EDGAR CAYCE - MIGRATIONS FROM ATLANTIS

Heyerdahl notes that shortly before 3000BC, exceptional cultural activity took place in the inner Mediterranean, with new dynasties suddenly coming into power and building up advanced local civilizations in Mesopotamia and in Egypt. He correlates this with the zero year in the ancient Mayan calendar of 3113BC and suggests that it is evidence of transatlantic contact.

Ivan Van Sertima is another diffusionist. In THEY CAME BEFORE COLUMBUS, he also makes a case that "tribes" from Africa arrived in Central America by boat.

The evidence includes Olmec stone sculptures and numerous Mayan carvings showing Negroid and Semitic features. Much of Van Sertima's evidence comes from the work of Alexander von Wuthenau, professor of Mexican art history at the University of the Americas in Mexico City. His thirty-five years of work produced hundreds of examples of other racial groups in Mayan art.

These diffusionist views are not in the mainstream of archaeology. Most of the anthropology done on the racial characteristics of Native Americans has focused on the western side of the continent and the Pacific Rim. It is clear that the Eskimos and the natives of the northwest United States and Canada are relatively recent immigrants from Asia. Christy Turner has shown, based on tooth anatomy, that there is a substantial Asian component to the Native Americans of Central and South America as well. Perhaps the original Atlantean genetic contribution was swamped by later immigrants from Asia. But there has been little focus on work that could support the Cayce story. Comparisons around the Atlantic rim will be necessary to fully test Cayce's concepts.

The Cayce readings are unique in that they reconcile both the diffusionist and the
Atlantean views in their proper time frames, with specific dates given well before these dates were known to archaeologists. Whether either view will eventually become compatible with mainstream science is another question, but the groundwork appears to have been laid. The debate is on a scientific level, rather than occult speculation.