Subject:      yes, we have the proof: transpacific trading networks
From:         yuku@globalserve.net (Yuri Kuchinsky 17784)
Date:         1997/08/29
Message-ID:   <5u7esa$dkk$1@titan.globalserve.net>
Newsgroups:   sci.archaeology.mesoamerican,sci.archaeology,
	sci.anthropology,alt.folklore.science

Greetings all,

I have promised to present here some solid evidence indicating
ancient transpacific trade. Yes, this evidence is available, and
has been for a very long time. It is a miracle of miracles that
nobody here, in these ngs, or even in the specialist academic
community at large has heard much of this before.

This is a perfect example of selective learning, and of selective
memory. I guess in the established rather biased atmosphere in
this field of study, certain things are better left unlearned, or
else forgotten?

This evidence deals with the money cowry shells, _Cyprea Moneta_,
native to the Indian Ocean area.

This is what George Carter says about it in his article CULTURAL
HISTORICAL DIFFUSION (1988),

     In 1917 ... Willfred Jackson published a major work on human
     use of shells. I have since written extensively on the role
     of this cowrie, and Thor Heyerdahl, in THE MALDIVE MYSTERY
     (1986), has expanded our knowledge on the source of these
     shells. Money cowries come from the Indian Ocean, but have
     been found in a burial mound from the Adena culture in
     Tennessee (500 bc - ad 500). This money cowry was a most
     significant find, for it is a biological item not subject to
     independent invention. Not only was it physically present in
     America as early as Adena time, but it was found to be
     currently in use in the most sacred rite of Algonkin tribes
     along the Great Lakes, the Midewiwin society. As Jackson
     noted, nor only was it the same shell, but the same magical
     usages were associated with it in West Africa. There is also
     ample evidence that this rite was transmitted in
     hieroglyphic writing. This produces a total picture of a
     very early cultural complex including a biological item that
     has to be of Old World origin. This association of
     biological, non-reinventable items with complex beliefs and
     religious practices forms evidence most difficult for
     isolationist, independent-inventionists to dispose of. (p.
     5)

So here we are, ladies and gentlemen. Let our isolationists
critics deal with this now. I suppose some of our Eurocentric
critics simply cannot imagine how those ancient tribal peoples
could sail the oceans thousands of years before their great
hero Columbus could do it?

Debunk this, my friends...

Regards,

Yuri.

George F. Carter, CULTURAL HISTORICAL DIFFUSION, in THE TRANSFER
AND TRANSFORMATION OF IDEAS AND MATERIAL CULTURE, Peter J. Hugill
and D. Bruce Dickson, eds, Texas A & M University Press, 1988.

W. S. Jackson, SHELLS AS EVIDENCE OF THE DIFFUSION OF EARLY
CULTURES, Manchester: Manchester U. Press, 1917.

===

Yuri Kuchinsky in Toronto -=O=- [22]http://www.io.org/~yuku

It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than
to put out on the troubled seas of thought -=O=- John K. Galbraith
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