That is interesting.  Perhaps it has something to do with a universal way of thinking and appreciation for a combination of art and functionality, as the last I'd heard anything about this, there was no evidence of any contact, or perhaps series of contacts, that could explain this. 

PS -  Hmmm.  I believe I was really thinking about the Egyptian pyramids.  But the Mayan structure looks more like the Step Pyramid at Saqqara than the ones that usually come to mind.   The Mayan archetecture does look remarkably similar to Ur Ziggurat. 

That is interesting.  Perhaps it has something to do with a universal way of thinking and appreciation for a combination of art and functionality, as the last I'd heard anything about this, there was no evidence of any contact, or perhaps series of contacts, that could explain this. 

PS -  Hmmm.  I believe I was really thinking about the Egyptian pyramids.  But the Mayan structure looks more like the Step Pyramid at Saqqara than the ones that usually come to mind.   The Mayan archetecture does look remarkably similar to Ur Ziggurat. 

Thanks dear James for your opinion.. I really appreciated.

Dear Geanan,

    Your notice is good. But  we find this similarity in thinking all the time till current days. For example, to researchers in different places may solve the same research point in a closed manner to reach almost similar results. So researchers all over the world are advised to finish any new research point quickly before other researchers find results for it.

Best regards

Thanks Dear Khaled,

Yes, that's right especially in science, when researchers stands on the same facts and used the same view points and maybe the same references. I think the case is more difficult to believe in Art especially when talking about thousands years BC...I tried to do an exercise with my students and ask them to make a composition that contains a circle, triangle and cube.. and I've got 18 different compositions with no similarity.

Dear Jeanan,

Thank you so much for your impressive question, I think, all human beings along thousands of years are thinking in the same way, and trying to build vertical building, even in our days in many countries we will find similar thinking procedures, for example many developed countries built very long or very high in length building, exactly similar to those in your valued question. I think!

Regards, Emad from Babylon 1770 BC

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon

Dear Jeanan, Dear All Rg colleagues,

I forget to tell you all that, I am inviting you to visit Babylon, this historical city is located about 5 Km from my home, there are many Babylonian heritages and hills furhter more the so famous Lion, and Ishtar gate, all these are positioned at the bank of the Euphrates. I will wait you all.

Regards, Emad

Yes, human signs of behaviour, and human sense of aesthetics are in fact a puzzling thrill.

Thank you dear Jeanan, for your wonderful question

I imediately come to think of Jung's archetypes... 

Nevertheless, when we consider the Mayan pyramids one cannot help considering the hypothesis of ancient human migrations. 

Hi,

Its not my field of study , but let think of Homo heidelbergensis human think before , I think the sun always inspired them, so they want be close and approach them , so they start built building like mountains to reach the sun and become closer that's why most building are the same beside the pyramids

Mustafa

I may be stepping outside the question as stated but I think there are two (at least) other similar questions:

!.  Virtually all civilizations throughout the world developed pottery/ceramics independently of each other for both ceremonial and practical use. That is they mined deposits of clay, molded the clay, and fired it to produce hard solid objects. How and why?

2.  Almost all societies independently adopted earrings as a form of adornment. How and why did this come about?

Thanks Dear Emad and Maria for your opinion

# Dear Mustafa,

So we can say that human reactions are similar all over the world... good point of view... and maybe that explain why the traditional house has the same plan with a courtyard especially in hot and mild countries, which I believe it happened as a result of action and reaction between different cultures.

The question... Is there any possibility of communication between those two old great civilizations, which is not discovered yet?

Well, there is a good scientific explanation, even though it must be taken with all care and attention. it is, namely entanglement. Entanglement does happen in nature as well as in society. This avoids ad hoc arguments such as "extra-terestrial" hands, etc. 

I would argue that similarities in high-rise architecture arose because all builders faced the same problem of overcoming Earth's gravity. A pyramid offers a compact design that is gravitationally quite stable and also offers a religious pinnacle to the Heavens.

