Fingerprints of the Gods - Book Review

[Minimalist]

Well, Hallelujah.....some of them at least do not deny the obvious.

[Sam Salmon]

Having visited the Olmec heads and spent a lot of time observing the physical features of many Tobasco state inhabitants it was obvious to me that African blood flowed in their veins.
Of course in present day Mexico it's not politically correct to say so-Archaeologists aren't the only ones with their heads in the sand.

The Phoenician appearing fellow on the rock is called El Embajador (the ambassador) by guides @ Monte Alban in Oaxaca.
The Zapotec guide doing the tour when I visited was a full fledged Archaeologist doing tours to make ends meet-a proud intelligent man with keen intelligence and low key common sensical manner.
He knew there were errors in interpretation by mainstream Archeology and did his best to point them out to visitors without appearing strident.

[Beagle]

I'm a little jealous, Sam, that you've gotten to study these things close up. We'd like to hear more of your impressions.

The young archaeologst probably wishes that he had picked a profession with a longer leash.

[stan]

Sam,

A lot of Africans were brought into S. American and the Carribean
as slaves in historical times, and there are enclaves of their descedants there now, mostly
on the Atlantic coast of SA> I don't know where tobasco is, but I wonder
if the people you saw could have been some of these.

Stan

[Minimalist]

I seem to recall reading that "African" slavery was never particularly common in Mexico...as opposed to the islands of Jamaica for instance.
In Mexico, the Spanish had plenty of indigenous people to enslave. Much cheaper to utilize local "resources" than to buy expensive imports! Especially true since the Portuguese controlled Africa under the Treaty of Saragossa.

[Beagle]

On page 85 of FOTG, Hancock has pictures of what he thinks are extinct South American animals. They're very rough drawings, taken from what is still visible on the "Gateway of the Sun" at Teohuanaco.

So, just as DNA studies have been suggested, it would be so easy now with our technology to completly visualize those figures. And yet, evidently it doesn't get done.

If those figures then were to show, as Hancock suggests, an extinct Toxodon or extinct elephant, then the citadel would have to be dated to at least 9,000 BC.

At the moment, archeaology says that it dates from 500 AD.

[Minimalist]

I'm not at all sure what the evidence for the 500 AD date is being cited.

Posnansky used astronomical sitings for his 17,000 BC date and had a team of experts at the time verify his findings. I seem to recall that the main argument against Posnansky is that some of the buildings have been damaged by illegal quarrying and that it is thus 'impossible' to get an accurate siting.

To your main point it seems, and I could be wrong about this, that it would take a brave archaeologist to butt heads with the establishment over Tiahuanaco.

[stan]

Blacks in Mexico, and specifically around Tabasco and Vera Cruz:

The link for the following article may be found at the url at the bottom of this post: (The Muse)

Vinson, Ben "The Racial Profile of a Rural Mexican Province in the 'Costa Chica': Igualapa in 1791"
The Americas - Volume 57, Number 2, October 2000, pp. 269-282
The Academy of American Franciscan History

Excerpt

Late colonial Mexico possessed one of the largest free-colored populations in Spanish America, numbering around 370,000 in 1793. 1 The colony's pardos, morenos, and mulattos were highly dispersed, being found throughout the major urban centers, coastal zones, rural areas, and in selected portions of the northern frontier. Studies conducted over the past two decades have assisted enormously in reconstructing the free-colored demographic profile, with particular emphasis on occupational and marriage patterns. Much of this research has resulted from sustained examinations of the caste vs. class debate, which has attempted to understand the manner in which the caste system worked in structuring colonial social relations. 2 [End Page 269] Broader, regional histories have added even more to our understanding by situating Blacks 3 within the economic, cultural, and social context of important towns and their hinterlands. 4 Institutional studies have also referenced the Afro-Mexican presence and contributions. 5 However, numerous gaps still exist in our portrait of colonial Afro-Mexicans. Notably, the Pacific coastal regions have received proportionately little attention in comparison to the area of Veracruz. This is surprising since the Costa Chica, occupying portions of the modern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca, remains home to some of the more significant concentrations of Afro-Mexicans. 6

On the other hand,
here's a good long article outlining the evidence for Precolumbian Africans in the Americas, as well as the historical growth of African and mixed blood populations, and so on. The article is called "AFROMESTIZO: the Third Root."

Here's the url:
http://www.bjmjr.com/afromestizo/introduction.htm


http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi? ... inson.html[/url]

[Minimalist]

Good find, Stan.

However, African influence in the region before the Spanish conquest must also be considered. A growing body of evidence collected by archaeologists since the 1920’s strongly suggests an African presence in Mexico and Central America long before the arrival of Columbus. These Africans arrived not in bondage, but as merchants and traders who, like their European and Asian counterparts, came to the region to trade with the native population. Other historians have speculated that some could also have been refugees expelled after military defeats. Dr. Cyrus H. Gordon of Brandeis University writes in Before Columbus (1971

The first article is a subscription service. Does it suggest where that population of "free coloreds" came from?

[stan]

Long before the abolition of slavery in Central America (1823) many Africans and Afromestizos had become “free men and women of color”. This status had been achieved either through desertion or “individual liberation”. In addition to this, the children of African slave fathers and native American mothers were deemed free by Spanish colonial authorities. As a result, more than a few African male slaves took native “common-law wives” in an effort to gain for their descendants the freedoms that had been denied them. Because of a great shortage of European women immigrants to Central America during the 16th and 17th centuries, Spanish men often took African and native American women as their common law wives. These African and native American women are the “first mothers” of over 65% of today’s Central American population.

This is from the Afromestizos article.

[stan]

I want to follow up on some of the citations about all those archaeological finds suggesting precolumbian african visitors.
The trade winds and currents are moving in the right direction.

However, I have a problem with identifying the racial characteristics of
ancient sculpture. A lot of it has idealized or abstracted features, and it is hard for me to tell when a face is descriptive and when it abstract.

plus, in the case of central and s. america, you have people with negroid features across the south pacific as well as the south atlantic.

[Minimalist]

plus, in the case of central and s. america, you have people with negroid features across the south pacific as well as the south atlantic.

But the prevalent archaeological/historical model is still that the Americas were settled by Asians crossing the Bering land bridge around 11,000 BC and moving south from there to settle all of North and South America.

According to this model there were no contacts across either ocean.

[Beagle]

Y'know, Stans' got a good point. I'm thinking of that large head in the ground that most authors say has Negroid features. Looking at it again, I could just as easily see Polynesian features.

But as you say, why would ancient meso-americans have carved it in the first place? They were not supposed to be known to them at the time.

[Minimalist]

I don't know. I don't see it. Besides, we know what Polynesians look like now, five centuries after the start of the slave trade via the Dutch East India company. Who knows what they looked like in 1500 BC?

[Beagle]

Well it is a stretch - but I can see someone making a case for it.

Now - with the book - Hancock is great at pointing out these glaring anomalies, but I don't think he is making his case as well as he could, in my opinion. Of course a lot of the case that is built against what he says has been written after he wrote this book. So I'm probably not being fair to him.

The refutations against what he has written is pretty weak I think. I hope he has countered them effectively at some point.