Chinese: 2,640 BC - Hsi and Ho
The ancient Chinese geographical text  "Shan Hai Jing," which means "The Classic of the Mountains and Rivers,"  holds compelling evidence that two Chinese Imperial astronomer-surveyors, named Ta-Chang and Shu-Hai, were the first known explorers to return with stories of America, which filled 32 volumes. 

458 AD - Hui Shun
During the Liang dynasty the Buddhist priest Hui Shun, preached Buddhism to the Mayans on a missionary jounrey, and is thus in part responsible for Guatemala in honor of Guatema Buddha. Hui Shun returned to China some 44 years later ,where where his story was recorded by Lord Yu Kie and Emperor Wu in the year 502 AD.

1421 AD -Zheng He
Was China's Zheng He the first to navigate the globe between March 1421 to October 1423? The Portuguese, in 1428, had a chart of the world showing Africa, Australia, South America and various islands in remarkably accurate detail It is possible, but not likely, given Columbus unswerving  belief in China being just 4,000 miles West of Spain. Venetian merchant and explorer Nicolo da Conti accompanied this unheralded explorer of the Americas and admiral of the greatest fleet of the 14th century. Zheung He was also a eunuch and Moslem. His Buddhist name Sanbao is how he is remembered and may be where the Arab legends of Sinbad come from. The 24 remarkably accurate maps he produced still survive. Discord and rivalry among rulers led to a ban on trade ships in the 15th century, which caused the knowledge of ship building to be lost
 more at sfgate.com || China2000

EAST COAST of the AMERICAS

Scandinavia 3000-2000 BC 
There are numerous burial sites making use of a substance known as red ochre to color the contents of the grave. This is fairly common to maritime cultures, and exists both in Atlantic ancient cultures as well as those of the Scandinavian
1700 B.C. 
Northeast of Toronto, Canada, rests a 40 foot by 70 foot limestone slab covered with an ancient inscription in the Old Norse language which identifies the author as Woden-lithi, a copper trader from Ringerike, Norway. Copper is believed to have been mined and exported by the Algonquin Indians for exclusive use in Europe, since there was no bronze age in the Americas, and so much copper had been mined in ancient times from the Lake Superior Area. 
1040-999 B.C. Woden or Odin, king of Denmark, is known for his distant journeys which took him away from his homeland for many months. Just as king Odin or Danus gave his name to Denmark -- Danmark -- so Odin gave his name to the "forest of Dan" in the land of the Quiche Indians. (See pages 549 and 163 of volume V, "Native Races of the Pacific States", by Hubert H. Bancroft.) The Mayas claim that their kingdom was founded by a great eastern ruler named Votan or Oden or Dan by various tribes. "He was a white man who came by sea from the east and settled them in their new land."
 
Icelanders: Leif Erickson's family made repeated journeys to Vinland, or today's Nova Scotia, in Cananda.

1010 AD Snorri was the name of  the first known European child to be born in the Americas, a nephew of Icelander Leif Erickson. This European exploration is the only commonly accepted pre-Columbian expedition accepted as truth by  academia.  