I agree with you dear Humberto, very interesting example... maybe human all over the world has the same thinking to solve their needs!!!

The Ziggurat of Ur is somewhat later, dating to around 2000 B.C., depending on the chronology used. The Temple of Kukulkán at Chichén Itzá is also a bit later, having been built around A.D. 1000 (the first stage is a little before this date, the second a little after). The earliest Mesoamerican stepped temple platforms were built during the Olmec horizon, around 1200-600 B.C. But time is not really important here, considering the lack of evidence for transoceanic contact that far back. What is important is the fact that human beings tend to do certain things in similar sociocultural contexts (in this case, farming societies with cities and "divine" kings), such as perceiving, conceiving, embellishing, and constructing sacred landscapes, in which mountains and astral bodies play major roles, as others have pointed out on this thread.

These two type of pyramids can only be build by large scale civilisation.  A lot of extra labor need to be available.  War may provide in both case, these extra labor.  Instead of killing the ennemies, you exploit them in making built these monumental pyramids.  Height is a symbol of power.  Nowadays, the financial masters like to have their offices in skyscapers. The easiest way and the only way to go high, to built big and lasting with block of rocks is to pile them into a pyramid.  The gods in all these civilisations are often thought to be in the sky which may no be estranged to the attraction of the height by the slave masters.  

"Entanglement" is a term used in quantum physics.  Is there a use of that word in anthropology of which I am not aware? 

In pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican architecture it is common to find rooms arranged around central patios with corredors, similar to Mediterranean solutions. This is another example of people doing similar things in similar sociocultural contexts (and in similar climates, of course; this design would certainly not be practical in Finland or in my native region, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan).

Dear Jasna,

Both of them were built for the same reason, even though Mayans sometimes bury their rulers inside the pyramids,like the Egyptians, but the temple always remained on the top of the pyramid just like Mesopotamia's.

I mostly agree, Louis, except that in the case of Egypt, I recently read where the source of labor was actually the local population, relatively well treated and with access to medical treatment (which the US has been slow to do), and receptive enough to the having the source of employment - not slaves exactly, more like today's labor markets perhaps, I suppose.  Ugh.  Anyway, this gets a little away from Jeanan's question, but relates to what is similar and what may vary everywhere. 

James,

What is important is the availability of extra labor.  Agricultural societies operates according to the agricultural cycles and there are periods in the cycles where labor is not as much needed and can thus be harnested to monumental construction.  Since people have to be fed anyway, the masters of a highly pyramidal/hierarchical society woud prefer to harness this labor instead of letting people enjoy themself and thus waisted from the master's perspective.

# Dear David and Jasna... What about the sculpture near the pyramid in both Egypt and Mexico

Jasna: In Mesoamerica there is another dimension: a temple atop a platform was often seen as a sacred cave, opening into the underworld contained by the mountain. In the case of the Temple of Kukulkán (and others, for example the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque and Temple I at Tikal), its nine truncated pyramidal levels mirrored the nine levels of the underworld, while the sky had thirteen levels--another sort of inversion.

Jeanan: The study of the aesthetic expressions created by our species (and by other hominin species) will reveal many fascinating similarities and parallels throughout space and time, underscoring the fundamental biological unity of Homo sapiens.

The pair of photos in your last message tricks our perception, though. That is, there is more of a similarity in the images than in the actual sites.

The sculpture at Chichén Itzá is anthropomorphic, roughly human scale, and sits atop a nearby temple platform, on the east side of a large plaza which is delimited to the south by the Temple of Kukulkán. The Great Sphinx at Giza is a colossal sculpture, using an outcropping of rock as a base, combining a lion's body with the head of a ruler.

