Rating: 
Summary: The Black African Presence in Ancient America
Review: They Came Before Columbus, is a well researched, well thought out treatise that makes a compelling argument for a Black African presence in ancient America. Dr. Sertima comes to this conclusions without having to fabricate a convoluted construct such as the ones that many popular Eurocentric scholars have used in an attempt to continue to distort the history and the legacy of Black Africans and their descendants.The broad noses, wooly hair (plate 31 b), and the full lips of the Olmec Negroid stone heads speak volumes about who was depicted in these artifacts. A simple process of elimination rules out any assumption that these heads are anything but depictions of Black Africans. For many, Dr. Sertima's theories are seen as a threat to mainstream history and anthropology. In time, many of the 18th and 19th century racist assumptions that persist to this day regarding Black Africans and their descendants will be relegated to the junk heap of history as scientific methodologies improve...
Rating:
Summary: The Black African Presence in Acient America
Review: They Came Before Columbus, is a well researched, well thought out treatise that makes a compelling argument for a Black African presence in ancient America. Dr. Sertima comes to these conclusions without having to fabricate a convoluted construct such as the ones that many popular Eurocentric scholars have used in an attempt to continue to distort the history and the legacy of Black Africans and their descendants. The broad noses, wooly hair (plate 31 b), and the full lips of the Olmec Negroid stone heads speak volumes about who was depicted in these artifacts. A simple process of elimination rules out any assumption that these heads are anything but depictions of Black Africans. For many, Dr. Sertima's theories are seen as a threat to mainstream history and anthropology. In time, many of the 18th and 19th century racist assumptions that persist to this day regarding Black Africans and their descendants will be relegated to the junk heap of history as scientific methodologies improve. --Kenneth B. Hollman
Rating:
Summary: Chicano chauvanism
Review: So the Olmec heads have African features. SO WHAT?! Too many people become hysterical when confronted with the realities of African historical achievements. The previous reviewer has let his hatred of blacks get in the way of seriously considering the book and what it has to offer. In fact he sounds like an L.A. gang banger using ivory tower language to call us "mayates." Please....get a life. Mexican history has an African component. DEAL WITH IT.
Rating: 
Summary: Afrocentric Garbage
Review: I am chicano (predominately Native American) and I find it offensive that racist scholars like Sertima are claiming that the native americans of central America were incapable of producing anything without the help of 'civilizing' African explorers. I find it hypocritical that those who are giving this book a positive review simply dismiss the negative reviews as 'eurocentric racists' but fail to see the racist Afrocentric presuppositions embedded in their own fallacious claims. If there is evidence substantiating Sertima's claims he has to give me more than a few linguistics similarities (I read recently that a Japanese scholar is now claiming the few olmec gylphs--there is only one glyph in la venta that sertima claims supposidly has a term that is similar to W. African writing--are of Japanese origin but we'll deal with cultural robbers one at a time) and a few head stone that supposdily look "negroid" African. Many Olmec depictions in carvings show people with varied features and many of these features were exagerrated. A simple search on google and you will have a hard time finding Africans depicted in Olmec artwork (but Sertima has to dwell on a few head stones). Where are all of the AFrican cultural artifacts? Where is the radiocarbon evidence? Where are the african plants? So some indigenous people have black in them, so what. Slaves were brought over here during Spanish colonialism and some mixture between certain groups was inevitable. This does not prove that that a handful of Africans created the Olmec civilization. All of this evidence would be expected if there is "overwhelming evidence." Sertima claims that Africans originated civilization in Mexico. Recently, due to a total lack of evidence and support in academia, he has retracted that statement, saying now that it was confined to trade. I would also like to know why didn't 'Olmec' pyramids, heads, and other artifacts never appear in west Africa? The oldest Olmec heads predate the supposed exploration of Africans to the Americas. Did they lug all of their 20 ton heads over here and just simply stopped carving them in the mother land of Africa? And why didn't they bring any animals and plants? That would be expected if we are to believe in African voyages to the New World. Why is maze, and not wheat (african) the crop of the Olmecs? Archeological evidence shows a definite buildup of the elements of civilization in Mexico prior to the Olmecs. Africans didn't sail over the Americas and 'civilize' the Natives. Neither did Europeans, Asians, Hindu's, or anyone else for that matter. Why must Afrocentrics consistenly leech off of other cultures in order to inflate their egos? IT's getting to the point where they're becoming worse than the Eurocentrics they're always complaining about. "Some scholars used to think that the Olmec were the "Mother Culture" of Mesoamerica because the art styles of later cultures such as the Maya seem to have had their roots in the Early Formative/Preclassic period. This concept has undergone radical change recently. In 1989 the top Olmec specialists got together and published "Regional Perspectives on the Olmec" (Sharer and Grove, Cambridge University Press). This volume represented a