Egyptians & Phoenicians - 2750 BC -20 AD 
As early as 2750 B.C., Egyptians were sailing their papyrus boats in search of spices, precious stones, and other valuables. The chemical analysis of seven Egyptian mummies dated between 1070 BC and 395 AD  detected cocaine and nicotine, which were only New World plants in 1492.  
The Phoenicians were renowned for their maritime skills and employed by many ancient kingdoms as traders and mariners. Their cultural center resided in what is now Lebanon. They established great port Cities near the Atlantic in Cadiz (now southern Spain) and Carthage on the northern tip of Tunisia in North Africa. The Egyptian Pharoah Necho  commissioned the Phoenicians to find a trade route around the African continent in about 600 B.C. According to historical accounts of the time, they completed their journey and arrived back in Egypt three years later. Phoenician inscriptions and carvings in the Americas have been found in Maine, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Paraguay, and Brazil. Carthaginian coins have been plowed up in Kansas, Connecticut, Arkansas, and Alabama. and date themselves to the early third century B.C.
The first wave of ancient Egyptians and Nubians, in this fiercely disputed theory,  reached the Gulf of Mexico between 1800 BCE and 1200 BCE, respectively, bringing with them hieroglyphic  writing and pyramid-building. Similar pyramids can be found on the Canary Islands, which is where most ship navigators learned to catch the powerful current to the Caribbean islands. King Kushta (751-656 BC),  founder of the Twenty-Fifth Egyptian dynasty, perhaps acting on his predecessor Necho's maps, sent out an expedition of ships in search of iron deposits that arrived in Central America. The Egyptians painted 3 races in their hieroglyphics: white, black and red. The Phoenicians, like American Indians, were known as red men.
Thor Heyerdahl proved the sea worthiness of early ocean going vessels through his transatlantic crossing of the Ra II, a papyrus boat which early Egyptians may have used. Egyptians eventually copied the superior designs of Phoenician neighbors and maintained fleets the size of Columbus original 3 ships.

Israelites - 600 B.C.
According to the Book of Mormon, Nephi son of Lehi was instructed by God to travel the Atlantic with his family, where he became an ancestor to the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans, and American Indians. Prof. Herman L Hoeh believes they became the fairer skinned Toltecs. "We have written that which by tradition our ancestors told us, who came from the other part of the sea, who came from Civan-Tulan, bordering on Babylonia" page 170. Page 169 says they ".... came from the other part of the ocean, from where the sun rises." ("The Annals of the Cakchiquels -- Lords of Totonicapan" Translated by Delia Goetz; published by University of Oklahoma Press, 1953.)

West and North Africans  
 
Olmecs 1849 BCE and 800 BCE 
The first civilization to leave significant archeological evidence in the Americas is best known for its giant carved stone heads with indisputable African features. Andrzej Wiercinski, a craniologist at the University of Warsaw  reported that "almost a seventh of the skeletons he examined in the pre-Classic (pre-100 AD) Olmec cemetery of Tlatilco were Negroid while less than a twentieth of the Classic period (AD 100-900) was African. Archeologists have concluded there is no 'DEVELOPMENTAL PHASE' of Olmec society, however there continues a more than curious denial of an obvious maritime conclusion by academics.   more by google || by Doug Sivad || by by J. J. Harding   || by John D. Keyser 

Libyans - ca. 231 B.C.
The Libyans are a North African culture with Greek, Arab, African and Carthaginian roots. The great Libyan mathematician Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth to almost the exact amount and proposed to prove his theories with a great expedition where Libyan ships set out in opposite directions, with the hope of meeting somewhere in the middle. Scholars believe these expeditions settled the Polynesian islands . Maori legends include two legendary heroes named Maui and Rata, whose names also appear as members of a Libyan exploratory expedition. The Polynesian language contains similarities to North African and Libyan Greek. Similarly, inscriptions have been found in California, New Mexico, Texas, Iowa, Nevada which seem to indicate a landfall by the westbound Libyan explorers.

North Africa  in Illinois 40 AD "Caligula wanted the Mauritanian treasury; that was why he had King Ptolemy assassinated. It became one of the chief objectives of the invasion launched by Claudius shortly thereafter. But the Romans never found it." by Frank Joseph  Treasure Trove  at ancientamerican.com
	Since 1982, the original discoverer has been surreptitiously selling pieces from what is believed to be the Mauritanian treasury. A great cosmopolitan City of North Africa was once known as Maur- itania, in which the Phoenician mariner tradition was pervasive.  Encompassing the equivalent of today's Morocco and parts of western Algeria, it was governed by King Juba II 2,000 years ago. There is much artwork depicting a multicultural mix of white European, black African and Middle Eastern Semitic faces as well as a various Egyptian, Jewish and Christian religious imagery.
The scarification of this man depicted on an Illinois portrait-stone identifies him as Senegalese	Southern Illinois Cave News/Info Dec 2001: scientific exploration begins after securing new entry and initial scans