The pyramids at Giza are true geometric pyramids, designed as funerary monuments to encase the rulers' tombs. The so-called "pyramids" in Mesoamerica are platforms made with multiple truncated pyramidal levels, with one or more stairways to reach the temples on their tops, although sometimes they are associated with tombs. Their architectural similarity is much closer to Mesopotamian ziggurats that to the Egyptian pyramids. There is a stepped Egyptian pyramid at Saqqara, but unlike ziggurats and Mesamerican temple platforms, it has no exterior stairway or temple on its summit.

What website are you getting these images from? It looks like somebody might be cherry-picking visual "evidence" to prop up some ideas that may carry more weight with popular bloggers than with specialists in ancient cultures. There is a lot of this going on out there in wild and woolly cyberspace!

I am attaching site plans of Chichén Itzá and the Necropolis of Giza for comparison. In your photo the sculpture sits in front of the Temple of the Warriors (called "Templo de los Guerreros" in the plan), while the "pyramid," the Temple of Kukulkán, is called "Castillo." On the plan of Giza, the sculpture and the pyramid are marked "Great Sphinx" and "Pyramid of Khufu." Both plans are from Wikimedia Commons. I had to crop the plan of Chichén Itzá to make it legible here. It will be necessary to click on the images to be able to read the words.

David: Very interesting # its nine truncated pyramidal levels mirrored the nine levels of the underworld.

Jasna: Dante died nearly two centuries before contact between Europe and Mesoamerica, so he had no access to Maya texts. Applying Occam's razor (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Occam%27s_Razor), it looks like coincidence --within the broader context of the underlying biological unity of our species-- is a simpler and more probably explanation for the fact that there are nine levels under the surface of the Earth in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican world view, and nine levels of Hell/Purgatory/Heaven in Dante's Divine Comedy. When comparing cultures across time and space, coincidences should be noted, but differences should also be actively sought; otherwise we run the risk of committing the fallacy of observational selection (http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Sagan-Baloney.pdf), also called confirmation bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias) or, as I mentioned yesterday on this thread, "cherry picking" (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Cherry-picking). It is important to look at the whole picture, or at whatever parts of the picture are still accessible to us.

Dear David,

Whatever the case, it is strange that there are some numbers that had a certain importance in all the civilizations, without knowing of each other, for thousands of years ago and even in the later monotheistic religions.

I am not advocating the rejection of innovative hypotheses, rather the use of rigorous methods in evaluating their correspondence with available evidence. Intuition is a necessary part of the process, but putting our ideas through the filters of rational analysis help keep us on a reasonable path. I'm not trying to spoil the fun either. I'm just trying to share my experience as a Mesoamericanist, and hopefully to help keep the discussion grounded, considering that this is a website dedicated to research.

Last month I spent a week roaming the Orkney Islands, in Scotland, looking at monumental constructions from the late Neolithic period, around 3000-2500 B.C. I was impressed, but not surprised, by the similarities beween Orcadian Neolithic and pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican patterns of using monumental stone architecture to enhance and imprint meaning upon sacred landscapes, and by similarities in funerary cults. I was also impressed by profound cultural differences, due in part to the facts that the Orcadians were farmers and cattle ranchers living in small villages in a cold climate, while Mesoamericans created major urban centers in tropical and subtropical climates.

Contacts by travel, trade, migration, or conquest --or any combination of these-- usually leave detectable traces in the art and other aspects of the material culture of these groups. Vague similarities are not evidence of contact in themselves, and may be plausibly explained by the fundamental biological unity of Homo sapiens and our interactions with specific social and environmental contexts. Similarities in these contexts can be responsible for similarities in certain aspects of human behavior and the material culture that results from this behavior.

As for the ways we think about and use numbers and geometry, the appreciation of their harmony is a fundamental part of our nature, and has been since before we became fully human. They are the result of the ways our bodies interact with our contexts. The numerical patterns and harmonies inherent in nature resonate with out bodies, which are part of nature. Homo erectus, 500,000 years ago, scratched geometric designs into sea shells on the island of Java. Similar designs were scratched into pieces of ocher in South Africa, by Homo sapiens, between 100,000 and 70,000 years ago. (By the way, these designs are similar to those I saw scratched into sandstone and incised into clay in Orkney.)

