Hittites in America, Pedra do Inga, Brazil

Gabriel D'Anunzio Baraldi (1938-2004) was born in Italy, and moved to Argentina when he was 22. He later relocated to Brazil and later, to Europe. He was known as the "Last Atlantean", having published Os Hititas Americanos — The American Hittites, (1997) and A Descoberta Doc.512 — The Discovery Doc. 512, (1997).

In his first book, he wrote about supposed Hittite inscriptions on a rock in Paraíba, in Brazil, linking them to Atlantis. He also managed to involve extraterrestrials in his theory. His second book dealt with a lost city that he discovered in northern Brazil, called Ingrejil, which he believed was the mysterious "lost" city that Percy Fawcett had been searching for when he vanished in the Mato Groso jungle in 1925. (I will discuss this in my next post).

The Pedra de Inga

The pedra (stone) do Ingá: (of Ingá) is a large rock shaped like a wall, that is 24 m long (75 ft), located in the state of Paraíba, in northeastern Brazil by the town of Ingá (see map). It has 497 inscriptions. Baraldi claimed to have translated these symbols which he says should be read from bottom to top, and from right to left. Baraldi says they are written in the language of the Hittites and this is proof of the arrival of "proto-Hittite" people to America c.1350 BC. He also added that the Tupi language of the Guarani people of South America, is an archaic form of Hittite.

The Hittite civilization flourished in Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, during the Bronze Age (1,650-1,150 BC). They adopted the use of iron earlier than their rivals, the Egyptians and the Assyrians, and built an empire that challenged them. Pharaoh Ramsses II clashed with them, and after the battle of Kadesh in Syria, both powers sought peace (1274 BC). The Hittites are not known for the navigation expertise. They were land-based people. So, how did they reach America?

Pedra do Inga. Source

According to Baraldi, the Atlanteans fled from their island-city of Atlinatis when it was destroyed by a great cataclysm. He says that the stone inscriptions mention the volcanic eruption that covered a city built with stones, on the Atlantic coast, with ash, and that it was very intense, the fleet of the empire was at risk, so the sailors set out to sea to save their ships and the lava nearly burned them. The Atlaneans took refuge in Brazil where they carved the monolith. Only later did they head back east, across the Atlantic and settle in Anatolia, becoming the Hittite empire.

Below is a comparison of Rapa Nui (right) and Ingá (left) symbols (Source), and Hittite inscriptions (c. 1500 BC) (Source).

Of course, andy similarity is coincidential. For instance, I made out some Latin letters an M (row 4), a U (row 4 col.2), a W (row 5), and even a Y (row 8), which goes to show that coincidences exist, and that the human mind loves finding patterns and similarities even if there are none.

Anyway, Baraldi used Laroche's table of Hittite hieroglyphs to decipher the text (for those interested in Laroche's work, you can see the symbols here, online, as Fig. 2)

The stone is made of hard metamorphic rock like granite, and the deep grooves of the symbols (1 cm deep and 3 cm wide - 0.4 and 2.25 in) would have been very hard to carve using stone tools. Some have suggested the use of metallic tools, which the natives lacked. Baraldi said that the inscriptions had been made by using molds pressed into the hot lava that issued from a now extinct volcano, that had been channeled here by the proto-Hittites while it was fluid.

But the rock was never fluid lava running from a crater. Instead it was altered deep inside the Earth, and like most rocks, it extruded, intruded, to the surfaceo (see the image above showing the rock — Source). It is known as biotite-granodiorite, a compact, fine-grained igneous rock with high hardness (Source).

Not an original idea

Baraldi was not the first to imagine a pseudoscientific origin for the stone. Gilvan de Brito wrote a book about it (Journey into the Unknown) Viagem ao desconhecido os segredos da Pedra de Ingá: inclui outros registros rupestres, in 1988. In it, he mentions similarities with Hebrew, Toltec, Hittite, and Rapa Nui symbols, he also imagines it is a calendar and that it involved extraterrestrials. 1994 Zilma Ferreira Pinto suggested that the stones had Muslim, Jewish, and Christian inscriptions. A Kabbalistic stone.

Facts

The rock is the work of local natives, who painstakingly engraved and polished the stone. They probably used iron oxide to stain the symbols (Source). Erosion, and visitor vandalism has erased some of them. The work is probably up to 6,000 years old. No UFOs, no Hittites, no molten lava printing, just plain Native Americans.

Further Reading

Those who want to learn more about the stone can read these two books online (In Portuguese):

• Maria Tereza Santana de Costa Rodrigues Almeida, 2009, A Pedra do Inga: A Reproducao do Mito, A Reproducao da Fe, a thesis with a scientific point of view.
• Vanderley de Brito, 2009, A Pedra do Inga, Itacoatiaras na Paraíba, a serious scholarly review of the stone.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Copper artifacts in prehistoric North America

At school I was taught that the Native Americans used stone tools, and lived as hunter-gatherer groups roaming across America, living in crude tents or makeshift huts. They had learned how to make pottery and rudimentary weaving, but that was all. The advanced Mesoamerican civilzations, and the Incas of South America had a more developed culture, led by kings, they build cities with magnificent stone buildings, pyramids, and carved stone. They had armies, agriculture, irrigation, delicate weaving and some metallurgical skills. They worked gold and silver by beating the metals, and also had some rudimentary smelting know-how for copper and bronze. They never learned about iron.

But this history overlooked the fact that some native groups in North America developed the use of native copper metal, and over thousands of years, these people moved from utilitarian objects (adzes, knives) to delicately decorated artifacts for ceremonial purposes. The "Indians" weren't so brutal and uncivilized as I had been taught.

The Old Copper Complex

Utilitarian copper artifacts at the Milwaukee Museum

The Old Copper Complex, or Culture appeared in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. around 6,000 years ago, during a period known as the Middle Archaic. At that time, they worked native copper (pure copper metal) into utilitarian objects like axes, knives, hooks for fishing, and spear or arrow heads (see photos of tools online: Milwaukee Museum Collection). They continued to do so for thousands of years, developing techniques to extract the almost pure copper metal nuggets from the soil and bedrock.

Roughly 2500 years ago, their culture shifted, and these people started making decorative (probably religious) artifacts and jewelry. (Source).

Thousands of objects have been discovered and are held in private and public collections. Many more were looted and melted down by the newcomer Europeans after the discovery of America.

As mentioned in previous posts, the American scholars of the 1800s didn't believe that the "Indians" were capable of working metals, or crafting the objects that they were finding in mounds and burials. They believed, with their racist mindset, that the natives were far too primitive to have developed this type of material culture. The scientists imagined a lost civilization of advanced mound-builders, or that advanced people from Eurasia (Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, etc.) made their way across the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, and upstream along the St. Lawrence River, deep into the Great Lakes, to source copper and in the process, teach the natives how to work the metal. Clearly absurd considering the logistics involved, and the nature of their ships. It was fine to bring tin from Cornwall, in the southwestern tip of Britain, across the English Channel, but to cross the ocean with tons of copper was risky, and impractical.)

So, none of that was true. The ancient Amerindians learned how to work the nuggets of pure copper all by themselves.

In the mid 1900s, better tools allowed the dating by radiocarbon of copper finds, and we learned that some of them were very ancient, and indigenous to the New World.

