End the age of the archaeopriests. The New History documents that the priesthood of experts has been wrong and continues to teach a false story while their history books lie and school curriculums deny important aspects of the historical record. Ethnocentrism has been identified by Gunnar Thompson as a cultural disease at the heart of the Old History. He writes, “When ethnic loyalty denies the rights and achievements of others, it becomes a cultural disease called ‘ethnocentrism.’ This perception of excessive greatness and superiority of one’s own ethnic group is dysfunctional in a world of cultural diversity where survival depends upon the harmonious interaction between peoples having diverse ethnic backgrounds.”18
Echoing these thoughts, Thompson goes on to note that the Eurocentric Old History ignores the “primacy of native peoples in the cavalcade of American discovery, and . . . serves as a convenient rationale for ignoring the contributions of other ethnic groups.”19 As an alternative to the age of ethnocentric bias, religious indoctrination, and the selective presentation of historical events, Thompson also emphasizes the need for celebrating cultural diversity.
Reexamine and rewrite American history without the ideological biases against diffusionism. There are growing initiatives within the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and history to pursue scientific research and curricula, but these efforts pale in the face of the ivory tower protectionism maintained by the status quo, the archaeopriesthood. In other words, a new generation of scholars is required who are willing to challenge the Old History paradigms and biases in favor of applying modern archaeological science to the question of cultural diffusion. We should use innovations such as underwater archaeology, satellite imaging, and high-resolution photography, as well as an integration with other disciplines, including archaeoastronomy, epigraphy, and cultural anthropology, to form an accurate, evidence-based historical reconstruction. With modern archaeology now in free fall with the collapse of “Clovis First” mythology, which maintains the earliest Americans arrived around 13,000 years ago via the Beringia land bridge from Siberia to Alaska, this is an exciting time for students, archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians.
In fact, as a sign that the times may be “a-changing” and that the attempts of investigators like Bill McGlone, Phillip Leonard, and Gunnar Thompson have not been in vain, a September 2014 article in Smithsonian Magazine has proved that Kennewick Man was indeed related to earlier visitors, perhaps related to the Ainu of Japan. The article describes in detail the efforts of many archaeopriest, Native American, and U.S. governmental organizations to obfuscate the investigation of this evidence and bury him in the “fog of “history.” This and other recent articles from this magazine seem to evidence a welcome change in attitudes about these matters!
Open up records and artifacts to the public. In practical terms this means accepting diffusionism as a legitimate point of view in all levels of education from grade schools to universities, and in archaeological field research, museum collections and displays, and public outreach. It also means scholarly and public access to historical records, including access to Smithsonian artifacts.
End the lies about Columbus. Transform the holiday that celebrates conquest into a celebration of indigenous people and the cultures and wisdom the Americas have lost. Many localities in the United States are already celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day, including Seattle, and South Dakota celebrates Native American Day, while other locations have canceled Columbus Day celebrations altogether. However, the federal government continues to recognize Columbus Day as a federal holiday, as proselytized for in the 1930s by Italian immigrants.
Archaeological and sacred site protection. There is a balance to be achieved between protecting and preserving archaeological sites and public access. Many sites described in this book are on public lands, and while the U.S. government has a successful record of preservation and education at some sites, other areas, including sites with diffusionist links, are often ignored or officially ascribed to Native American origins. Thus, protection, preservation, research, and education efforts should be supported. This can be done by coalitions of local Native American, historical, rock art, nature, and tourist groups, along with government agencies, higher education programs, and the archaeological establishment. Only then will the remaining records of the ancients be spared from misinterpretation or, worse, disappearing altogether.20
A serious epigraphic effort is required to examine the petroglyphs and other written evidence of ancient visitors in the Americas. Among scholars there is a need to overcome the fear of being ostracized for pursing progressive research. There remain an abundance of different scripts in the Americas that have not been deciphered and many notable and controversial artifacts that require reexamination, including decipherments originally provided by Barry Fell. There is an important place in the New History of America for students of ancient languages and writing systems, because it seems evident that some of the ancient travelers left records in America that, in some cases, don’t exist anywhere else; for example, the Mithraic iconography and archaeoastronomy left at the Anubis Caves.
