I have heard these claims before incidentally while doing Islamic archaeology and it can be amusing to see how they are argued. There are claims of pre-Columbian visits to the New World by Chinese, Africans, and let's not forget the ancient Hebrews. The only archaeologically substantiated pre-Columbian visits are by Norsemen, I believe. There has been an interesting theory for some time that ancient Lake Cahuilla in California was Azatlan in the Aztec creation story too, thereby justifying Mexican claims to California.



Jerry  Schaefer, Ph.D., RPA
Director
ASM Affiliates • Carlsbad, CA
(760) 804-5757
E-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Website: www.asmaffiliates.com


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bob Skiles
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2014 1:03 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject:

Jeffrey,

You're NOT alone ... I confess that not only am I not up on the need for a reinterpretation of such "claims" ... I wasn't even aware of the existence of any such in the first place!

Bob Skiles, RPA

PS - now that I'm retired, I have a bit more time for enjoyable pursuits like reading fiction ... if you should later snag a PDF, please favor me a copy via e-mail ;)



On 8/28/2014 1:54 PM, Boyer, Jeffrey, DCA wrote:
> (With my sincere apologies for cross-posting) I am intrigued by the content of this article. This is a topic to which I have never before been exposed, which perhaps reveals considerable parochialism on my part. My first response, then, was "What the heck?" Now I'm trying to decide whether to spend the money to access the article (I'm not a subscriber to the journal) because the topic just seems so fascinating. Am I the only one who isn't up on this?
>
>   "Far Beyond the Western Sea of the Arabs...": Reinterpreting Claims
>     about Pre-Columbian Muslims in the Americas
>
>     Richard V. Francaviglia
>     Terrae Incognitae, Vol. 46, No. 2: 103-138.
>
> http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/0082288414Z.00000000033?ai=
> 16h&ui=1yc&af=T
>
>
> Jeff
>
> Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
> Supervisory Archaeologist/Project Director Office of Archaeological
> Studies, Museum of New Mexico
>
>    *   The Center for New Mexico Archaeology
>    *   PO Box 2087
>    *   Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504
>    *   tel: 505.476.4426
>    *   e-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> "There comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy's life when he
> has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure."  -- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
>