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Civilizations & Empires

Africa–Americas pre-Columbian contact theories

Claims about c. 1200 BCE – 1300s CE; debate since 1976

West Africa, Mesoamerica, Atlantic

Ivan Van Sertima and others argued Africans reached the Americas before Columbus, citing Olmec heads and Mansa Musa's predecessor's Atlantic voyage; most archaeologists and historians dispute or doubt these claims.

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Olmec colossal stone head from La Venta, Mexico, often cited in African-contact theories
Credit: Dennis Jarvis, via World History Encyclopedia / Flickr. License: CC BY-SA 4.0.

Content pending: verified research needed.

Related entries

Sources

  1. Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Bernard Ortiz de Montellano and Warren Barbour, "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olmecs," Current Anthropology 38, no. 3 (1997): 419–441 (Scholarly)
  2. Rutgers University Department of Africana Studies, "Ivan Van Sertima (In Memoriam, 1935-2009)" (Primary source)
  3. Howard W. French, "Africa's Lost Kingdoms," The New York Review of Books, June 27, 2019 (PDF copy hosted by Northwestern's Block Museum) (Reference)
  4. Mark Cartwright, World History Encyclopedia, "The Olmec Colossal Stone Heads" (Reference)

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