The Copper

The Amerindian people used native copper, a rare and very pure (95% purity) grade of metallic copper. It appears as nuggets, with the typical red color of copper (see picture above). For this reason it was easily found, and used. Current copper mines used low purity, highly oxidized mineral, that requires complex mechanical and chemical processing of thousands of tons of ore, to obtain a few hundred pounds of pure metal.

The Great Lakes area is one of the few regions in the world, where native copper is found. The activity of glaciers also bulldozed the ore, spreading copper across the surface. The natives also dug mines to extract native copper. They used stone hammers, and also heating and cooling cycles to break the rock apart (light a fire, and cool the rock suddenly with cold water).

The copper nuggets were then processed. The North American natives had not learned how to smelt copper, or blend it with tin to make bronze. They used cold techniques to work the metal: they hammered it into shape. Another process they used was to heat it to make it more malleable, a process known as annealing (at 800°C, - 1470°F it softens but does not melt the copper).

They embossed, perforated, engraved, and also riveted the objects that they crafted (Source), copper trade carried the metal from the Great Lakes across the continent, even 1,500 km (900 mi) south of the Great Lakes (Source).

Below are two images of some of the Wulfing copper objects, unearthed in a farm in Malden, Missouri, in the late 1800s. They date to around 1200-1400 AD. (Source) they are named after the collector who donated them to the Museum; they are good examples of the artistry achieved by the native metalworkers.

The following image is the "falcon", that was excavated at the Hopewell Culture National Historical Park (Source):

These were delicate, carefully crafted objects, made by skilled artisans. They show us an alternative reality about the Native Americans. People who had sophisticated societies, religion, and also an organization that supported trade, mining, and craftsmen capable of working the copper metal. They weren't only people that hunted buffalo and lived in teepees. Amerindians thousands of years ago, lived in complex societies, like the mound-builders, in urban-agricultural settings, producing ceramics and beautiful objects like those depicted above.

There is no need to concoct a pre-Clovis civilization like the one proposed by Graham Hancock, the natives themselves developed their own civilization starting from scratch.

An example of their elaborate culture can be seen at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Cahookia, just east of St. Louis, in Southern Illinois, it has mounds that are over 30 m (100 ft) tall, and had a population of 10,000 to 40,000 residents. This required an advanced agricultural and social organization. I wrote about them in my Route 66 website because the site is located right beside on of U.S. 66's alignments. Below you can see what we think they looked like in AD 1,100.

Decline and Collapse

But, shortly after, the mound-culture vanished. Starting in 1200 AD, weather changed, a cycle of drought and floods hit the region. It was followed by a Little Ice Age. The large semi-urban populations that depended on agriculture suffered the effects. Famine, social unrest, environmental degradation led to a gradual depopulating of these towns. By the early and mid 1500s, few of them remained.

These final days of these mound villages were mentioned by the ruthless Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1540, when he rode from Florida across the Southeastern USA and along the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. de Soto attacked the natives, killing many, maiming and torturing captives, a brutal man of his time. He mentions some of these fortified cities (Coosa, Mabila, Cofitachequi). This expedition more or less coincides with the final stage of decline and destruction of these cities which was probably promoted by the Old World diseases introduced by the Europeans, (smallpox, measles, flu...) which led to the "Great Dying" that exterminated 90% of the Amerindian population starting in 1492.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Darwin, FitzRoy and the Santa Cruz River expedition of 1834

Not many people know that when Charles Darwin, yes! The man who single-handedly created the Theory of Evolution (well almost, Alfred Russell Wallace also had the same idea) visited, and explored Patagonia during his journey as the "naturalist" on board the HMS Beagle (1831-1836).

Darwin, and the Beagle's commander, Captain Robert FitzRoy sailed around the world on a survey for the Royal Navy. Darwin disembarked and collected specimens, fossils, and slowly but surely matured the experience of his voyage into the theory of Natural Selection as the force behind evolution. Admittiedly, it took him another 30 years (and the prod given by Alfred Russell Wallace, who wrote to Darwin in 1858 requesting his opinon on a theory of evolution he had devised independently!) to publish his findings in "On the origin of species" in 1859. Darwin had, over those 30 years, collected innumerable pieces of evidence to support his theory. He had built a well-founded structure (unlike Russell Wallace) but he had lacked the moral courage to publish his work until it was challenged by Russell Wallace.

But, let's get back to South America. While charting and mapping the coasts of Southern South America, Darwin had some interesting experiences. He rode inland, finding glass from sand melted by lightining bolts in Uruguay. In Patagonia, he also met Juan Manuel de Rosas a rancher-potentate who would was the Governor of Buenos Aires province and the dictator of the Argentine Confederation between 1829 and 1853. Rosas was conducting a bloody campaign against the natives of the Pampas and northern Patagonia (he wiped out at least 3,200 natives and displaced another 15,000).

Further south, the Beagle anchored in the Santa Cruz River estuary, on April 13th, 1834, and on the 18th, a party which included Darwin and FitzRoy, set out to navigate up the Santa Cruz River. The first thirty miles of it had been explored in a previous visit: "in the morning three whale-boats started under the command of the Captain to explore as far as time would allow the Santa Cruz river: During the last voyage, Capt. Stokes procceeded 30 miles, but his provisions failing, he was obliged to return.— Excepting, what was then found, even the existence of this large river was hardly known: We carried three weeks provisions & our party consisted of 25 souls; we were all well armed & could defy a host of Indians." (Source).

Darwin's map of the Santa Cruz River. See the large-sized map here, online

The Santa Cruz River drains Lake Argentino and Lake Viedma, it receives the inflow of the melting ice of the Sothern Ice Field, it is a mighty river, with a short (385 km - 240 mi) yet winding course that cuts across the arid Patagonian steppe with a west-to-east course. It carved canyons through the basaltic mesas (mesetas) that rise up to 200 m (600 ft) above it. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean together with the Chico River that comes from the Northwest, through a tidal estuary. Its discharge, on average is 790 m³ (28,000 cu. ft.) and it is 6 to 15 m deep (18-45 ft. deep) and 150 m (450 ft) wide. Its water has a turquoise bluish color, from the glacial sediment it carries. The river's gradient or slope isn't great, it drops 180 m (590 m) from the Lake to the Ocean. It has plenty of curves along its course, and a strong current. This made Darwin's enterprise an exhausting one.

Darwin described the "navigation" method they used: "In so strong a current it was of course quite impossible either to pull or sail so that the three boats were moor fastened astern of each other, two hands left in each, & the rest all on shore to track, (we brought with us collars all ready fitted to a whale line).— As the general arrangements were very good for facilitating the work, I will describe them; the party which included every one, was divided into two spells, (at first into three) & each of these pulled alternately for an hour & a half.— The officers of each boat lived with, eat the same food, & slept in the same tent with their crew; so that each boat was quite independent of the others; After sunset, the first level place where there were any bushes was chosen for our nights lodging..."

Progress was slow, they had to haul or tow, by sheer manpower, the boats upstream. By May 2nd, Darwin wrote in his Diary "The river was here very tortuous, & in many parts there were great blocks of Slate & Granite, which in former periods of commotion have come from the Andes: Both these causes sadly interfered with our progress.— We had however the satisfaction of seeing in full view the long North & South range of the Cordilleras.— They form a lofty & imposing barrier to this flat country; many of the mountains were steep & pointed cones, & these were clothed with snow.— We looked at them with regret, for it was evident we had not time to reach them..." On May 4th, FitzRoy had had enough. He would not go any further. They ventured west on foot: "The Captain & a large party set off to walk a few miles to the Westward.— We crossed a desert plain which forms the head of the valley of S. Cruz, but could not see the base of the mountains.— On the North side, there is a great break in the elevated lava plain, as if of the valley of a river.— It is thought probable that the main branch of the S Cruz bends up in that direction & perhaps drains many miles of the Eastern slope of the chain.— We took a farewell look at the Cordilleras which probably in this part had never been viewed by other Europaean eyes, & then returned to the tents.— At the furthest point we were about 140 miles from the Atlantic, & 60 from the nearest inlet of the Pacific. 5th Before sun-rise, we began our descent." The party reached the sea in three days, advancing at 10 miles per hour (16 km/h).

