigation (much material looked at)
- ocean-going sailing raft
      The similarities between the sailing-raft of the
      Peruvian and Ecuadorian coasts and those of south China,
      Taiwan and Vietnam, have been blatantly obvious for many
      years now; and as many scholars have seen, it is almost
      quixotic to refuse any connection between them. (p. 48)
- ceramics (of course)
- fibre-technology
- Tyrian purple
      Tyrian purple of the ancients was also known and
      utilized in the Americas.
- kava-complex (alcoholic beverage)
- hallucinogenic drug use (including in religious rituals; mushroom
      sculptures and figurines are quite interesting).
- distillation methods
      ... traditional distillation methods of Mexico were East
      Asian and not Hellenistic; indeed we have not so far
      seen this referred to by any anthropologists.
- use of night-soil as fertilizer
- metallurgy

ETHNO-BOTANY, ETHNO-ZOOLOGY AND ETHNO-HELMINTHOLOGY

There is plenty of evidence in this area, and plenty of literature
available and cited in the book.

- sweet potato
      ...the transfer is accepted on all hands.

Transmission of the following plants is seen as controversial, yet
a lot of evidence for this exists:

- coconut palm
- calabash
- the peanut
- maize
- cotton plant
- grain-amaranths

[Yuri: It is to be noted, of course, that this field of study is quite an
obscure one and is little known outside of a narrow circle of
specialists. Yet, ethno-botanists have been debating the transmission of
various plants across the Pacific (both ways!) for great many years. For
them, this is anything but "fringe science". Massive and very technical
literature exists on this.]

Evidence from ethno-zoology is available but is seen as "complex and
confusing".

So, to summarise, the evidence comes from great many fields of study.
Plenty of scholarly literature is cited and analyzed in this book. (The
authors include 20 pages of bibliography, yet, as I checked, this
bibliography still manages to omit some important items.) Those
interested should get hold of the book.

All the best,

Yuri.