[muawiyah]

Now, for an even older story - that wasn't the first visit ethnic Chinese made to America. It is a simple observation that Sioux Indian sign language is a physical representation of Shan Dynasty characters (the really old ones found on sehlls and little pieces of slate).

The Sioux Indians lived at or near Cahokia up until the 1500s. They may have been there when DeSoto made his trip in 1541.

When (1410) the Chinese made the trip that is the subject of this thread they had not used the Shan characters for a couple of thousand years.

So, the mystery is - where did the Sioux get their character set? Did they just happen to invent the same characters as the Shan, or did the Shan settle in Cahokia some time circa 1400 BC?

[blam]

"So, the mystery is - where did the Sioux get their character set? Did they just happen to invent the same characters as the Shan, or did the Shan settle in Cahokia some time circa 1400 BC?"

The Zuni Enigma

[nwrep]

What everyone seems to forget is that a discovery is not a discovery until you live to tell about it. These one way trips of Chinese sailors to America may well be true, but it sounds like they were unable to chart their course back home, and simply withered away once they reached "America". At the very least they were unable to recreate these journeys even if a solitary expedition lead by the soprano did manage to retrace their way back to China.

[B Knotts]

And there were reports of Mandans with blue eyes.

I think what it all boils down to is this:

Ancient people (from Europe, China, Africa, the Mediterranean, etc.) were much more capable of traversing great distances and oceans than we have previously thought.