Unknown to Darwin, and FitzRoy, they had ended their expeditions a few dozen kilometers east of the impressive Lake Argentino. In my interactive map I marked (approximate location) the spot they reached during their expedition. It would take 33 years until an expedition commissioned by Argentine sealer and naval officer, Luis Piedrabuena discovered Lake Argentino. In October 1867 J. H. Gardiner rode upstream with J. McDugall, Mr. Peterson, and J. Hansen, to discover the sources of the Santa Cruz River. They were the first Europeans to set their eyes on the lake.

I have mentioned Lake Argentino and the Santa Cruz River in a post, and also in my book, mentioning their "creatures" one of which was spotted by Gardiner himself in 1867 while camping by the lake close to a river by Estancia Alice, he saw "a very strange animal, the size of a dog, and dark, but I couldn’t determine what animal it was." Grouttes, the editor of Gardiner’s diary, suggested in 1881 that it was a water tiger (otter). Why would Gardiner say the animal was strange if it was just an otter?

I will end this post with a somber note. The left-leaning, pro-Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela Kirchner couple administrations, a corruption-tainted wife (Cristina) and husband (Nestor, deceased in 2010) team who were elected presidents of Argentina between 2004 and 2015, and followed by a puppet president managed by Cristina Kirchner (2019-2023), arranged for a Chinese-led consortium to build a mega hydroelectric project on the Santa Cruz River. Despite environmental concerns, the project got a green light from pro-Chinese Kirchner and surely a juicy payback. Just as a reference, among many pending corruption trials, Cristina is currently serving a 12 year jail term for corruption involving road building in Santa Cruz involving paybacks of 500 million U.S. Dollars from a crony of her late husband, who starting out as a humble bank clerk in the Santa Cruz province state-owned bank, became a billionaire road construction mogul. To make matters worse the dam which will generate 1,310 MW is located 2000 km (1,270 mi) from Buenos Aires, the main energy-demanding market of the country. Patagonia has less than 2.5 million inhabitants, and Santa Cruz province, barely 337,000 residents (2022 Census data).

The mid and upper reaches of the Santa Cruz River valley will be flooded when the dam is completed, an irreversible damage to the ecosystems and scenic beuty of the area.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Monkeys and the pre-Clovis stone tools in Brazil

Although I am a strong supporter of an early peopling of America (over 20 and possibly 50 or even 100 kya), I must be fair and that is why this post will look into the intriguing possibility that monkeys, not humans, crafted the crude stone tools dated to around 40,000 years ago, found in Brazil.

The first to suggest this idea was Stuart Fiedel, in 2017, with a research paper titled Did Monkeys Make the Pre-Clovis Pebble Tools of Northeastern Brazil?, in it, he reports that the capuchin monkeys of South America use pebbles as tools to crack open nuts, they hammer them with these cobbles to open them. They also pound wood to find bugs. In the process, they leave behind remains that resemble man-made stone tools. They may have been doing so for the past 100,000 years!

Capuchin monkeys using stone tools to crack nuts. Source

The idea is interesting. The remains left behind by monkeys look like human stone tools. Furthermore, the paper suggests that monkeys taught humans how to use local resoures: "the possible influence of monkeys’ tool use on human behaviour. For example, cashew nuts are native to this area of Brazil, and it is possible that the first humans to arrive here learned about this unknown food through watching the monkeys and their primate cashew-processing industry..."

The matter was followed up by two Argentine researchers, Agustín and Federico Agnolín (see article) suggest that the stone tools attributed to pre-Clovis humans are in fact made by monkeys. They didn't find any differences or evolution between the tools that are 50,000 years old, and contemporary monkey-made tools: "Our study shows that the tools from Pedra Furada and other nearby sites in Brazil were nothing more than the product of capuchin monkeys breaking nuts and rocks some 50,000 years before the present,” says F. Agnolín, also a researcher at the ‘Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences “Bernardino Rivadavia”’ (MACN-CONICET), and the “Azara Foundation.”"

Besides using rock hammers to dig, and break open nuts, the capuchin monkeys also use them to pulverize other stones and lick the mineral-rich dust as natural mineral supplements. The resulting flaked stone fragments resemble human-made stone tools.

The authors argue that the ancient tools attributed to humans, found at the Piedra Furada site (see my post about this site), are far to simple to have been made by humans "they always consisted of fractured pebbles, anvils, hammers, and jagged-edged rock fragments, but other types of tools never appeared. All these characteristics are indistinguishable from the tools used today by capuchin monkeys".

But, what if... they are the work of a cobble or pebble type lithic industry, simliar to the Oldowan, one used by archaic hominins? Could Homo habilis or even Australopiths have reached America with primitive stone tool know-how?

Read the paper here: Agnolín, A. M., & Agnolín, F. L. (2022). Holocene capuchin-monkey stone tool deposits shed doubts on the human origin of archeological sites from the Pleistocene of Brazil. The Holocene, 09596836221131707. https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836221131707

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall © 

Black "First People" in America - controversy

In yesterday's post I mentioned an exchange I had on X (Twitter) with a person who had posted a reply to someone who criticized a previous port of his, that went as follows:

"[expeletive deleted] we are indigenous to the USA. We built the country from scratch. We were here before this countries inception. Also there were Black Aboriginal tribes here In the Americas that were enslaved & mixed in with the small 3% of African slaves that came to the US. EthnoGenesis."

Rude comments and pseudoscientific nonsense bother me, so my reply was "The Native Americans arrived ~20 kya and are the First People. Black Africans were forcibly transported by the slave trade ~1492-1808. There was no "indigenous" (autochthonous) population and no native "Black Aboriginals" in the Americas. Homo sapiens arrived ~20,000 years ago." Factual and polite.

As an answer, the X post author, uploaded the following image and posted more nonsense: "Before the red skin mongolóid tribes came from Siberia there were BLACK ABORIGINAL tribes in America. It’s been proven over & over there were Black aboriginal tribes in America before the slave trade."