Here are a few studies that may be of interest to followers of this thread. The first three concern primates (including ourselves) and mathematics; the last three are about the geometric incised patterns I mentioned, in case anyone wants to follow up on that idea.

Dehaene, Stanislas

2005 "How a primate brain comes to know some mathematical truths," in Neurobiology of human values, Jean-Paul Changeux, Antonio R. Damasio, Wolf Singer, and Yves Christen, editors, Heidelberg, Springer-Verlag, pp. 143-155.

Moskowitz, Clara

2014 "Equations are art inside a mathematician’s brain," in Nature (Nature Publishing Group) (http://www.nature.com/news/equations-are-art-inside-a-mathematician-s-brain-1.14825, updated: 5 March 2014, access: 30 January 2015).

Zeki, Semir; Romaya, John Paul; Benincasa, Dionigi; Atiyah, Michael F.

2014 "The experience of mathematical beauty and its neural correlates," in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (Frontiers Media), vol. 8, article 68 (http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00068/full, updated: 13 February 2014, access: 8 August 2016).

Joordans, Josephine C. A.; d’Errico, Francesco; Wesselingh, Frank P.; Munro, Stephen; Vos, John de; Wallinga, Jakob; Ankjærgaard, Christina; Reimann, Tony; Wijbrans, Jan R.; Kuiper, Klaudia F.; Mücher, Herman J.; Coqueugniot, Hélène; Prié, Vincent; Joosten, Ineke; Os, Bertil van; Schulp, Anne S.; Panuel, Michel; Haas, Victoria van der; Lustenhouwer, Wim; Reijmer, John J. G.; Roebroeks, Wil

2014 "Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving," in Nature (Nature Publishing Group) (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13962.html, updated: 3 December 2014, access: 7 December 2014).

Henshilwood, Christopher Stuart; d’Errico, Francesco; Yates, Royden; Jacobs, Zenobia; Tribolo, Chantal; Duller, Geoff A. T.; Mercier, Norbert; Sealy, Judith C.; Valladas, Helene; Watts, Ian; Wintle, Ann G.

2002 "Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa," in Science (The American Association for the Advancement of Science), new series, vol. 295, no. 5558, 15 February 2002, pp. 1278-1280 (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/295/5558/1278.abstract?sid=da7c3755-b2bc-4ced-93da-2c024c50b1fd, access: 14 March 2015). (This article is not open access; you can see the engraved ochre at Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blombos_Cave_engrave_ochre_1.jpg?uselang=es).

Towrie, Sigurd

2015 "A 'most remarkable' decorated stone unearthed on the Ness," in Orkneyjar (http://www.orkneyjar.com/archaeology/2015/08/20/a-most-remarkable-decorated-stone-unearthed-on-the-ness/, access: 30 August 2016).

Dear David... I totally agree with you "Similarities in these contexts can be responsible for similarities in certain aspects of human behavior and the material culture that results from this behavior." It's a good answer to the main question. Thanks

Dear Jeanan Shafiq,

the answer of your question :

"The question... Is there any possibility of communication between those two old great civilizations, which is not discovered yet?"

Its obviously not possible at that time , but as i said before human nature was always inspired of nature such as mountains, this kind of rigid nature building inspired them so they start making building like pyramids because its easily and rigid enough to built before discover of "Cement" only the geometric shape of building could handle the heavily load. The this point of view change when Romans developed a highly durable cement . 

I hope this gave good explanation

Mustafa

Although humans can build similar structures in far away places at about the same time independently from each other, there is a growing evidence that the Minoans (called "the sea peoples" by the Egyptians) were trading across the Atlantic after the eruption of Thera (about 1,650 BC) and probably before as well.