DNA and linguistic studies. Especially among Native Americans, such studies will continue to help document the cultural roots and migration patterns of different tribes and their ancestors.
Restore ancient sites and celebrate our heritage. The nexus between sacred sites throughout the Americas and the rest of the world is astounding. They are where the ancients practiced their rituals and observances, tracked time and astronomy, and celebrated life as an interdependent part of a greater natural order. As we learn to approach these sacred sites with reverence—as being more than mere “ruins,” “archaeological sites,” or “parks”—we can begin to experience what the ancients experienced and knew.
Every year we learn of new and amazing discoveries about our common heritage. In the process of preserving and protecting these ancient sites there is an opportunity to invite the public to participate in uncovering the New History. If sites are carefully reconstructed with site protection and preservation in mind, group gatherings on equinoxes, solstices, and cross-quarter days could encourage a growing awareness of our connection to nature and humanity by remembering the ancient wisdom.
In the areas of research, historical reconstruction, and public education, collaboration and cooperation among diverse groups that often have different opinions can begin to overcome the elitism, ethnocentrism, and exclusiveness of the Old Historians. America today is the result of the diversity and blending of many cultures. As Gunnar Thompson concludes in his fundamental primer on the New History, American Discovery:
The Real story of American discovery recognizes that many races and creeds contributed to the foundation of American society. By coming to America, the world’s peoples began the difficult process of forging a new identity. From the hardship of ethnic conflict emerged tolerance for racial and religious diversity; from the struggle to survive in the same land emerged the realization that we are all dependent upon each other’s contributions, each other’s wisdom, each other’s daring, and each other’s love. Our ancestors set out from around the world as many nations; by coming to America, they became E Pluribus Unum—One People of Diversity.21
This is an exciting time for those willing to embrace the New History: for students in all areas of the arts and sciences, for historians, for archaeologists, and for young and old explorers of the many facets of our world and beyond.
A FINAL PERSPECTIVE
A lesson to be learned from the Old History of America is that we have been lied to. The record was expunged, and an ethnic and religious agenda was promoted. But is it solely the historians and archaeologists who have deviated from the truth? Do other foundations of modern thought require reexamination, reconstruction, and rebirthing? Are we moderns willing to challenge the old thinking, including the many distortions of the Old History?
There will be resistance to a new way of seeing. Over the centuries the a
rchaeopriests’ mind-set has become well entrenched in government, university, and industry circles. The solution, readily in our grasp, is to encourage tolerance for all perspectives and allow for diverse opinions.
By personalizing the New History, I have sought to peel away the layers of our lost connections with a shared past in a quest to understand the shared present. And while so many precious teachings that address the advancement of consciousness have been lost over the millennia, in the most unlikely and unsuspected places we can still find the story of awakening etched in stone and left for our children by the ancients.
In the perennial struggle for the emergence of consciousness, the voice of the sacred is there. Listen. My soul to your soul. We are here to wake up. Transform yourself. Now is the time to awaken.
Footnotes
*1. René Adolphe Schwaller de Lubicz was a French student of sacred geometry famous for his pioneering studies of Egyptian art and architecture at the Temple of Luxor. Schwaller de Lubicz spent fifteen years investigating the sacred design and geometry of the temple. The result was his book The Temple in Man: Sacred Architecture and the Perfect Man, published in 1981 by Inner Traditions International. The above quote is from page 77 of his Esoterism and Symbol, published in 1985 by Inner Traditions International.
*2. The “man-eating tribe” of Nicobar still exists in small numbers, although it seems they have given up that activity (if it ever existed).
*3. Mertz (1898–1985) was a U.S. patent attorney and ancient history researcher. In her book The Wine Dark Sea, she postulated that Odysseus sailed into the North Atlantic (see chapter 14 for more information).