The "proof" added as bibliographic reference in the image, shows a Wikipedia entry on Constantine Samuel Rafinesque which, states that "Among his theories were that ancestors of Native Americans had migrated by the Bering Sea from Asia to North America, and that the Americas were populated by black indigenous peoples at the time of European contact." It also includes an image of a text snippet from Rafinesque's self-published magazine, the Atlantic Journal and Friend of Knowledge, which in its issue of Sept. 1833, on page 85 refers to the Primitive Black Nations of America. I found the article, and below is a transcription of part of its text:

"The Society of Geography having offered a reward for the best Memoir on the Origin of the Asiatic Negroes, I sent them last year two Memoirs; one on those Asiatic Negroes, wherein I demonstrated the affinities of their languages with the African and Polynesian Negroes, as well as with the Hindus and Chinese, and renders it probable that all the Negroes originated in the Southern Slopes of the Imalaya [sic] Mountains, as they did once exist all over India, South China, Japan, Persia, and Arabia. My second Memoir was on the Negroe or Black Nations, found in America before Columbus, wherein I proved their existence and connection by language with the Ngroes of Africa and Polynesia... To many) this fact of old Black Nations iki America will be new, yet it is an important feature of American History, as well as the existence of primitive White Nations there still more numerous. To furnish a kind of insight into this subject I will here merely enumerate the Black tribes of which I have found evident traces and remains, in North and South America:
1. The Ancient Caracols of Hayti represented as a Nation of Beasts by the historical songs, see Roman and Martyr.
2. The Califurnams of the Carib Islands, called Black Caribs or Guanini by others, are a black branch of Caribs. See Rochefort, Herrera, &e.
3. The Arguahos of Cutara mentioned by Garcia in the West Indies, quite black.
4. The black Aroras of Raleigh, or Yaruras of the Spaniards, ugly black or brown Negroes, yet existing near the Oronoco, and language known, called Monkeys by their neighbours.
5. Chaymas of Guyana brown Negroes like Hottentots, see Humboldt.
6. The Mangipas &nd Porcigis of Nienhof, the Motayas of Knivet, &e., all of Brazil, brown Negroes with curly hair. See also Vespucius and Pigafetta.
7. The Nigritas of Martir in Darien, yet existing in Choco under the name of Chuanas or Gaunas or Chinos. See Mollien. Ugly black or red Negroes.
8. Those of Popayan called Manabi blackish with negro features and hair. See Stevenson.
9. The Guabas and Jaras of Taguzgalpa near the Honduras. See Juaros, &c, now called Zambos.
10. The Enslen or Esteros from New California, ugly blackish Negroes. See Vanegas, Langsdorf, &c.
11. The Black Indians met by the Spaniards in Louisiana in 1543. See Soto's invasion.
12. The Moon-eyed Negroes, and Albinos, destroyed by the Cherokis and seen in Panama. Barton, &c.
Among these the Yarura language has 50 per cent of analog with the Gauna 40 per cent with the Ashanty or Fanty of Guinea, and 33 per cent with the Fulah, Borny and Congo languages of Africa. In Asia it has 39 per cent of affinity with the Samang Negroes, and 40 per cent with the Negroes of Andaman as well as those of Australia or New Holland."

Unlike most readers who repost this text without validating it (just try Googling it to see it paste-copied without any further questioning. See this search on Califurnams), I looked up these references cited by Rafinesque and found quite a few of them (refrence number is given in parenthesis) and added some comments:

(7) by Pedro Mártir de Angelería, page 130 mentions the Darien dark-skinned people: "There they found black slaves from a region only two days' journey from Cuarecua, where only black people are raised, and these are ferocious and exceedingly cruel. They believe that long ago black people came from Ethiopia to steal, and that, shipwrecked, they settled in those mountains. The people of Cuarecua harbor a deep hatred for these black people, and they either enslave one another or kill each other." This took place during Balboa's expedition across Panama, when he discovered the Pacific Ocean in 1513. However, I did not find references regaring the Caracols (1) in Angelería

Regarding (2) the Caribs, Rouchefort (see pp. 251-252) writes "the Caribbians are a handsome well-shap'd people... True it is their complexion is naturally of an Olive-colour... All the Caribbians are black-hair'd... The hair of the Caribbians is not curl'd or frizzled, as that of the Moors , but streight and long..." Not African at all! Regarding Walter Raleigh and the Aroras, Raleigh wrote: "my old pilot, a man of great travel, brother to the cacique Toparimaca, told me that... there inhabited four principal nations... The fourth are called Aroras, and are as black as negroes, but have smooth hair." Dark, but not negroes, smooth hair, not African.

Humboldt (5) did not describe the Chaymas as Hottentots: "Their colour is that of the whole American race, from the cold table lands of Quito and New Grenada to the burning plains of the Amazons... If the uniform tint of the skin be more coppery and redder toward the north, it is on the contrary among the Chaymas of a dull brown inclining towards tawny." In fact, he says they look like Asians: "If the Chaymas, and in general all the natives of South America and New Spain, resemble the Mongul race, by the form of the eye, their high cheek bones, their straight and flat hair, and the almost entire want of beard; they essentially differ from them in the form of the nose, which is pretty long, prominent throughout it's whole length, and thick toward the nostrils, the openings of which are directed downward, as with all the nations of the Caucasian race. " (See p. 223-224).

(6) the citation is incorrect, the author's name was Johannes Nieuhof a Dutch explorer does not mention Mangipas or Porcigis, only Brazilian Tupí natives "They are of a dark brown colour, black hair, which hangs all over their fhoulders..." (p. 133). The only people with curly hair are the Brazilian Portuguese! (p. 129)

Gaspard Mollien (7) mentions African Blacks and Indians, and no reference to Black Indians (See Chapter VIII). Miguel Venegas (10) describes the natives of California as "The color is somewhat more tan and darker than that of the other Indians of New Spain" (Mexico). I read the chronicles of De Soto's expedition (11) and found no reference to black people in Louisiana.

So, I confidently replied in Twitter: "Wrong. No Black natives. Whiteness was a Spanish mindset and the color of natives concerned them a lot. But sorry, not one single research paper has shown black natives in America."

The reply, again unfounded was "Just because you say that dont make it true. It’s been proven over & over there were BLACK ABORIGINAL people in America before the slave trade or even before the red skin mongolóid tribes. For example the “Luiza” women who is the oldest skeleton found in the American was Blk."

This person refloated as factual the unfounded story of an African-looking Luzia (the Lagoa Santa woman) who in fact was a Paleoindian with a small percentage of Austronesian alleles, and clearly an Amerindian who carried no African genes in her.

The author then added in a quick follow-up post [sic]: "Also the explorers them selves wrote about the Black Aboriginal people they encountered. Learn history"

I must admit that the "learn history" part irked me, I love history, and have read almost every single book about Patagonia, and history in General. History has always fascinated me, and I enjoy checking historic events by reading eyewitness accounts. The guy then included the following images about Verrazzano.

In fact, Verrazzano who was born in what is now Italy, and served the French Crown, exploring the Atlantic seabord of North America, wrote about Amerindians with tan skin, not black-skinned Africans. As proof, see The Voyage of Verrazano, by Henry Murphy, 1875. So I retorted: "Verrazzano original text p. 23 https://ia801308.us.archive.org/19/items/cu31924028728065/cu31924028728065.pdf: "They exceed us in size, and they are of a very fair complexion (?) ; some of them incline more to a white (bronze ?), and others to a tawny colour ; their faces are sharp, their hair long and black" - no curls or black skin."

That was the end of the exchange, which was pretty worthless, but had two positive outcomes.

The first, was that I identified and read several original sources that supposedly support the presence of dark, African-like Amerindians and in fact prove the opposite.

The second, is a lesson learnt: it isn't worth the effort to try to persuade stubborn or illogical people against their mindset, it is best to avoid conflict and preserve one's inner peace and follow the advice given in Proverbs 26:4.

Have a great week!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Africans in Pre-Columbian America revisited (Clyde Winters)

Ihad a brief exchange in X (Twitter) with a person who vows that Africans reached America before Europeans, and can be counted as First People, in the New World. I hold an opposite point of view. Africans didn't reach America until the European slave trade brought them, starting in the early 1500s.