West African Islamic Empire of Mali
1310 CE King Abubakuri II Manding African monarch who was determined to discover the other shore of Atlantic Ocean. At the beginning of the 14th century, the Empire of Mali stretched from the Atlantic coast far into the Sahara Desert and sparkled with rich cities and universities.  His celebrated successor headed his own expedition of 1000 ships built for him by Arabian shipbuilders from Africa's Lake Chad, following the departure of a prior expedition where only one ship returned after choosing not to ride the powerful westerly ocean current near Timbuktu. He is thought to have landed on the coast of Brazil around Recife, just 1500 miles away from Africa, and built the first cities of stone and mortar along the coast. Incas may have successfully attacked them at Lake Titicaca, where the legacy of their writing lives among the Indians on Koaty Island.  more 
Almamys of northern Honduras  These Africans were reported by Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher Columbus . He wrote: "But the people who live further east [of Pointe Cavinas] as far as Cape Gracios a Dios are almost black in color," and adds that they "pierce holes in their ears large enough to insert hen's eggs..."  Almamy" was used for Al-Imamu, Arabic for "prayer leader"
On-going Trade? 
Columbus had recorded the fact that Africans were trading with the Americas. In the narrative of his third voyage he wrote: "Certain principal inhabitants of the island of Santiago came to see him, and they said that to the southwest of the island of Huego, which is one of the Cape Verdes distant 12 leagues from this, may be seen an island, and that King Don Juan was greatly inclined to send to make discoveries to the southwest and that canoes had been found which start from the coast of Guinea and navigate to the west with merchandise."  
These journals were transcribed fron the shiplog of Columbus 3rd journey  by Bartelome Las Casas, celebrated friar and first prominent defender of the rights of the native Americans.

Muslims
Many pieces of evidence have been documented, including the reference to elephants from Africa at Four Corners in Arizona. The ruins of mosques and minarets with inscriptions of Qur'anic verses have been discovered in Cuba, Mexico, Texas and Nevada. The descendants of the Muslim visitors of North America are members of the present Iroquois, Algonquin, Anasazi, Hohokam and Olmec native people.
The Moslems invented the magnetic compass for ship use and the astrolabe. The greatest known Chinese (Zheng He) and African ( King Abubakuri) explorers were Muslim.  

MUSLIMS IN THE AMERICAS BEFORE COLUMBUS 

• by Dr. Youssef Mroueh at islamweb.net s also here

• by Abdullah Hakim Quick at muslimonline.com

• Jose V. Pimienta-Bey Exploration by netmuslims.com

Portugal & Denmark: 1476 AD  Jahannes Scolp and Joäo Vas Corte Real
King Alfonso of Portugal and King Christian I of Denmark arranged a joint expedition to North America in 1475 seeking a Northwest passage to China, but the news of the Canadian land mass failed to raise much excitement.

Spanish Moors on the 1st voyage of Columbus:
The two captains and co-owners of the Nina and Pinta were of Muslim origin. Martin Alonso Pinzon, captain of the Pinta, and his brother Vicente Yanex Pinzon, captain of the Nina, were wealthy expert ship outfitters who helped organize the Columbus expedition, including selecting most of the sailors for the expedition.
 The Pinzon family was related to Abuzayan Muhammad III, the Moroccan Sultan of the Marinid Dynasty (1196-1465) on the Coast of North Africa.
  Martin Pinzon had beaten Columbus back to Spain in the hopes of receiving the glory to bestowed on the bearer of news of the great land in the West; after all, he was a Spaniard. Setting out immediately for Madrid to make an attempt to see the king, he was met by a messenger who forbade him to appear at court. Anger and jealousy, added to the privations of the voyage, undermined his health, and led to his death a few months later.