*4. Author Erich von Däniken gained worldwide attention when he published Chariots of the Gods? In his follow-up, Gold of the Gods, von Däniken published photos showing objects from the Crespi Collection, which drew criticism from Crespi, who subsequently lost credibility because of von Däniken’s exaggerations and misinformation.
*5. Skeletons were also found in the mound, according to Fell.
*6. ESOP was The Epigraphic Society Occasional Publications from 1974 to 1989 and The Epigraphic Society Occasional Papers from 1990 to 1993.
*7. The term Cartesian is derived from the Latin form of Descartes, and it refers to the philosophy of the seventeenth-century philosopher Rene Descartes (1596–1650).
*8. The NEARA Special Collections room is located in the New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord. Many of its presentations are later written up in the NEARA Journal, and the association’s website can be found at: www.neara.org.
*9. Some of the best-known researchers include Barry Fell, John Williams, Byron E. Dix, and James W. Mavor Jr.
*10. Hunahpú can mean “hunter,” with a linguistically deeper unused meaning of “blowgun hunter.”
*11. This was the seed-juice of the calabash, a symbol of insemination.
*12. The Venus alignments at the Caracol include the alignment of the structure to the northerly extreme positions of Venus setting on the horizon and a pair of turret windows aligned to point to Venus’s western horizon standstills around A.D. 1000.
*13. One of the first proponents of the African origins of the Olmec was José Melgar, who in 1862 discovered the first Olmec colossal head at Tres Zapotes.
*14. Many dispute Sthapati’s contention that Tamil is the oldest form of writing. One source claims Tamil began in the second century B.C., and that the earliest attested Sanskrit texts are Brahmanical texts of the Rig Veda that date to the mid- to late second millennium A.D.
*15. According to the Bhagvata Purana, Krishna was born without a sexual union.
*16. Kean Scott Monahan incorporated TransVision (TransVision.com) in 1996 as a web development and hosting company with an eventual emphasis on video delivered over the Internet. He created a hobby site (www.archaeoastronomy.com) in 1997 to explain the eight-division ancient Celtic calendar, featuring the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarters. The site provides an abundance of information on archaeoastronomy and the Celts in America and links to other information. He wrote, produced, and narrated the documentaries Old News and History on the Rocks, which, along with other videos, are available at onter.net/videos.html. More recently he has been documenting the Pathfinder site referenced in chapter 6.
*17. Intaglios are figures carved into the earth’s surface. The Kansas Serpent Intaglio portrays the serpent holding a disc in its mouth.
*18. Mojave North is located in Inyo County, California.
*19. Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) was the director of the Sadhana Institute of Pastoral Counseling near Poona, India, and author of five books. He was renowned for his workshops and prayer courses aimed at teaching people how to wake themselves up and live. More information on de Mello and his lectures, especially Wake Up to Life, his eight-CD collection of lectures, are at www.demellospirituality.com.
*20. Dorian Taddei is an independent interdisciplinary researcher and student of the great arcanum, the sacred science of the ancients. Along with two degrees in graphic design and illustration he has an ongoing interest in esoteric religion, cosmology, and human consciousness.
*21. Carl Bjork’s rock-art website is found at http://home.comcast.net/~carlbjork.
*22. In Hindu astrology a nakshatra is one of twenty-seven or twenty-eight sectors along the ecliptic. The nakshatras reflect astronomical, astrological, and mythical aspects of each of the divided sectors or the heavens. In astronomy and calendar studies, the metonic cycle is a period of very close to nineteen years. In the Babylonian and Hebrew calendars, the years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19 are the long (thirteen-month) years of the metonic cycle. This cycle can be used to predict eclipses. The saros cycle equals 223 lunar-phase months. Knowing the saros cycle greatly enhanced the accuracy of numerical lunar-eclipse prediction. The saros is a period of eighteen years, eleven and one-third days.