Even if they had arrived say, 3,000 years ago it would be very hard to identify the presence of their genetic imprint in modern Amerindians because of the later admixture with African slaves: how can we identify a different signal of an earlier migration from the same population?

Nevertheless, I came across a comment to an article by Neves, Hubbe and Harvati, which I quote below, it has some spelling issues, and was written by Clyde Winters, online here. Winters is a scholar who supports the idea of an early migration of African people to America, where they admixed with the Native Americans.
My comments are bold font, between brackets:

"Genetic Evidence of Early African Migration into America
Posted by ClydeWinters on 19 May 2011 at 16:27 GMT
by Clyde Winters
Although, Hubbe et al support a two migration theory for the settlement of the Americas, the researchers maintain that currently available genetic evidence suggests a “single migration model for the peopling of the Americas. This suggests that we need to look further into the molecular history of the Americans to determine if there is evidence of non-Amerindian molecular among Amerind populations.
The early presents of Negroes in South America [Where do Hubbe et al. mention Negroes in South America?] suggest a migration of Sub-Saharan Africans into the Americas 40-15 kya. We can assume that if Africans early colonized the Americas there must be genetic evidence supporting their ancient presence. Evidence should exist today in Amerindian populations pointing to Sub-Saharan haplogroups among the varied populations if Africans made an early migration.
A review of the literature suggests such a phenomena. Lisker et al, noted that “The variation of Indian ancestry among the studied Indians shows in general a higher proportion in the more isolated groups, except for the Cora, who are as isolated as the Huichol and have not only a lower frequency but also a certain degree of black admixture. The black admixture is difficult to explain because the Cora resides in a mountainous region away from the west coast” (1).
Green et al also found Indians with African genes in North Central Mexico, including the L1 and L2 clusters (2). Green et al observed that the discovery of a proportion of African haplotypes roughly equivalent to the proportion of European haplotypes [among North Central Mexican Indians] cannot be explained by recent admixture of African Americans for the United States [correct, they are not an admixture with recent African Americans from the USA, further down, Green et al. state: "Today, the number of Mexicans with African heritage is not known; however, some suggest that as much as 75% of the modern Mexican population has some African ancestry" Suggesting that they are the outcome of admixture with recent African slaves from Mexico. This is indeed selective quoting!]. This is especially the case for the Ojinaga area, which presently is, and historically has been largely isolated from U.S. African Americans. In the Ojinaga sample set, the frequency of African haplotypes was higher than that of European haplotypes” (2).
The genetic evidence for Africans among the Mexicans is quite interesting. This evidence supports the skeletal evidence that Africans have lived in Mexico for thousands of years. [note there is no citation to back this outlandish claim]
The foundational mtDNA lineages for Mexican Indians are lineages A, B, C and D.The frequencies of these lineages vary among population groups. For example, whereas lineages A,B and C were present among Maya at Quintana Roo, Maya at Copan lacked lineages A and B (3). This supports Carolina Bonilla et al view that heterogeneity is a major characteristic of Mexican population (4). The mtDA A haplogroup common to Mexicans is also found among the Mande speaking people and some East Africans (4-6). Haplogroup A found among Mixe and Mixtecs (4).The Mande speakers carry mtDNA haplogroup A, which is common among Mexicans (6). In addition to the Mande speaking people of West Africa, Southeast Africa Africans also carry mtDNA haplogroup A (5).
[I looked hard but was not able to find one single paper mentioning the presence of mtDNA haplogroup A among the Mandenka people of Africa. This is false and not backed by any of the papers mentioned by Winters]
Underhill, et al noted that:" One Mayan male, previously [has been] shown to have an African Y chromosome" (7). This is very interesting because the Maya language illustrates a Mande substratum, in addition to African genetic markers. The Mixe Mixe carry African Y-chromosome DYS287(YAP+) in Mixe individuals who harbored DYS199 C allele (8).
James l. Gutherie (2000) in a study of the HLAs in indigenous American populations, found that the Vantigen of the Rhesus system, considered to be an indication of African ancestry, among Indians in Belize and Mexico centers of Mayan civilization(9). Dr. Gutherie also noted that A*28 common among Africans has high frequencies among Eastern Maya. It is interesting to note that the Otomi, a Mexican group identified as being of African origin and six Mayan groups show the B Allele of the ABO system that is considered to be of African origin (9-10). [The Otomi are Amerindian, see Zillges, 2013 and his genetic study. Regarding HLA A*28 it is found in Europeans, Pacific Islanders, Africans and Amerindians! Hsu et al., 1999.]
We conclude that the genetic evidence points to distinct origins for the Paleoamerican populations. This molecular evidence supports a possible early colonization of the Americas, not only by Melanesians as suggested by Hubbe et al, but also Africans. The molecular evidence is consistent with Hubbe et al two wave human expansion across America, while supporting an introduction of some Americans directly from Africa.
Some researchers claim that as many as seventy-five percent of the Mexicans have an African heritage (2). Although this may be the case Cuevas says these Africans have been erased from history (11).[No, they were not, they were slaves brought from -Africa after 1492]
References:
1. R. Lisker et al.(1996). Genetic structure of autochthonous populations of Meso-america: Mexico. Am. J. Hum Biol 68:395-404.
2. Green, L.D., (2000), "Mitochondrial DNA affinities of the people of North-Central Mexico", Am J of Hum Genet, 66:989-998.
3. Angelica Gonzalez-Oliver et al. (2001). Founding Amerindian mitochondrial DNA lineages in ancient Maya from Xcaret, Quintana Roo. Am. Jour of Physical Anthropology, 116 (3):230-235. Retreived 2/9/2006 at: http://www3.interscience....
4. Bonilla C, Gutierrez G, Parra E J, Kline C, Shriver M D. (2005). Admixture of a rural population of the State of Guerrero,Mexico, Am J Phys Anthropol. Dec;128(4):861-9.
5. Salas A, Richards M, De la Fe T, Lareu M V, Sobrino B, Sanchez-Diz P, Macaulay V, Carracedo A. (2002). The making of the West African mtDNA Landscape, Am J. Hum. Genet, 71:1082-1111.
6. Jackson B A, Wilson J L, Kirbah S, Sidney S S, Bassie L, Alle J A D, McLean D C Garvey W T.(2005). Am J Phys Anthropol. 128:156-163.
7. Underhill,P.A.,Jin,L., Zemans,R., Oefner,J and Cavalli-Sforza,L.L.(1996, January). A pre-Columbian Y chromosome-specific transition and its implications for human evolutionary history, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA,93, 196-200.
8. Lell J T, Brown M D, Schurr T G, Sukernik R I, Starikovskaya Y B, Torroni A, Moore L G, Troup G M Wallace D C.1997. Y chromosome polymorphisms in Native American and Siberian populations: identification of Native American Y chromosome haplotypes, Hum Genet. , 100(5-6):536-43.
9. James L. Guthrie, Human lymphocyte antigens:Apparent Afro-Asiatic, southern Asian and European HLAs in indigenous American populations. Retrieved 3/3/2006 at: http://www.neara.org/Guth...
10. M.H. Crawford et al (1974).Human biology in Mexico II. A comparison of blood group, serum, and red cell enzyme frequencies and genetic distances of the Indian population of Mexico. Am. Phys. Anthropol, 41: 251-268.
11. Marco P. Hernadez Cuevas.(2004). African Mexicans and the discourse on Modern Mexico.Oxford: University Press. "

Blacks in America

It could be possible that Africans strayed across the Atlantic ocean in rafts or boats and reached South America or Central America, but, as I mentioned in some posts about Phoenicians in America, the genetic imprint of a few hundred men or women in a population of millions of Amerindians would be extremely small. Add to that the "Great Dying" event that wiped out 90% of Amerindians starting in 1492, and the chances of detecting any pre-Hispanic African genes would be minute. I have posted in the past about Blacks in pre-Columbian America, and although the idea is interesting and intriguing, there is no scientific proof to back it. There are reports by explorers, even Columbus about dark-skinned people, but that does not prove anything. There are the Olmecs, said to resemble Africans as depicted by their stone statues, but, as mentioned in another post, they also have statues of Asian-looking people and were-jaguars!

