[Why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

We are continuing to pursue the first people in our area from pre-historic time. Archaeologists have developed a significant record from artifacts. The history of these Original Americans is just now being written.

What does a map of Antarctica have to do with the Original Americans?

When we were writing the history of the Native American first settlers in No Man’s Land of the Louisiana Purchase, I was intrigued by the ancient maps we researched. How did they make those detailed charts in the 1600s and 1700s? The coast lines were amazingly accurate with inland rivers less so. Let us look back even further.

A Turkish cartographer, Admiral Piri Reis created a global map dated 1513. From numerous notations on the map, Reis referenced 20 prior charts as his source. He included eight from second century BCE Greece, four from Portugal of Pakistan and China, one from Turkey of India, and one by Christopher Columbus. Consider the time is a mere two decades after Columbus’ first journey.

The map shows Antarctica, but the English explorer, Captain Cook did not ‘discover’ it until 1773 on his way to Polynesia. We must recall that our history of discovery is based on European understanding, and in no way precludes earlier discoveries by different societies.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect is the South Pole continent did not have an ice cap, but rivers were visible. The Equator was precisely located. In amazing details, the map shows the Andes Mountains. Not only were coasts known, but river portrayal was accurate. The maps would be the basis for subsequent travel by the Spanish explorers to Central and South America.

The base maps that Admiral Reis used would have been available to Admiral Columbus for his journey. He knew of India from these maps. He knew the world was round and there was land west of the Atlantic. He was trying to find a way around or through. What we were taught as history in school made a nice story but simply was not true.

For at least three millennia, maps of the world existed before Columbus. We now know the Vikings were earlier. Some evidence suggests the Sino society made the journey to what would be America.

One of the issues of drawing a spherical globe on a flat surface is how to project the image. Some are just flat; some translate a latitude / longitude on a grid. Others create a split in the oceans to make the landmass more realistic. All result in some sort of distortion, which opens the map to interpretation.

Professor Charles Hapgood and his students researched multiple ancient maps and noted the Piri Reis used a technique like the Mercator projection which did not come for another 50 years. Hapgood evaluated that the Piri Reis map contained information from before 4000 BCE.

Is that date significant? How many world-changing events emit from that era, besides Watson Brake, along the Ouachita River?

Another notation on the Reis map translates as “It is related by the Portuguese infidel that in this spot night and day are at their shortest of two hours and at their longest of 22 hours.”

Two observations are relevant. Hajji Ahmed Muhiddin Piri Reis was a Turkish Moslem, so any Christian was an infidel. Next the observation about the length of days at the South Pole is curious. No known Portuguese vessel journeyed that far south at that time.

Every research stirs contrarian views, if nothing more than reactionary ‘that cannot be.’ Some challenges are the map ‘might’ just show South America or be a representation of Australia. None of the contrarians have demonstrated scholarship or scientific method.

What is the provenance of the Reis maps? The earlier maps resided in Constantinople until 1204. The Fourth Crusaders sacked the ancient Imperial Library, transferring the maps and other artifacts to the seafaring City of Venice and to the Vatican. The Reis map now resides at Topkapi Palace Museum in Istanbul, modern Constantinople.

In 1929, a researcher of the Ottomans, German Protestant theology professor, Dr. Gustav Deissmann found Reis’ map. He is best known for his seminal koine Greek research. Two years later in 1931, a presentation about the map went to the Congress of Orientalists meeting in Holland by Prussian theologian Dr. Paul Kahle, who had three earned doctorates. These are very credible, intellectual scholars who could not well be attacked.

In 1956, a Turkish naval officer presented the map to the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office. The Navy recalled Captain Arlington H. Mallery apparently out of retirement because of his expertise. He researched and determined that the map accurately showed an ice-free Antarctica. Captain Mallery subsequently received ad hominem attacks as an amateur archaeologist to discredit his findings. These are specious, since The Navy specifically identified him as the expert and a career Navy officer would not risk denigration on his career.

M.I. Walters, a bureau cartographer, affirmed “We have taken the old charts and the new charts that the Hydrographic Office produces today and made comparisons of the soundings of salient peaks and mountains. We have found them to be in astounding agreement.”

Dr. Richard Strachan of MIT validated the non-glacial conditions of Antarctica.

On 14 Aug 61, the 8th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron – (SAC), United States Air Force, released a letter validating the information of the pre-ice Antarctica maps.

Do we follow tradition or the data applied to the scientific method? When information challenges the long-held status quo, it is often dismissed, even though the data is overwhelming. When no explanation is clear, the history is called a myth. Sensationalists who embrace new history see aliens, neither of which are valid responses.

Think about 4000-3000 BCE: Is there evidence Antarctica did not have an ice-cover? How does that fit the traditional narrative of global development? How did people know the maps?

Is it probable that people were navigating the oceans in vessels larger than Columbus, 3000 years earlier?

Why?