Is there any valid evidence to the theory the the ancient Olmec civilization of Mexico was of African origin?

Question

Is there any valid evidence to the theory the the ancient Olmec civilization of Mexico was of African origin?

Answer 1

Sorry but NO!

Look at the dates! There are no known African cultures including the Egyptians who had shipping in that period that could safely and continually cross the Atlantic and return?

Yes there may have been a few one off lost ships that made it to Mexico but this is speculation based on legends.

Physical evidence is lacking!

Answer 2

No - some people do get confused though when a scientist says that DNA evidence suggests that Olmec people may share specific genes with people from Africa. This is possible - people in the Americas migrated from some where. I have yet to see a peer-reviewed and scientifically accepted report of this supposed DNA evidence though.

However, the Olmec civilisation developed in Mesoamerica without influence from Africa. There is no valid evidence that Africans had anything to do with the Olmec civilisation. The Afrocentric hypothesis (African origin for the civilisation and all its wonderous material) is a political agenda, and this is unfortunate. Once again, a modern group is trying to deprive the indigenous people of the Americas of their ancient cultural heritage for modern personal gain.

The problem is that no one is sure what the pre-Olmec society was like, which allows for lots of wild (and ridiculous) speculation. You may also be interested to know that some Chinese scholars have claimed a Chinese origin for the Olmec. And like many other old civilisations, they have been described as the descendants of refugees from the mythological catch-all Atlantis. Everyone wants a piece of the glory.

Answer 3

No.

Answer 4

Aren't we all of African origin on a long enough timeline?

Answer 5

No.  Except for the "African looking" stone heads there is no evidence.

Answer 6

No

Answer 7

Nope.

The local native tribes look a lot like the big stone heads, wide noses, fleshy lips, Asian eyes and straight hair.

http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&...

It's quite likely the heads are meant to represent infants, which explains their odd proportions.

I'm pretty familiar with DNA studies from South America, no African associated Y chromosomes or mitochondrial DNA have been found in the area either, so it's pretty unlikely the Olmec have an African origin.

There are some skulls that look kind of Australoid in South America dating to about 40,000 years ago. Quite a few archaeologists believe that this could account for the slighlty African appearance of the tribes in some parts of the Americas from Baja California southwards.

Somebody claimed he'd found N3groid skulls in the area, but it turned out they were just very deformed by the weight if the dirt above them, and he had things thrown at him by other anthropologists.

Quote

"Dr. Wiercinski (1972) claims that some of the Olmecs were of African origin. He supports this claim with skeletal evidence from several Olmec sites where he found skeletons that were analogous to the West African type black. Many Olmec skulls show cranial deformations (Pailles, 1980), yet Wiercinski (1972b) was able to determine the ethnic origins of the Olmecs. Marquez (1956, 179-80) made it clear that a common trait of the African skulls found in Mexico include marked prognathousness ,prominent cheek bones are also mentioned. Fronto-occipital deformation among the Olmec is not surprising because cranial deformations was common among the Mande speaking people until fairly recently (Desplanges, 1906).

And a response here on this link..

http://www.angelfire.com/zine/meso/meso/...

Some people claim that the Vai wrting system is related to the Olmec, but it's pretty impossible as Vai writing only dates back to 1820, and The Olmec were a BC civillisation. Also, Olmec is related to other SA written languages.

Vai.

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/vai.htm

Olmec.

http://www.ancientscripts.com/epiolmec.h...

It's not impossible that Africans were trading with America in the late pre Columbian era though.

Answer 8

Orthodox paradigms are difficult to overthrow.  

Judge for yourself (-- or take the word of institutionalized mainstream Anglo scholars . . . )

"The evidence (similarity of American and Egyptian pyramids, European encounters with dark-skinned people in the Americas before trans-Atlantic slavery, Native American and West African folktales and oral history, New World crops in the Old World and vice-versa prior to 1492, linguistic similarities between West Africans and Native Americans, ancient American statues with ******* features, Columbus's contact with African sailors, etc.) is continually interesting, and is enough to convince someone who wants to believe it, but it is never quite conclusive enough to convince a skeptic."

Review of "They Came Before Columbus."1

All Empires History Forum:

http://www.allempires.net/forum_posts.as...

A History of the African-Olmecs: Black Civilizations of America from Prehistoric Times to the Present Era:

http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/Ite...

Skeletal Evidence of African Olmecs:

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/...