Finally we have the fringe notion that the Black Native Americans in the US are original people, and not the outcome of later admixture from freed or escaped slaves that went to live among the Indians. I will look into this quack idea in a future post.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Mutation ratios and African admixture with archaics

In my previous post I mentioned the TCC→TTC mutation anomaly, which is higher among Europeans than Africans or East Asians.

Gao, Zhang, Przeworski, and Moorjani, 2022 reported that there were several other mutation discrepancies between these three popilations.

They also looked into mutation raties that differ in "old polymorphisms that predate the out-of-Africa migration" and suggest that this case is due to the different proportion that the ancient archaic ancestors contributed to modern African and non-African people. They also point out that age of reproduction (generation time) can't explain their observations and suggest that "other factors —genetic modifiers or environmental exposures— must have had a non-negligible impact on the human mutation landscape".

Aging fathers tend to pass on to their children more T→C mutations, and mothers contribute more C→G mutations.

They noticed different T→C/T→G mutations among archaic populations (over 28,800 generations ago) compared to more recent ones in all three populations. They were surprised by this difference: (YRI is Yoruba African, CEU is Caucasian and CHB is Chinese from Beijing):

"Unexpectedly, we detected significant differences between YRI and the other two populations, CEU and CHB, in the mutation spectra of polymorphisms that are estimated to long predate the OOA migration. Specifically, the T>C/T>G mutation ratio is elevated in the very old allele age bins compared to more recent bins for all populations, with a significantly higher ratio seen in YRI than in CEU and CHB. We showed that the inter-population differences cannot be explained by differential gene flow from sequenced archaic hominins —Neanderthals or Denisovans— into the ancestors of non-Africans and such introgression alone cannot explain the shift in the older bins in all modern human populations.
Instead, we found evidence that the signals come from extremely old variants that emerged prior to the split of modern humans and archaic hominins at least ∼550,000 years ago (Prüfer et al. 2014). This suggests that the observed differences between contemporary populations could have arisen from the complex demographic history of ancestral populations. Based on observed polymorphism patterns in contemporary African populations and using simulations, several recent studies have suggested that one or more ghost archaic populations may have introgressed into the ancestors of Africans and possibly into the common ancestors of all modern humans (Hammer et al. 2011; Ragsdale and Gravel 2019; Speidel et al. 2019; Durvasula and Sankararaman 2020). After the ancestors of non-Africans migrated out of Africa, the ghost archaic group(s) may have continued interbreeding with remaining populations in Africa, leading to higher ancestry in YRI. An alternative model is deep population structure in modern humans. Under this model, two or more long-lasting, weakly differentiated ancestral populations contributed differentially to contemporary human populations through continuous gene flow or multiple merger events (Ragsdale et al. 2022). In both models, a greater contribution from a group with a higher T>C/T>G ratio to the ancestors of African individuals would explain differences between YRI and non-African population samples as well as the elevated ratio in old variants for all three contemporary human populations. Our analysis further showed that the T>C/T>G signal comes from T>C mutations rather than T>G mutations, suggesting that one or more of the remote ancestral populations had a higher T>C mutation rate relative to their contemporaries as well as to modern humans."

Time and time again we have evidence of archaic introgression into Africans that has not been passed on to Eurasians. These contriuted to their heterozygosity, diversity, and different mutation rates. This renders many conclusions based on molecular clocks and differences in alleles obsolete. It makes the Africans look more divergent but in fact this may be the outcome of swapping bodily fluids after the OOA event.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Higher mutation accumulation in Europeans vs. Africans

Another paper mentioning different mutation rates in Africans and non-Africans!

The paper by Mallick, S., Li, H., Lipson, M. et al. The Simons Genome Diversity Project: 300 genomes from 142 diverse populations. Nature 538, 201–206 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature18964, reported that "Our analysis reveals key features of the landscape of human genome variation, including that the rate of accumulation of mutations has accelerated by about 5% in non-Africans compared to Africans since divergence."

The branch-length issue

This reminded me of a recent post I wrote about Short branch lengths in Africans for Y-chromosomes. Branch lengths are linked to accumulated mutations (the lenght of a branch is the number of mutations in it) so if we start from the fork where Africans and non-Africans split, the branch of Africans is shoreter because it has accumulated fewer mutations, while the non-African one is longer, as it has more accumulated mutations. In that post I asked "...but we are all the same age and equally distant from our common ancestor. So why do the Africans have fewer mutations? Do Eurasians accumulate more mutations?"

I also went back to reread a recent post Mutation rate is faster in Africa where I mentioned different studies suggesting that a higher diversity in Africans (measured by their heterozygosity) promoted a higher mutation rate or μ. But Mallick, Li and Lipson et al. in their 2016 paper suggest otherwise. I quote them below and highlight their findings, which seem to baffle them:

"More mutation accumulation in non-Africans than in Africans
The SGDP data provide an opportunity to compare the rates at which mutations have accumulated across populations. We restricted our analyses to samples for which our genotypes are likely to be most reliable ... We pooled samples by region to increase power, and for all pairs of regions, computed the expected number of positions where, if we picked a random chromosome from both, region A would mismatch chimpanzee and region B would be identical to chimpanzee (or vice versa). If the rate of accumulation of mutation has been the same since the two populations diverged, these numbers are expected to be equal. However, when we compute the ratio of mutations on one lineage or the other since separation, we find a subtle (average of 0.5%) but significant excess of mutations in nonAfricans relative to sub-Saharan Africans. Because any difference must reflect events since non-African / African population divergence which is a less than a tenth of average genetic divergence, this implies a greater difference in mutation accumulation rates since population divergence (~5%). We were concerned that these results might be biased by the fact that the human genome reference sequence is more closely related to non-Africans than to Africans, or by higher levels of heterozygosity in Africans, as both these issues could make detection of divergent sites in Africans more difficult. However, we replicated the findings after remapping to chimpanzee, which is equally distant to all present populations, and after restricting analyses to the X chromosome in males (males only have a single X chromosome, and so this procedure avoids bias due to different error rates in detecting heterozygous genotypes in populations with different rates of heterozygosity). These observations are most likely to be explained by acceleration in the rate of mutation accumulation in non-Africans, since the same signal appears in comparisons to sub-Saharan Africans related in different ways to non-Africans. It is known that the rate of CCT>CTT mutations differs across human populations. However, this particular mutation class was found to be enriched relative to Africans in Europeans but not in East Asians, and thus cannot explain our signal. One of several possible explanations for these findings is a decrease in the generation interval in non-Africans compared to Africans since separation..."

What is going on?

