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THE RIDDLE of PRE-CONTACT WORLD Maps and A Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation Volume 18 Article 19 Issue 1 May 2004 THE RIDDLE OF PRE-CONTACT WORLD MAPs and a review of 1421, the Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies (Harper- Collins, New York, 2002) Review Herbert von Saher Follow this and additional works at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj Part of the History of the Pacific slI ands Commons, and the Pacific slI ands Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation von Saher, Herbert (2004) "THE RIDDLE OF PRE-CONTACT WORLD MAPs and a review of 1421, the Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies (Harper-Collins, New York, 2002) Review," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 18 : Iss. 1 , Article 19. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol18/iss1/19 This Book or Media Review is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. von Saher: THE RIDDLE OF PRE-CONTACT WORLD MAPs and a review of 1421, the Year China Discovered America (Review) [Note from MC: There are new primary data from this a good job summarizing the available data from Fiji. Hope­ area that may affect some of their conclusions; the interested fully, more data will accrue over time with new work, and reader can find relevant commentary in M.T. Car on, 2003, Geoff Clark' paper here can serve as the basi for more de­ Phase Two Archaeological study, Koniambo Project, Regions tailed di cussions. of Voh, Kone, and Pouembout, Northern Province, New Cale­ Atholl Anderson, S. Haberle, G. Rojas, A. Seelenfreund, donia; International Archaeological Research Institute, Inc., 1. Smith, and T. Worthy's paper concerning re earch on Rob­ Honolulu, and at www. iarii.org/newcaledonia. html inson Crusoe Island (aka Mas a Tierra), Juan Fernandez Ar­ Mary E. Shutler, R. Shutler Jr., and S. Bedford present a chipelago is perhaps a bit out of place in this volume, but in summary and update of the ba eline archaeological data that the spirit of a "festival of writings" there is no need to dwell the Shutlers originally reported for Southern Vanuatu in the on that. This is part of an interesting project, a "programme of 1960s. Bedford bring a new perspective, and he discusses archaeological and paleoenvironmental re earch which aims how the 1960s data are important for newer re earch topics to work on each of the remote ea tern archipelago of the and directions in Vanuatu archaeology. Placing the older data South Pacific.. .It ha a primary paleoenvironmental focu , in the context of new research is valuable enough in itself, but which eeks to reconstruct archipelagic environments before this article also provides a useful compiled table of radiocar­ and after settlements by Europeans, and to formulate way of bon dates and include numerous previou ly unpublished pho­ eparating natural from human induced changes in edimen­ tographs from that early excavation, and superb photographs tary and palynological records." Further, for many of the e they are. islands, including Robinson Crusoe, there is little or no evi­ Marshall Weisler' chapter on the identification of oto­ dence for prehistoric occupation, which is important informa­ liths in the archaeological assemblage from Gifford and Shut­ tion concerning the long-term understanding ofPacific coloni­ ler's 1950s work in New Caledonia i a nice compliment to the zation. David on et al. paper in thi volume. Weisler was able to The final chapter, "On Shutler and Marck 1975," is by identify specimen of bonefi h, whiting, and javelinfish. This Jeff Marck. This and the Introduction, which highlight Shut­ paper will hopefully encourage more work to identify fi h oto­ ler's career, are complementary "bookends." The chapter in­ liths. Weisler's work hows a ignificant increa e in repre­ cludes a reminiscence about Shutler, and i also a reflection sented specie diver ity, 0 the identification is not a trivial on one of Shutler' critical papers, as referenced in the chapter exercise. title, R. Shutler and J. Marck, 1975, "On the Di per al of the David Burley, A. Storey, and J. Witt present an update Austronesian Horticulturalists." Archaeology and Physical and summary of the Lapita ceramic as emblage in Tonga. Anthropology in Oceania, 10(2):81-113. The current paper i There is a ubstantial amount of information on thi ubject, an opportunity for Marck to re pond to attacks on the model and the authors have done an excellent job of synthe izing it. presented in the 1975 paper and to bring in some new