change in ideology concerning the "mother culture". It discussed how MANY areas of Mesoamerica developed simultaneously, with different regions making different technological and social innovations. Lime plaster was earliest in Oaxaca (it would eventually revolutionize Mesoamerican architecture), temple mounds may be earliest on the Pacific Coast (see Gareth Lowe's work at the site of Paso de Amada), and the Gulf Coast (the
only area which should be given the term "Olmec") can boast its grand monolithic carvings. No one culture can any longer be called a "mother culture" in Mesoamerica. Some scholars will still use the term "mother culture" when describing the Olmec, but they will generally be refering to the impact of the horizon-style of "Olmec" art. Traces of this art style can be found from highland central Mexico to Honduras and El Salvador during the Early and Middle Formative/Preclassic periods." - David R. Hixson
Public Service Archaeology Program
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Rating:
Summary: The Truth is Out
Review: Re: the chicano who wrote Afrocentric Garbage, please deal with the realities of your ancestry. You sound just as racist as the Spaniards that have you brainwashed. There are more than just a few Ohlmec heads that prove an ancient African society migrated to America. The step pyramids which originated in Egypt,(which is on the continent of Africa) is the proof in itself. There are several cotton plants,found in that area with a genetic origin in Africa, and several other plants. Scientist have already proved that "all" civilization began in Africa through the Mitochondrial DNA evidence which traces all modern man back to their roots in Africa. You say there were African slaves brought to Mexico, it doesnt take a genious to figure that out, there were Africans brought to many parts of South and Central America, but like yourself, they call themselves "chicano" or hispanic, or even latino, forgetting about their African roots, because they have been interbreeding with the natives and european spaniards for over 400 years. And since the Ohlmec society is several thousand years old, do you honestly think any of those descendants can actually identify with the motherland if they cant in 400 years? Get real. You have a right to be proud of your ancesty, and deal with the fact that some of your ancestry IS in fact African. Its very white washed to assume that Africans confined themselves to Africa, while the rest of the world went out and explored dont you think? Scientist are uncovering the skeletons of negroids in every space of the earth, including China, Japan, Europe, and yes America too. In every country in this world, there are genes that trace back to the motherland. Africa gave birth to modern man, whether you have evolved to become white, brown, black or yellow. Fact: 2 jet black couples can give birth to a completely white Albino, but the reverse is impossible. Africa is the cradle of all civilization. Deal with it!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Hmmm
Review: I commend the Author for challenging Eurocentric history. It is probable that though the pyramids and hieroglyphs of the Olmecs are not the same as ancient Egypt's, that the concept was derived from Egypt. It is a fact that Egyptians reportedly ventured into the Atlantic, though it is unknown how successful they were. I hope that the claim doesnt upset those who are ancestors of these people (though most Mexicans identify more with their Spaniard roots anyway). I think it's a possibility, but not enough to make a solid claim. Another theory, more probable to me, is that the original Olmecs were not like the natives of the north who migrated from the Bering Strait but Oceanic peoples who, as they ventured island to island, colonized that part of Mexico, as they did on Easter Island, also building statues,etc. Oceanic people are biologically closely related to Aborigines like Australia and Papua New Guinea. Many Melaynesian islands still have this population. Their features are very similar to the Olmec sculptures and statues. I find this concept to be very logical. The remaining Aborigine like Olmecs intergrated with the immigrating northerners (of Asiatic origin) and thus evolved into the later states of the Aztecs and Mayans. My mother is from Belize (my father is Antiguan) in Central America, and this theory has a large popularity there.
