page_title: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories
section_title: Claims involving ancient Roman contact
hierarchical_section_title: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories / Claims of European contact / Claims involving ancient Roman contact
caption_attribution_description: English: Floor mosaic depicting birds, fish and fruit basket. Opus vermiculatum, Roman artwork of the end of the 1st century BC/begin of the 1st century AD. Français&#160;: Mosaïque de sol représentant des oiseaux, des poissons et une corbeille de fruits. Opus vermiculatum, œuvre romaine de la fin du Ier siècle av. J-C./début du Ier Siècle. Italiano: Mosaico pavimentale raffigurante uccelli, pesci e cesto di frutta. Opus vermiculatum, opera romana del fine del I sec. a.C./inizi I sec. d.C.
context_page_description: Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories speculate about possible visits to or interactions with the Americas, the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or both, by people from Africa, Asia, Europe, or Oceania at a time prior to Christopher Columbus' first voyage to the Caribbean in 1492. Such contact is accepted as having occurred in prehistory during the human migrations that led to the original settlement of the Americas, but has been hotly debated in the historic period.
  Only one historical case of pre-Columbian contact is widely accepted among the scientific and scholarly mainstream. Maritime explorations by Norse peoples from Scandinavia during the late 10th century led to the Norse colonization of Greenland and of L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, which preceded Columbus' arrival in the Americas by some 500 years. There is also significant evidence of material exchange between the peoples of Siberia and Alaska dating at least five centuries before Columbus' travels to the New World. Genetic evidence presented in 2020 found that some eastern Polynesian populations have admixture from coastal northern South American peoples, with an estimated contact around 1200 CE.
context_section_description: Evidence of contacts with the civilizations of Classical Antiquity—primarily with the Roman Empire, but sometimes also with other cultures of the age—have been based on isolated archaeological finds in American sites that originated in the Old World. The Bay of Jars in Brazil has been yielding ancient clay storage jars that resemble Roman amphorae for over 150 years. It has been proposed that the origin of these jars is a Roman wreck, although it has been suggested that they could be 15th or 16th century Spanish olive oil jars.
  Romeo Hristov argues that a Roman ship, or the drifting of such a shipwreck to the American shores, is a possible explanation of archaeological finds (like the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca bearded head) from ancient Rome in America. Hristov claims that the possibility of such an event has been made more likely by the discovery of evidence of travels by Romans to Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canaries, and of a Roman settlement (from the 1st century BCE to the 4th century CE) on Lanzarote.
  In 1950, an Italian botanist, Domenico Casella, suggested that a depiction of a pineapple was represented among wall paintings of Mediterranean fruits at Pompeii. According to Wilhelmina Feemster Jashemski, this interpretation has been challenged by other botanists, who identify it as a pine cone from the umbrella pine tree, which is native to the Mediterranean area.
caption: Floor mosaic depicting a fruit which looks like a pineapple. Opus vermiculatum, Roman artwork of the end of the 1st century BCE/beginning of the 1st century CE.
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