Journal of Book of Mormon Studies Volume 14 Number 1 Article 3 1-31-2005 Ancient Voyages Across the Ocean to America: From “Impossible” to “Certain” John L. Sorenson Brigham Young University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Sorenson, John L. (2005) "Ancient Voyages Across the Ocean to America: From “Impossible” to “Certain”," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Vol. 14 : No. 1 , Article 3. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol14/iss1/3 This Feature Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Book of Mormon Studies by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Title Ancient Voyages Across the Ocean to America: From “Impossible” to “Certain” Author(s) John L. Sorenson Reference Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14/1 (2005): 4–17, 124–25. ISSN 1065-9366 (print), 2168-3158 (online) Abstract In the past, experts have assumed that primitive sail- ors would have found it impossible to cross the oceans between the Old World and the New. However, John Sorenson here concludes that the evidence for trans- oceanic contacts now drowns out the arguments of those who have seen the New World as an isolated island until ad 1492. Sorenson’s arguments are based on evidences from Europe, Asia, and Polynesia of the diffusion of New World plants and infectious organ- isms. His research identifies evidence for transoce- anic exchanges of 98 plant species, including tobacco and peanuts. The presence of hookworm in both the Americas and the Old World before Columbus also serves as evidence to establish transoceanic contact. Nephi’s Boat, by Joseph Brickey and Howard Lyon. 4 Volume 14, number 1, 2005 Ancient Voyages Across the Ocean to America from “impossible” to “certain” john l. sorenson Book of Mormon history in the New World begins with ocean voyages—by the Lehites, the Mulekites, and the Jaredites. For the first and last of those, the record pointedly states that the parties stocked their vessels with supplies both to use on their trip and to start life as agriculturists when they arrived in the new land (see Ether 6:4, 13; 1 Nephi 18:6, 24). Perhaps the Mulekites too brought certain natural resources. Latter-day Saints may have wondered why There was, indeed, good reason to reject the virtually all secular scholars and scientists have re- voyaging explanation as usually presented. Numer- jected the idea that ancient sailors succeeded in voy- ous badly informed, or at least weakly argued, theo- aging from the Old World to the New. Their rejec- ries had been offered to explain the rise of civiliza- tion is not just in reference to the Book of Mormon tion in the Americas. Josiah Priest, who published story but against all claims that seaborne migrants a popular book three years after publication of the capable of having any significant effect breached Book of Mormon (i.e., 1833), supposed that not only the ocean barrier prior to Columbus, except for a East Asians in general but also “Polynesians, Ma- few Vikings considered of no historical importance. lays, Australasians, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Prevailing views by reputed experts have assumed Romans, Israelites, Tartars, Scandinavians, Danes, that “primitive sailors” would have found it impos- Norwegians, Welsh, and Scotch” people had colo- sible to cross the “forbidding” oceans.1 In the 1930s nized parts of the New World; but he gave no credi- ble evidence for his speculations.4 Ninety years later, one scholar even spoke of the American continents somewhat better supported but still unconvincing as being “hermetically sealed by two oceans.”2 evidence for similar ideas was being published in Such views were not so much scientific conclusions popular works like those by G. Eliot Smith.5 as echoes of the prevailing isolationist political The small minority of scholars who continued doctrine of the times that refused to grant value to claim that meaningful ancient voyages were to “foreign” people or ideas. Thus famous Maya made argued for the idea mainly on the basis of archaeologist Sylvanus Morley opined in 1927 that cultural parallels.6 They felt that close similarities there was “no vestige, no infinitesimal trace, of Old of customs or beliefs that they pointed out could World influence . to detract from the [inventive] not be explained in any other way than that people genius of our [sic] native American mind.” “There carried those features with them across the waters. is no room for foreign origins here,” he went on to (However, much of the evidence that enthusiasts claim in his article entitled “Maya Civilization 100% have cited has proven incautiously stated if not in American.”3 By the end of the 20th century this ab- error.) Orthodox scientists reacted against those no- solute view had eased only insignificantly. tions with their own dogma holding that the issue 6 Volume 14, number 1, 2005 had already been adequately tested and should be Floral Evidence for Diffusion rejected. For instance, Gordon R. Willey, a promi- nent Harvard archaeologist, said in 1985 that while Over the last four years 98 species of plants no other subject in American archaeology had have been identified that originated in either the brought about such heated discussions as the role Old World or the New yet were also grown in pre- of Old World contacts, if no “concrete evidence” Columbian times in the opposite hemisphere. That could be produced in the next 50 years, proponents distribution cannot be explained the way cultural parallels have been by inventionist-minded scholars. ought to stop talking about the question.7 Cultural A plant is an objective fact that demands a physi- parallels did not count as concrete evidence in the cal explanation for the presence of the same species scholarship of people like him. The skeptics main- on two sides of an ocean. Yet all purely naturalis- tained that any cultural similarities between the tic theories fail to account for plants thousands of New World and the Old were simply coincidences, miles from their natural home. For example, some explainable because, they claimed, the human have supposed that seeds were carried thousands of mind works the same everywhere in the world, so it miles by birds, or evolutionary processes have been should not be surprising that people independently claimed as yielding identical species in multiple come up with similar inventions or ideas. locations, but these notions are never more than For years those who believed in the importance nonempirical speculation.11 The only rational expla- of ocean voyaging in human history (“diffusion- nation for multiple plant distributions is that people ists”) tried to overwhelm this opposition by point- sailed across the oceans before Columbus, nurtur- ing out more and more, stronger and stronger, cul- ing and transporting plants en route. tural parallels. A few years ago Martin H. Raish and As I dug into neglected books and journals, I compiled a massive bibliography that made acces- the number of plants reported to be shared across sible the substance of over 5,000 books and articles the oceans mounted. Victor H. Mair, a specialist in Chinese literature and language at the University of concerning the diffusion issue—covering pretty Pennsylvania, took an interest in the project and in- much all published sources.8 But the significance vited me to prepare a paper for a conference he was of this compilation has been generally ignored and organizing on “Contact and Exchange in the An- has done virtually nothing to change the minds cient World.” I invited my friend and colleague Carl of the traditional isolationist majority of scholars. L. Johannessen, emeritus professor of geography at They have frequently countered with what they con- the University of Oregon, who had long worked on sidered an absolute argument against voyaging: no the topic, to collaborate. By the time of the confer- food plant is common to the two hemispheres. That ence in May 2001, we had identified over 35 plant fact alone was supposed to be “enough to offset any number of petty puzzles in arts and myths [i.e., cul- tural similarities].”9 By the year 2000 I had concluded that the only way to break this particular intellectual logjam was to put forward hard scientific evidence that doubt- ers could not explain away by offhanded reference to the inventiveness of the human mind. The ap- proach I desired could best be pursued by demon- strating that the flora and fauna of the New World had been shared with the Old World. Some useful research had already established a limited body of such evidence. These concrete biological features would be important because no one can claim that This 1,000-year-old bas-relief from a temple at Parambanan, Java, the human mind had invented the same plant on shows plant leaves, tassels, and ears characteristic only of maize. opposite sides of the ocean.10 Photograph by Evelyn McConnaughey. JOURNAL OF BooK OF Mormon Studies 7 species for which there was what we considered 1 conclusive proof that species had been transported between the hemispheres. By 2003, when we submit- ted our paper to Mair for publication in the report of the conference, the number of plant species on our conclusive list had grown to 85.12 Since then we have found still more; today the total is 98 species.13 5 What evidence do we consider to be “con- clusive” or “decisive”? In some cases it comes from archaeology.