Cristoforo Colombo was a latecomer, as a newly released study confirms there is tantalizing archeological and linguistic evidence that African explorers in antiquity may have reached parts of the Americas from the Carolinas to Brazil.

We explore some of these suppositions, as well as legends of "Brownies" in Ireland that may have been a First Contact between Africans and their long ago lost brethren who lost their dark skins, broad noses and wooly hair during their sojourn in Ice Age Europe.

Included is an article posted by Reuters News Service on the Internet just as the finishing touches were being placed on this article on Ancient explorers to the Americas. It just further ratifies what many researchers have observed as mounting evidence shows this continent was criss-crossed by many different peoples over millennia.

The following article was posted by Reuters News Service on the Internet just as the finishing touches were being placed on this article on Ancient explorers to the Americas. It just further ratifies what many researchers have observed as mounting evidence shows this continent was criss-crossed by many different peoples over millennia:

Experts doubt Clovis people were first in Americas

By Will Dunham Thu Feb 22, 6:42 PM ET Reuters Limited The Clovis people, known for their distinctive spear points, likely were not the first humans in the Americas, according to research placing their presence as more recent than previously believed.

Using advanced radiocarbon dating techniques, researchers writing in the journal Science on Thursday said the Clovis people, hunters of large Ice Age animals like mammoths and mastodons, dated from about 13,100 to 12,900 years ago. That would make the Clovis culture, known from artifacts discovered at various sites including the town of Clovis, New Mexico, both younger and shorter-lived than previously thought.

Previous estimates had dated the culture to about 13,600 years ago. These people long had been seen as the first humans in the New World, but the new dates suggest their culture thrived at about the same time or after others also in the Americas.

Michael Waters, director of Texas A&M University's Center for the Study of the First Americans, called the research the final nail in the coffin of the so-called "Clovis first" theory of human origins in the New World. Waters said he thinks the first people probably arrived in the Americas between 15,000 and 25,000 years ago.

"We've got to stop thinking about the peopling of the Americas as a singular event," Waters said in an interview. "And we have to start now thinking about the peopling of the Americas as a process, with people coming over here, probably arriving at different times, maybe taking different routes and coming from different places in northeast Asia."

Waters and co-author Thomas Stafford, a radiocarbon dating expert, tested samples from various Clovis archeological sites to try to get a more accurate accounting of their age. Technological advances enabled them to more precisely pinpoint dates for some Clovis sites excavated in North America.

The theory has been that the Clovis people first migrated out of northeast Asia across the Bering land bridge from Siberia into Alaska and traveled through a ice-free corridor into North America, populating that continent while their descendants journeyed into South America.

Asked who were the first people in the Americas if not the Clovis, Waters answered, "That's a good question." "I think that's what we've got to work toward -- a new model for the peopling of the Americas, and I think we need to create a coherent model that's based on genetic data, geological evidence as well as archeological data."

________________________________

The idea of seafaring Africans exploring Europe, let alone the Americas, is something that traditional scientists don't give much credence. (Aside from the willful ignorance that the Phoenicians weren't North Africans, whose influence spread to our linguistic constructs, hence the name "Phonics").

But the close-minded historians or propagandists can't ignore what has been shown to be pervasive bi-coastal evidence of contact, as the Americas were traversed by many ancient explorers. Some stayed, some just got a peek, took some notes and specimens back, and left.

After the Ice Age ended that blanketed Europe in a mile-high and thick sheet of glacial ice, explorations north and south commenced with force. The "Black Irish" stories may be far older than the shipwrecked Spanish Armada in the 1800s that was said to be the source of dark-haired, dark skinned Irelanders.

The Celtic stories of "the Brownies" of the British Isles who have been given short shrift by the concentration on seemingly related magical Leprechauns, may have been the recordings of their culture encountering the first waves of exploring and migrating Africans who traversed the Straits of Gibraltar, or sailed from Western Africa.

The cryptic stories of antiquity have fueled many speculations, but also left many clues:

• There is a curious settlement remnant in the Carolinas that is said to contain pre-Slavery "Negroid bones" and armour

• Lost Settlements of various types are spoken of, including a tribe of red-haired Caucasian-resembling savages in the south American jungle. They may have been the remnants of a failed outpost who devolved into barbarism after losing contact with their European colonial bosses

• The large Olmec Heads of Mexico are undoubtedly depictions of flat-nosed, thick-lipped African explorers carved into boulders by tribes not known for their fanciful art; they tended to depict what they actually saw, like their versions of photographs.

• There have been coins and beadwork found in South and central America that have analogs in Western Africa, with tribal stories on both ends of not only contact, but trade that continued for years

In fact, its little known but the explorer Christofo Columbus was earlier posted in Africa where he supposedly came upon this knowledge, including the Central American coins and artifacts, which he used to convince the Queen and King of Spain to back his quest.

This is what really set him upon his search of the land that he was all but certain was across the vast ocean to the West. He thought it was the long-sought Sea Route to India, hence the enduring misnomer of the aboriginal peoples they encountered.

¿WAS GULF CURRENT ANCIENT SEA FREEWAY?

Interestingly, the stories of African Sailors coincides neatly with the known Gulf ocean currents that exchange the warm waters from South America up along the Eastern seaboard north to Ireland, and down again back to western Africa. This is phenomenon is also the spawning ground of Atlantic hurricanes, fed by the warm waters to the south where the sun is more stronger. All of our strong Atlantic hurricanes form from winds off the coast of Western Africa.

This is a "Free Energy "conducting system for sailors, although its a long way around. Its called the Humboldt Current.

In the global climactic disaster movie "The Day After Tomorrow" with Dennis Quaid and a pre-"Brokeback Mountain" Jake Gyllenhaal, this warm ocean current energy exchange was shut off, leading to the freezing of Europe which is kept much warmer by it despite its northern latitude. That last part is a fact; in my science studies we were told of this phenomenon.

Meanwhile, the Chinese in the early 1400s were also sending out expeditions and getting in on a piece of the action. Their extensive archives hold information about encountering a land far to the East that researchers have said point to landmarks in northern California, thanks to their detailed notations.

If you want to see something interesting, go search online and pull up a detailed map of northern California and Oregon. Many of the smaller settlements have Russian names! They came across the narrow Bering Straight across from Alaska, which they'd settled, and drifted southward to northern Oregon and points beyond.

This is an example of how contacts between peoples can be traced by place names, and terms for common items.

The Americas had long been traversed by many different peoples, over several millennia. Crossing the Bering Strait from Russian Siberia to Alaska wasn't an activity that was stopped when the Asiatic explorers chanced it during the various Ice Ages.

FURTHER LINES OF INQUIRY:

I know you're busy, but if this was easy everyone would be doing it. The college Professor in me can't resist assigning homework and extracurricular activities. These are easy though, especially if you have the Internet, cable service or a DVD player at home.

WEBSITES: Ancient Earthworks Society website:

(Search for "John Anthony Smith and Sphinx")

Walker's Photos of Pyramids, Vatican Mummies and Hieroglyphs:

FOR MORE INFORMATION Jim Scherz of Wisconsin has considered Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" saga as a story about cultures and historical events in the Mississippi region. Jim is with the Ancient Earthworks Society in Madison, the state capital. Check out the Ancient Earthworks Society website for more of their Midwest explorations.