From the book...


Scientists and historians treat nearly all claims of pre-Columbian contact with America with utmost contempt and derision. They hold to the hard and fast rule that America was isolated between the time of the initial peopling of the Americas many thousands of years ago and the discovery by Columbus in 1492. Only one exception is made, and that great honor belongs to the Norse, whose claims of landfall in Newfoundland in about A.D. 1000 are regarded as genuine. The only other claim that science has almost, but not quite, given its seal of approval to is that of a visit to Ecuador by a boatload of stray Japanese more than 5,500 years ago.


Archeologists have been willing to entertain the possibility of such an ancient visit because they have the highest respect for the kind of evidence on which the claim is based--good old down-in-the-dirt pottery artifacts. To archeologists, pottery is one of the first signs of civilization. The other early sign of civilization is agriculture. In the grand scheme of things, pottery-making normally follows agriculture, but in this case it quite significantly does not. It is this unusual circumstance that lends weight to the notion that some transpacific tutelage in the art of pottery-making may well have taken place in ancient times...
 

Columbus Was Last

Columbus Was Last

by Patrick Huyghe


Hyperion, 1992

Hardcover: Out-of-Print


Anomalist Books, 2005

ISBN: 193665017

Trade Paperback: $14.95

Available from Amazon



"The best book so far to answer the question 'Who discovered America?'...This important, spell-binding report replaces sugar-coated myths about Columbus's invasion of America with indispensable history."

– Publishers Weekly


"A thoughtful and challenging consideration of the many voyagers who might have reached the Americas by sea before the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria...Well informed and well written, always provocative if not conclusive, this is revisionist history with a vengeance --and about time, too."

– Kirkus Reviews


"Persuasively and emphatically disputes the fact that Columbus actually discovered America...A long-overdue tribute to a score of forgotten and disregarded explorers, adventurers, and sailors. Highly recommended..."

– Booklist