In North America, petroglyphs have been found that indicate that the ancient Chinese had contact with the Indians. Yaoliang Song, a professor at the East China Normal University in Shanghai and a visiting lecturer at Harvard, recently stated that he agreed with the hypothesis that these petroglyphs were of Chinese origin.
John A. Ruskamp studied petroglyphs for several years with David N. Knightley, the leading expert in the United States on jiaguvan - hieroglyphic inscriptions on oracle bones, the oldest type of Chinese characters.
Knightley believes that the petroglyphs found by Ruscamp at a private ranch in Arizona correspond to Chinese inscriptions on bones from the Shang era (1600-1050 BC). Knightley gave the following transcript to the inscriptions in Arizona: “Separation for 10 years; completion of the journey, return to the house of the Sun; joint completion of the trip”.
Some of the inscriptions found at a private ranch in Arizona. Presumable transcript: completion of the journey, return to the house of the Sun
Photo: Courtesy of John Ruskamp
The location in Arizona where the petroglyphs were found is located away from public places and roads
Photo: Courtesy of John Ruskamp
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This is just one of hundreds of inscriptions that Ruskamp believes correspond to ancient Chinese texts. Earlier this month, Professor Sun supported Ruscamp's research and sent him a letter of support.
Song is an expert on Chinese petroglyphs. He is a supporter of the controversial theory of contacts between Asia and North America. The generally accepted point of view is that the ancestors of the Indians crossed the Bering Strait when there was a land route 12,000 years ago. Subsequent contacts between the Old and New Worlds took place only in 1000, when the Vikings reached the east coast of America. In recent decades, many scientists have provided evidence for the existence of earlier contacts.
In the 90s, Suna invited Professor K. Chan to Harvard University to study petroglyphs in the form of a human face from northeast Asia and northwest America. The research found similarities between them.
In his 1998 report, Sun wrote: "Many of these East Asian petroglyphs have analogies in rock art on the American northwest coast, from Kodiak Island (off Alaska) to the Columbia River (southern British Columbia and the northern United States)."
Left: A petroglyph at Lianyunagan, China, from Sun's 1998 report. Right: A petroglyph at British Columbia, Canada.
The petroglyphs that Song studied were created 5000-7000 years ago. This is well before the supposed contacts in the Shang era 3000 years ago, as the Ruscamp hypothesis states. However, the overland Bering Pass has already disappeared 7000 years ago.
Song wrote of Ruscamp's work: “Ruscamp cites accurately identifiable Chinese messages in rock art that have remained unexplored and unrecognized until now. They have been overlooked by modern anthropologists and archaeologists in large part due to the fact that the ancient styles of Chinese writing are little known. Petroglyphs are located in hard-to-reach and remote areas. They testify to the ancient Chinese presence in North America."
Ruscamp continues to study petroglyphs in America. He uses statistical analysis to determine the similarities between petroglyphs and ancient Chinese inscriptions to figure out how likely it is that the similarities are just coincidence.
Ancient inscriptions are not uniform: each artist had his own handwriting. But the similarity between glyphs and ancient Chinese hieroglyphs is 95%, and cannot be accidental, says Ruskamp.
Michael F. Medrano of the Petroglyph Research Department, along with Ruskamp, studied the petroglyphs at the site. In his opinion, they are authentic and do not belong to the culture of the Indians. “I believe you have discovered something important in the history of mankind,” he noted in a letter to Ruskamp.
Some of the petroglyphs in the United States are most likely an attempt by Indians to copy the Chinese script, Ruskamp says. According to his theory, the ancient Chinese did not establish settlements in America, but simply conducted expeditions.
At the beginning of this year, the third edition of Ruskamp's book "Echoes of Asia: Identification of Ancient Chinese Pictograms in Rock Art in North America" was published.