Mallick, S., Li, H., Lipson, M. et al. affirm that mutations accumulate at a higher rate in non-Africans than within Africa, this does not mean that mutation rates (μ) are different, it means that the mutations are fixed differently. It is also higher among Europeans than East Asians. To explain it they propse that non-Africans have a shorter "generation time": they are mating at a younger age than Africans so they accumulate more generations in a given span of time, and therefore more mutations than Africans in the same period.

Generation Time

I am surprised because other research has shown that longer generation times lead to more mutations because "each additional year of paternal age results in an average of 3.9 × 10⁻¹⁰ more mutations per base per generation (Source) and hunter-gatherer people nowadays have longer generation ages (32.3 years for fathers) than sedentary groups and because older fathers accumulate more mutations, if Africans are mating at an older age, there will be more mutations. There is something that isn't adding up here!

A similar viewpoint was reported by Wang and Obbard, 2023: "Our analysis also shows that mutation rates increase significantly with increasing generation time... The relationship we observe between generation time and per-generation mutation rate could therefore be a consequence of either a greater number of cell divisions or of accumulating damage over time." Which makes sense.

However, not all agree, research conducted by Lewin and Eyre-Walker, 2025 confirms that mutation rate (μ) and generation time are inversely correlated (longer generation time = lower mutation rate; and shorter generation time = higher mutation rate).

Due to these conflicting findings, until consensus is reached, for the time being I will leave generation times out of the matter and look for other plausible causes for the higher number of mutations in non-Africans vs. Africans.

Other causes explaining higher accumulation of mutations

Effective population size or Ne. Wang and Obbard, 2023, also notice that "populations with larger Ne tend to have a lower mutation rate even after accounting for their shorter generation times." Africans are said to have a larger initial Ne due to the bottleneck effect that affected those leaving Africa, a small subset of the large original population. The authors suggest that if "... species with small Ne tend to have a longer generation time, and a longer generation time causes higher mutation rates then a higher μ in species with low Ne could be driven by a mechanistic generation-time effect." Since Eurasians seem to have both factors (small Ne and low generation times) is seems logical that their mutation rate is higher.

Besides the effective population size and generation time, there are more possible explanations for the shorter branch in Africans and the longer one in Eurasians are: natural selection, that removes noxious mutations, so looking back from the present, the mutations never seem to have taked place because they were not fixed. Reduced DNA repair mechanisms, one group has a less efficient repair mechanism for mutations and these tend to accumulate in comparison to another group with a more efficient repair system.

The increased TCC→TTC mutation rate in Europeans

This factor is mentioned in Mallick, S., Li, H., Lipson, M. et al. as a possible explanation. But, what does it really mean? I will quote from Harris and Pritchard, 2017, who studied the matter.

Our DNA is made up of two backbones, the intertwined helixes linked by "steps" like a ladder, made from bases called Guanine (G), Cytosine (C), Thymine (T) and Adenine (A). Guanine always links to Adenine G—A, and Thymine with Cytosine (C—T) bonds. Looking at the steps of one side of the helix you will see a sequence like "ATCGATTGAGCTCTAG", and opposing it, on the other strand the complementary bases: "GCTAGCCAGATCTCGA".

Research has shown that "European people experience more mutations within certain DNA motifs (specifically, the DNA sequences ‘TCC’, ‘TCT’, ‘CCC’ and ‘ACC’) than Africans or East Asians do." Why?

Harris and Pritchard propose that "the rate of TCC→TTC mutations increased dramatically ∼15,000 years ago and decreased again ∼2000 years ago... [and] hypothesize that this mutation pulse may have been caused by a mutator allele that drifted up in frequency starting 15,000 years ago, but that is now rare or absent from present day populations." They go on to explain the cause: " At this time, we cannot exclude a role for nongenetic factors such as changes in life history or mutagen exposure in driving these signals. However, given the sheer diversity of the effects reported here, it seems parsimonious to us to propose that most of this variation is driven by the appearance and drift of genetic modifiers of mutation rate."

So it seems that it is due to a chance appearance of genes that regulate mutation rates.

A curious yet interesting fact is that the same effect of TCC→TTC mutation increase is observed in East Asian cattle! It appeared in two separate mammal groups, indicine cattle, derived from the Bos taurus indicus and humans but outside of Africa (Talenti, et al., 20216)

A challenge to the "stable" molecular clock

Harris, 2015 also looks into the TCC→TTC subject and says that explaining the cause is beyond the scope of the paper. However, Harris concludes that "Even if the overall European mutation rate increase was small, it adds to a growing body of evidence that molecular clock assumptions break down on a faster timescale than generally assumed during population genetic analysis. It was once assumed that the human lineage’s mutation rate had changed little since we shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees, but this assumption is losing credibility due to the conflict between direct mutation rate estimates and molecular-clock-based estimates. Although this conflict might have arisen from a gradual decrease in the rate of germline mitoses per year as our ancestors evolved longer generation times, the results of this paper indicate that another force may have come into play: change in the mutation rate per mitosis. If the mutagenic spectrum was able to change during the last 60,000 years of human history, it might have changed numerous times during great ape evolution and beforehand."

I agree, mutation rates are variable, and conclusions based on a constant rate will be wrong.

Notice how different papers find opposite effects (faster mutation rates in Africans, or in Europeans), and don't quite understand the reason!

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

The Davenport Tablets

In a recent post about the mounds and mound-builders of the United States, a culture that flourished in the Midwest and Eastern USA from ~3,500 BC to 1,500 AD, I mentioned the famous Davenport Tablets. Today's post will explore them and their significance.

The tablets can be seen online, in zoomable images at the Peabody Museum website. Below is the tablet that has the engraving of a "mammoth" (marked by the black arrow).

Davenport Tablet #2. Peabody Museum

Davenport Iowa and its Academy of Natural Sciences

Charles Edwin Putnam, lived in the town of Davenport, Iowa, on the Mississippi River. He was one of the town's most important citizens, a successful lawyer, president of the local bank, and wealthy. He established a local scientific academy, and with his family, supported it. Nowadays known as The Putnam Museum and Science Center, the institution was originally established on December 14, 1867, as the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. You can visit the museum, which houses the tablets, in Davenport: 1717 W. 12th St. Davenport, Iowa. Website.

The Academy published a journal with the discoveries of local and regional amateur scientists who reported their findings. Among them was Reverend Jacob Gass, a member of the Academy, who collected native artifacts and dug (with the unscientific methods of the 1870s) into the Indian Mounds looking for human burials and objects.

Gass had recovered two dark slate tablets covered with engravings from a site with several mounds very close to Davenport. One of them had what appeared to be "text" and the other had depictions of people and animals, including a large, stout one that looks like a mammoth or an elephant. The discovery was published in the Davenport Academy's journal and generated quite a controversy regarding the mound-builders and their advanced civilization, that was also ancient, because it co-existed with mammoths.

For most of the 19th century, scholars considered the contemporary Native Americans as inferior, lacking writing, and metal-working skills, they were considered a late arrival on the American scene. People that couldn't have created the sophisticated engineering works like the mounds. These were the work of an advanced civilization, and the tablets with symbols and text were proof that backed this notion.

The tablets were controversial, with many formal scholars considering them a hoax, while others, and the general population deeming them genuine. Nowadays we know that Native Americans built the mounds, and that the tablets are a forgery. It seems that some members of the Davenport Academy, unknown to Putnam and Gass, planted the tablets in a mound to pull a prank on the arrogant German reverend.