*23. Labarum, a Christian imperial standard incorporating the Chi-Rho emblems used by Christians, first adapted by emperor Saint Constantine the Great in A.D. 313.
*24. In the Popol Vuh, the sun god Hun Hunahpú (First Father) is killed by the gods of the underworld, who summoned him there. His two sons, the Hero Twins, revive him, and he is resurrected as Yum Caax, the corn god.
Endnotes
INTRODUCTION: CHALLENGING LONG-HELD VIEWS
1. Abbott, Flatland, 82.
2. Stengel, “Diffusionists Have Landed.”
CHAPTER 1. TWO STORIES OF COLUMBUS
1. Thompson, American Discovery, xi.
2. Morgan, “Columbus’ Confusion.”
3. Ibid.
4. James Hannam, “Science versus Christianity?” Patheos Evangelical, May 18, 2010. www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Science-Versus-Christianity.html (accessed June 15, 2014).
5. Jeffrey Burton Russell, “The Myth of a Flat Earth” (summary of his 1997 book Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians, presented at the American Scientific Affiliation Annual Meeting, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, August 4, 1997). www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/history/1997Russell.html (accessed June 15, 2014).
6. Wikipedia, “Myth of the Flat Earth,” wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth (accessed June 16, 2014). The illustration is the spherical Earth from a fourteenth-century copy of L’Image du monde, by Gautier de Metz (ca. 1246).
7. Weatherford, “Examining the Reputation of Columbus,” Understanding Prejudice, www.understandingprejudice.org/nativeiq/weather.htm (accessed June 15, 2014).
8. Sora, Lost Colony of the Templars, 143–44; Ruddock, “Columbus and Iceland,” 177–89.
9. Wikipedia, “Saga of Erik the Red,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_the_Red (accessed June 15, 2014); Wikipedia, “Greenland Saga,” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saga_of_the_Greenlanders (accessed June 15, 2014). See the graphical descriptions of the different sailing routes to Greenland, Vinland (Newfoundland), Helluland (Baffin Island), and Markland (Labrador) traveled by different characters in the Icelandic Sagas.
10. Chart of ocean currents and Atlantic winds used by early Portuguese explorers; artwork by Walrasiad. Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AHenrican_navigation_routes.gif.
11. All Columbus diary quotations are from Paul Halsall, ed., “Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal,” Fordham University: The Jesuit University of New York, www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.asp (accessed June 15, 2014). This article is part of the “Internet Medieval Sourcebook” in the History Sourcebooks Project.
12. Wikipedia, “The Voyages of Christopher Columbus,” wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyages_of_Christopher_Columbus (accessed June 15, 2014).
13. Paul Halsall, ed., “Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal,” Fordham University: The Jesuit University of New York, www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.asp (accessed June 15, 2014). This article is part of the “Internet Medieval Sourcebook” in the History Sourcebooks Project.
14. Weatherford, Genghis Khan, 253–54.
15. Wade Frazier, “Columbus, the Original American Hero,” The Home Page of Wade Frazier, www.ahealedplanet.net/columbus.htm (accessed June 13, 2014); Wade Frazier, “An Introduction to This Website,” The Home Page of Wade Frazier, www.ahealedplanet.net/intro.htm#introduction (accessed June 13, 2014). He references Kirkpatrick, Christopher Columbus, 147–54.
16. Wikipedia, “John Mandeville,” Wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Mandeville (accessed June 15, 2014).
17. Morgan, “Columbus’ Confusion.”
18. Marco Polo quote from Matt Rosenberg, “Marco Polo,” About.com Geography, geography.about.com/cs/marcopolo/a/marcopolo.htm (accessed June 15, 2014).
19. Paul Halsall, ed., “Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal,” Fordham University: The Jesuit University of New York, www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/columbus1.asp (accessed June 15, 2014). This article is part of the “Internet Medieval Sourcebook” in the History Sourcebooks Project.
Secrets of Ancient America: Archaeoastronomy and the Legacy of the Phoenicians, Celts, and Other Forgotten Explorers Page 34