Rating: 
Summary: Conclusions Unproven Until DNA Tested
Review: This book is quite well-written, although there are tedious repetitions of identical claims and a great number of highly dubious "proofs." Archaeology has given us some reasonably conclusive evidence that the Old Kingdom Egyptians were influenced by the civilization of their Negroid neighbors in Nubia, but that was thousands of years ago. Dr Van Sertima's assertions of Egyptian influence in America surprised me. Because of the time disparity between, for example, Egyptian Old Kingdom pyramids of the 3rd millennium BC and Mexican pyramids of the 1st and 2nd millennium AD, and their entirely different uses, these claims are entirely unconvincing. However, take away the romantic exaggerations and I believe that some of Dr. Van Sertima's assertions of a pre-Columbian African presence in America have a good probability of being true. It seems plausible that traders and marooned sailors from African seagoing vessels, both accidentally and deliberately came to American waters now and then, along with rare landfalls of European, Asian and Oceanian boats and ships. Only the Oceanian Polynesians are known beyond doubt to have set up a permanent colony in America, on Easter Island off the coast of Chile. Easter Islanders may have had brief contacts with the mainland before they ruined their forests and their seagoing capabilities, but despite Thor Heyerdahl, anything beyond minor influence is still unproven. The vital question is: did the African visitors make important changes to vital aspects of Native American society such as religion or architecture - changes far greater than the minuscule influences of occasional visitors to America from, say, China or Greenland? Although I'm partly Native American I hope there's a grain of truth in the idea that some Africans came to America, influenced culture, and became "gods." It's a promising thesis and I'd jump for joy if it could be proven. Unfortunately, after adding up all of Dr. Van Sertima's arguments, even the linguistic ones and especially those citing art, his conclusions remain unproven. The least convincing arguments are the photographs and chapters on art. Years ago I noted physical resemblances to Africans (and to Europeans and Asians) in Latin American portrait head sculpture and ceramics, but were these heads meant as faithful copies of facial features or as stylized icons? More troubling to me is the fact that certain sculptures are demonic -- unflattering caricatures of presumably African facial features, as stereotyped as the "Der Sturmer" cartoons of Jews. Right now my money is on iconography. The thesis of a ruling class of Africans in America, although unproven, isn't necessarily unprovable. DNA testing of Native American populations the author believes to be partially descended from Africans would disclose the closeness (or not) of the relationship. If the people aren't willing to be tested, then the DNA of the domestic plants Van Sertima says were imported from Africa should be compared to that of African vegetation. DNA doesn't lie and it passes down through the mitochondria and certain other cell components for a vast number of generations. Once the tests are completed, this book, which has been in print a long time, will either stand as a champion of far-seeing science, like Wegener's early continental drift hypothesis (given that in both of them certain ideas were exaggerated or overlooked) or it will slip into the limbo of most other diffusionist ethnology.
If someone has already published these DNA test results, I'd like to know how to find them. In the meanwhile, at least temporarily, I'll shelve this book with Donnelly's ATLANTIS, Churchward's MU, Velikovsky's WORLDS IN COLLISION, Fort's LO! and my other collected works of entertaining pseudoscience.
Rating:
Summary: the black man is GOD
Review: WOW.. THIS BOOKS IS GREAT.. WE MUST ALL KNOW AND RECOGNIZE THAT THE BLACK MAN IS GOD AND HE IS THE CREATOR AND CONTROLLER OF EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE. AND FOR THE "CHINO" WHO DOSEN'T LIKE THE BOOK, I SUGGEST HE HITS THE BOOKS HARDER AND TRY TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE OF HIMSELF!! THE DEVIL IS AMONG US AND US BLACK GODS ANS EARTHS MUST UNITE. PEACE TO THE BLACK MAN! AND TO THE EARTH!! THE BLACK MAN IS GOD!!!!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: great
Review: This is a great book that needed to be written. If you pay close attention you will notice alot of thease bad reviews are from the same person.
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Summary: PSEUDOHISTORICAL MISCHIEF, PRESENTED AS FACT!!!
Review: At first, before i purchased the book, i saw it as rather appealing to my curiosity, expecting it to be a scholarly, informative and interesting read. By the time i was half through the book, i had already taken notice of the extremely weak arguments, presented as fact, this author uses to tell his "story", bending history to fit within his concocted historical frame, using it, rather cleverly, to sustain the corrupt logic he so expertly devises. Having finished the book, i can say i have not learned, or discovered, anything, except the rather frightening fact that, by many, this work is literally taken as history, probably something such people would want their children to read--A shame isnt it? This book is probably a magnum opus of truth on the subject to those who can believe it [In my opinion, nothing but a magnum opus of imagination.] To me, this author's attempt represents a classic case of invented history, probably intended to instill pride ( Not to inform). Even the title of this work, "THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS", is harmfully misleading, creating, as it does, the impression of being a fact. If one is seriously curious about the subject, one should look into what UNESCO offers, bibliographies etc.. In addition, if one is sincerely interested in research of this subject, PLEASE CONTINUE BROWSING AMAZON.COM for some honestly authoratative material, something you wont regret buying, not the fiction i threw out my money on. Best of Luck!!
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