ABSTRACT
Most people have come to accept the theory thatthere were contacts with the so-called New World before 1492. There is evidence of contact with peoples from the South Pacific, North Pacific, Africa, the Mediterranean, as well as other European countries. Recently, some have speculated that China had been a source of exchange. And many are familiar with Leif Eriksson, the Norse explorer who sailed west from Greenland and visited parts of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Yet many still choose to date the North American experience from 1492 as if there was nothing-or no one-in this region before the explorer Christopher Columbus came and “discovered” this landmass and claimed it for the Spanish crown.