In that case, similar structures could have been built by the same people.

This is quite interesting, but I look at it in three different ways: First, this could be seen as a historical coincidence without any practical influence from any of the two civilizations. This is because, the distance between each of these sites is so massive that one can not imagine any physical contact or communication that could led to that effect. Secondly, i look at it from the spiritual aspect. I believe that there must have been an ancient mode of spiritual communication that is yet to be uncovered by the present generation. In the part of the world were I come from (Africa), elders have made us to understand that, people of the old were more of spiritual beings than we are in this current age or generation. According to them, In the spirit, if one closes his/her eyes and imaging any place in the world, he/she can find him/herself in the exact destination. I believe this is how it works during there times, even though it is unprovable in this current age. Yet, we can not outrightly throw out this perspective. This is my personal opinion anyway. Thirdly, i have to go with Mustafa's submission of these two civilizations being influenced by the massive mountains in there respective environment. This is because, the evidence of prehistoric art shows that, man was more concerned in representing those things he was always encountering in his environment: particularly animals of all sort. Examples abounds in Atamira cave paintings in Spain, and Rock paintings and engravings in Tassili - Algeria. On the whole, I believe the answer to this puzzle in the coincidental similarity of olden architecture of this two great civilizations is hidden in either  one of the three perspective above. 

Michael: Please share with us some of what you call "growing evidence that the Minoans (called 'the sea peoples' by the Egyptians) were trading across the Atlantic after the eruption of Thera (about 1,650 BC) and probably before as well." If this idea were to stand up to rigorous confrontation with existing evidence, it would revolutionize everything we think we understand at present about the development of indigenous cultures in the Americas.

I have been doing research and following developments in Mesoamerican archaeology since 1980, and I have not seen the slightest trace of Minoan influence or contact between Mesoamericans and Europeans on this side of the Atlantic. When I read your post, I thought: "Did I miss something hugely important?" So I did a web search with Google Scholar, with the chain , and nothing of the sort appeared!

There was a short-lived Viking settlement on the Atlantic coast of Canada, at Lanse Aux-Meadows, and possibly other sites in the same region, around AD 1000; this is the only reasonably confirmed European-Native American contact before Colombus' landfall in 1492.

Then there is the problem with the chronology. By the time the earliest monumental urban centers were built in Mesoamerica (around 1200 BC), Minoan culture on Crete had been eclipsed (perhaps absorbed would be a better word) by Mycenaean civilization, centered on mainland Greece, and the latter was in its final stage, on the verge of collapse. The monument from the Maya city of Chichén Itzá that Jeanan posted, called the Temple of Kukulkán, is from roughly AD 1000; at that time in the Greek world, the impressive domed church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was nearly five centuries old, and Greek religious architecture was characterized by intimate and colorful interiors, covered with domes raised up on drums to vertically compartimentalize the space; this is the conceptual opposite of the Mesoamerican temple, which was designed to impress the people, gathered in a plaza, with a monumental exterior.

I realize that there is a growing body of pseudo-scientific publications and fringe blogs claiming ancient transatlantic contacts, just as there is a growing body of literature claiming contacts with extraterrestrial beings, but as researchers we need to cultivate and exercise the art of critical thinking. All claims deserve to be considered with an open mind, but at the same time they should be put through the filters of rational analysis.

Here are links to some critical tools that can be used to filter claims of evidence, separating science from science fiction or pseudoscience:

Lett, James

1990 “A field guide to critical thinking,” in Skeptical Inquirer (Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal), vol. 14, no. 4 (http://www.csicop.org/si/show/field_guide_to_critical_thinking/, access: 4 September 2016).

RationalWiki

2016 RationalWiki (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page, updated: 19 August 2016, access: 4 September 2016).