Scottish 376 A.D. Major migrations occurred in the years when the Scots and allies were driven out and the Picts miserably oppressed, and in 503 when the Scots from Ireland drove out most of the remaining wild Picts or painted men. Indian tribes who painted their faces for war may be exhibiting Scottish ancestry. According to the written history of the Toltecs many immigrants arrived during this time. (according to Bancroft from Ixtlilxochitl (vol. v, p. 213)

Irish c. 550 A.D.- St. Brendan
The medieval manuscripts "The Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot" and the "Book of Lismore" both tell of an accomplished Irish missionary priest who, along with some 17 other monks, sailed west first to Iceland, then Greenland, and Newfoundland. The tale is mostly about the journey to the "Land Promised to the Saints," as they return to Ireland soon after making their discovery.  They sailed in a curragh, a leather-hulled boat still in use in Ireland. 
Celtic-style carvings and ruins have been found often in New England, and as far West as Colorado and south as far as Eastern Tennessee. The New England finds include stone chambers constructed to observe the winter solstice in the Celtic tradition. more

Wales 1170 - 1190 AD - Prince Madog Ab Owain Gwynedd
Prince Madog sailed from Abergwili in Wales in 1170 with 10 ships and settled near Mobile, Alabama. He had returned a year earlier with his discovery and saw the journey as an escape from the constant battles between his 18 brothers and sisters. After some battles with the Cheyenne, they built forts resembling their Dolwyddelan Castle and integrated with a tribe called Mandans. They retained their dialect and built villages with streets and squares. They existed till 1837 when they were  wiped out by a smallpox epidemic introduced by traders  more

Diffusion on the West Coast of the Americas: 

Trans-Bering Straits Hypothesis for migration from the Old to the New World The theory holds that Indians came to America in a continuing series of small migrations beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago on a land bridge at the Bering Strait in the far Northwest. This long held dogmatic viewpoint by mainline archaeologists is actually among the theories least supported by evidence. 

Nine different stages of influence, divided into 3 major phases, have been determined by archeologists and well summarized by acclaimed mythologist Joseph Campbell.

WEST COAST of the AMERICAS
The most prevalent pattern was Chinese, Japanese and Southeast Asians landing in Ecuador and  Central America, with a pattern of diffusion southward to Peru and northward to the Caribbean, perhaps following the Gulf Stream to the mouth of the Savannah River in Georgia. 

Japan - 3000 B.C.
Pottery fragments unearthed in Valdivia, Ecuador bear a strong resemblance to the style used in Japan known as "Jomon" pottery. Scholars disagree whether this is evidence of actual contact or simply coincidence. Those who doubt argue the Pacific Ocean is much too wide, and the boats and sailing skills of the time much too primitive to be able to cross such a distance successfully. Supporters say the journey could have been made if the travelers sailed around the coasts of Siberia and Alaska, always keeping land in sight. They also cite a volcanic eruption on the Japanese island of Kyushu as a possible motivation for some Japanese to search for a new home. This eruption occurred around 3550 B.C. and corresponds with the time the pottery was made in Ecuador.
The earliest evidence is from 3000 BC, where ceramic and stone figurines from Kyushu, JJapan were found. The evidence of the last landings point to a Cambodian interaction with the Maya and Olmec between the 7th and 10th centuries, where a number of Buddha statues were found. 

Transoceanic Contacts Between the Old and New World http://www.mindspring.com/~kimball3/transcon.html 
Indiana University's Harold K. Schneider has most recently argued that any explanation for the rise of America's high civilizations that fails to involve the movement of cultures across the oceans is theoretically weak. <sup>191989:110

25000BP-2250BC 
5000BC, Japan, Jomon Pottery Begins. In America the Potter's wheel was unknown

TIMELINE OF ANCIENT TIMES
... 10,500 BC - first known pottery - (Jomon, Japan). 9,000 BC - beginnings of ... 3,000 BC: - first known pottery (South America)</sup>

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