research There are a couple of important reference that are missing (P. to update the 1975 position. We found this to be one of the V. Kirch, 1978, "The Lapitoid Period in West Polynesia: Ex­ be t chapter in the book, and a fitting closing tribute to Dick cavations and Survey in Niutoputapu, Tonga." Journal of Shutler. Field Archaeology, Vol. 5:1-13; and T. S. Dye, 1996, "Early Eastern Lapita to Polynesian Plainware at Tongatapu and Li­ fuka: An Exploratory Data Analy i and Compari on," in J.M. THE RIDDLE OF PRE-CONTACT WORLD MAPs David on et al., (ed .), Oceanic Culture history: Essays in and a review of Honour of Roger Green. Special publication by New Zealand 1421, the Year China Discovered America Journal of Archaeology, Auckland), and it might have been by Gavin Menzies (Harper-Collins, New York, 2002) useful to have a more detailed discus ion of a similar (but now Review and Comments by Herbert von Saher, 10 year old) paper by Sand published in French in 1992 in a the NetherLands volume with very limited circulation. The author have valu­ able conclusions about population movements and ceramic FIRST THE FACTS•••THEN THE FANTASY diversification, which as they say "will raise the ire of at lea t some of our colleagues who support a more traditional model The world ha paid little attention to the fact that, during the for west to east exploration." Given this, it might have been to last few centurie , a number of early map have turned up. their advantage to have pre ented more documentation of These give an accurate picture of the coasts of Africa and stratigraphic context and an expanded set of comparative il­ North and South America, and they date from years BEFORE lustrations, but the source for such data are pre ented to al­ European explorers had arrived in the e area .A most intrigu­ low these data to be searched out. ing question pose itself: who could have created them? These Geoffrey Clark offers a paper about the spatial and maps include: chronological distribution of basalt adzes found in archaeo­ 1) A map drawn by Fra Mauro, a Venetian cartogra­ logical contexts in Fiji but having chemical signature of Sa­ pher, in 1459. It hows a clear picture of South Africa includ­ moa (and probably specifically relating to the Tatagamatau ing the Cape of Good Hope. The first-known European to adze quarry in Tutuila, American Samoa). This is a major round the Cape wa the Portugue e Bartolomeu Dias, in 1488. topic in Polynesian archaeology, telling us about the nature of What makes this map so en ational are the notes on the side voyaging in prehistory, the nature of basalt adze quarry indus­ of it, indicating that, around 1420, a hip coming from India tries, and po ibly the nature of a trading economy. Clark doe was driven around the Cape, that i to ay in the direction op- Vol. 18 (1) May 2004 60 Rapa Nui Journal Published by Kahualike, 2004 1 Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation, Vol. 18 [2004], Iss. 1, Art. 19 posite to Dias. Near this note Fra Mauro had drawn a picture There were other maps made prior to European di cover­ of a ship with an unusually broad, square bow that looks ex­ ies, but those cited above are the most important, and there actly like a Chinese junk. One drawing is of an ostrich, evi­ can be no doubt about the dates when they were made. Proof dently made by or copied from an eyewitness. of this is given by the Portuguese historian, Antonio Galvao, 2) A map made by the Ottoman Admiral Piri Reis in who wrote that, in 1428, the King of Portugal' eldest on re­ 1513, now in the Topkapi Museum, IstanbuL It was reported turned from Venice with a map of the world "which had all that Piri Reis had based his map upon an older one that he had parts of the world and earth described". This map included the taken from a captured Spanish seaman in 1501. It shows the Strait of Magellan and Cape of Good Hope. Galvao concluded coastline of Africa and the Atlantic coast of South America that, in 1528, the King's son did show a map "which had been from the Caribbean to Antarc- made 120 years before whicb map tica, and also shows the Andes, did set forth all the navigation of far inland (Figure 1). Piri Reis the East Indies with the Cape of himself informs on this map Boa Esperanca according as our that it is based on about twenty later maps have described it; maps from Arab and Portu­ whereby it appeareth that in an­ guese sources and for the West­ cient time there was as much or em Hemisphere on data from a more discovered than now there map by a captured Spanish is".
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