The Tablets

The Bureau of Ethnology, led by Cyrus Thomas, attacked the tablets, ridiculing the local amateur archaeologists and their Academy. Note that Thomas was part of a Federal funded institution, and as such was in a power struggle with local, state based competitors. In 1884 Henry Henshaw published hsi work, Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley reached the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences. Its author, Henry Henshaw, cast doubt on the authenticity of artifacts discovered by Gass, including the elephant pipes and questions them politely: "Bearing in mind the many attempts at archaeological frauds that recent years have brought to light, archaeologists have a right to demand that objects which afford a basis for such important deductions as the coeval life of the Mound-Builder and the mastodon, should be above the slightest suspicion not only in respect to their resemblances, but as regards the circumstances of discovery. If they are not above suspicion, the science of archaeology can better afford to wait for further and more certain evidence than to commit itself to theories which may prove stumbling-blocks to truth until that indefinite time when future investigations shall show their illusory nature."

Charles Putnam felt that his Academy was under attack and wrote a short book, published in 1885 "A vindication of the authenticity of the elephant pipes and inscribed tablets in the museum of the Davenport Academy of Natural Sciences, from the accusations of the Bureau of Ethnology, of the Smithsonian Institution" he describes the discovery of the tablets, and supports their authenticity as well as the integrity and honor of the local, amateur archaeologists:

"...the first two were found in what is known as Mound No. 3, on the Cook farm, adjoining the city of Davenport. The principal discoverer was Rev. Jacob Cass, a Lutheran clergyman, then settled over a congregation in Davenport. In this exploration Mr. Gass was assisted by L. H. Willrodt and H. S. Stoltzenau, with five other persons who were accidentally present during the opening of the mound. The discovery was made on January 10th, 1877
...
The third inscribed tablet was found on January 30th, 1878, in Mound No. 11, in the group of mounds on Cook’s farm, in the suburbs of Davenport, and in close proximity to the mound wherein the other tablets were discovered. That indefatigable explorer. Rev. J. Gass, was also present during these further researches, and had for his assistants John Hume and Charles E. Harrison, both members of the Academy, and well and favorably known in this community. The circumstances of this discovery, as narrated by Mr. Harrison, are published in the Proceedings of the No suspicions whatever attach to this discovery, and the well-attested facts connected therewith estab¬ lish beyond reasonable doubt, that, whether more or less ancient, the tablet was deposited at the making of the mound..."

Putnam was honestly defending his Academy and vouching for the integrity of its members.

Below is the layout of the Davenport site, mounds and an engraving of a tablet:

The Tablets

A good description of the Davenport Tablets can be found in the work of Stephen Peet, 1892, The Mound Builders: Their Works and Relics, where on page 45 he describes the tablets as follows:

"The large tablet is twelve inches long, from eight to ten inches wide, and was made of dark coal slate. Fig. 22. The smaller tablet was about square, seven inches in length, and had holes bored in the upper corners, and is called the calendar stone, as it contained twelve signs with three concentric circles, though the signs do not in the least resemble the Mexican or Maya cal endars. The larger tablet contained a picture on either side, one representing a cremation scene, the other a hunting scene. The cremation scene "suggests human sacrifices." A number of bodies are represented as lying upon the back, and the fire is burning upon the summit of the mound, while the so-called Mound-builders are gathered in a ring around the mound. Above the cremation scene is an arch formed by three crescent lines, representing the horizon, and in the crescent and above it are hieroglyphics, some of which resemble the common figures and numbers, and the various letters of the alphabet; there are nintyeight figures, twenty-four in one, twenty in the other, and fiftyfour above the lines. The peculiar features of this picture are these : A rude class of Mound-builders are practicing human sacrifice, while the images of the sun and moon are both in the sky, one containing a face, the other circles and rays. Above these is the arch of the heavens, with Roman numerals and Arabic figures scattered through and above it. The figure eight is repeated three times, the letter O repeated seven times. With these familiar characters are ethers which resemble letters of ancient alphabets, either Phoenician or Hebrew, and only a few characters such as the natives generally used. The hunting scene is the one which is supposed to contain the mastodon. In this picture there is a large tree which occupies the foreground, beneath the tree are animals, human beings and fishes scattered indiscriminately about, a few skeletons of trees in the back ground. One of the human figures has a hat on, which resembles a modern hat, for it has a rim. "Of the animal kingdom thirty individuals are represented, divided as follows, viz: Man, eight: bison, four; deer, four; birds, three; hares, three; big horn or Rocky Mountain goat, one; fish, one; prairie wolf, one; nondescript animals, three. Of these latter one defies recognition, but the other two, apparently of the same species, are the most interesting figures of the whole group. These animals are supposed by different critics to represent the moose, tapers or mastodons." The trunk and tusks are omitted from this animal, and even the shape hardly resembles the elephant, certainly not enough to prove that the Mound-builders were contemporaneous with the mastodon.* The third discovery is the one the most relied upon. This discovery was also made by the Rev. Mr. Gass, in the spring of 1880, several years after the discovery of the tablets.
* Another tablet was found by Mr. Charles Harrison in 1878, who is president of the society, in mound No. 11 of the some group. In the mound was a pile of stones two and one-half by three feet in size, which might be called an altar, about three feet below the surface; the slab fourteen inches square, and beneath the slab was a vault, and in the vault was the tablet, with four flint arrows on the tablet; a shell and a quartz crystal. The figures on this tablet were a circle which represented the sun, a it representing the moon, and a human figure astride the circle, colored bright ochre red, all of them very rudely drawn. The figure is supposed to represent the sun god. The figure eight and other hierooglyphics are upon this tablet. Above the hieroglyphics was a bird and an animal, and between them a copper axe. This tablet is as curious as the one discovered by Mr. Gass.

The third tablet described above is shown below (Source):

In an exchange published in the scientific journal Science, Cyrus Thomas lambasted the tablets (see The Davenport Tablets, Science vol.7, No. 160 (Feb. 26, 1886), pp. 189-190) as an example he cites other critics, like the Rev. J. P. MacLean who pointed out that the symbols were forgeries: "among the cabalistic characters, the word 'town' stands out in bold lines, and the figare '8' appears in rude shape among other marks. The picture of a face occurs in the sun, resembling the face of a European. The artist has overdone his work: it needs no further investigation."

Eventually Thomas prevailed and the tablets were classified as a forgery.

Marshall McKusick published his research in a book, Pipes and Tablets: The Davenport Conspiracy in 1970. He reports that some Academy members were suspicious and the rumor was that these objects were produced in the basement of the Academy building. They were made as a practical joke, a hoax, aimed at Rev. Gass. According to McKusick, Putnam, the Academy's persiden was unaware of this, and he, single handedly fought to protect the reputation of the institution. In a second publication in 1991 (Tge Davenport conspiracy Revisited), McKusick interviewed a member of the Academy, James Willis Bollinger who had said that "We had no respect for Reverend Gass because he was the biggest windjammer and liar and everyone knew he was. We wanted to shut him up once and for all." Among those involved were Edwin, the brother of Jacob Gass. Alfred Blumer, Jacob's brother-in-law was also part of it. The three of them also sold the artifacts they unearthed so there was a monetary reason for forging mound objects. One of the elephant-pipes is said to have been carved by John Gaham, the janitor of the Academy!

However, even as late as 1910, the locals defended the tablets. The History of Davenport and Scott County, Iowa by Harry E. Downer describes the controversy as a "round-the-world discussion of a quarter of a century ago" and goes on to describe the pipes and the "four inscribed tablets" housed in the Academy museum.

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