Sagan, Carl

undated “The fine art of baloney detection”, en Lehre (Freie Universität Berlin, Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik, Institut für Informatik, Studium) (http://www.inf.fu-berlin.de/lehre/pmo/eng/Sagan-Baloney.pdf, access: 8 August  2016).

Here's something that may be of interest to followers of theis question. I just searched for the word "transatlantic" at RationalWiki, and was pleased to find that these folks have put together a brief summary of the principle hypotheses that have been proposed (I'm sorry, the Minoan hypothesis is not among them), with a brief opinion on the likelihood of each.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_contact

Hi again. I'm still looking for claims of Minoan-Mesoamerican contacts on the web. I came across an interesting summary of transoceanic contacts with the Americas on Wikipedia. The possibility of Minoan contact with the Americas is not mentioned, but other transpacific and transatlantic claims are discussed.

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactos_transoce%C3%A1nicos_precolombinos

Edit: sorry, that was in Spanish. Here's the English version:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theorieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories

''Traces of coca and nicotine found in some Egyptian mummies have led to speculation that Ancient Egyptians may have traveled to the New World. The initial discovery was made by a German toxicologist, Svetlana Balabanova, after examining the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui. Follow-up tests of the hair shaft, performed to rule out contamination, gave the same results.[112]''

See the interesting case of the Alban peoples.

The Farfarers: A New History of North America

By Farley Mowat

https://books.google.ca/books?id=O1FgRGgA_AoC&pg=PA344&lpg=PA344&dq=labrador+pre-columbian+sea+people&source=bl&ots=ZiCkpnK10l&sig=9SZpMvZ73FTgn7GcthNczz6dwgE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjs0rTXzPbOAhUE4WMKHQfMAL4Q6AEINjAE#v=onepage&q=labrador%20pre-columbian%20sea%20people&f=false

Thanks for your interesting opinions.

Well, I'm really confused and don't know what's going on!!!

@ Jasna " important papers containing initial but potentially revolutionary results get only published in a language different from English making it hardly accessible to non speakers of that language"

I started to search about the Mummies in mayans in spanish language and tried to translate it...due to the view point of Louis...

What I found that

- Mayans use the same way of Egyptians in mummies.

- There is a Mayans temple which erected to cover the tomb, which is a more common for Egyptian civilization totally unusual in Mayan architecture practice.

http://www.hispantv.com/noticias/cultura/284141/descubren-belice-primera-tumba-real-maya

Louis: If you read, then copy and paste the entire section of that Wikipedia article the story gets more complicated:

"Traces of coca and nicotine found in some Egyptian mummies have led to speculation that Ancient Egyptians may have traveled to the New World. The initial discovery was made by a German toxicologist, Svetlana Balabanova, after examining the mummy of a female priestess called Henut Taui. Follow-up tests of the hair shaft, performed to rule out contamination, gave the same results.[112]

"A television show reported that examination of numerous Sudanese mummies undertaken by Balabanova mirrored what was found in the mummy of Henut Taui.[113] Balabanova suggested that the tobacco may be accounted for since it may have also been known in China and Europe, as indicated by analysis run on human remains from those respective regions. Balabanova proposed that such plants native to the general area may have developed independently, but have since gone extinct.[113] Other explanations include fraud, though curator Alfred Grimm of the Egyptian Museum in Munich disputes this.[113] Skeptical of Balabanova's findings, Rosalie David, Keeper of Egyptology at the Manchester Museum, had similar tests performed on samples taken from the Manchester mummy collection and reported that two of the tissue samples and one hair sample did test positive for nicotine.[113] Sources of nicotine other than tobacco and sources of cocaine in the Old World are discussed by the British biologist Duncan Edlin.[114]

"Mainstream scholars remain skeptical, and they do not see this as proof of ancient contact between Africa and the Americas, especially because there may be possible Old World sources.[115][116] Two attempts to replicate Balabanova's finds of cocaine failed, suggesting "that either Balabanova and her associates are misinterpreting their results or that the samples of mummies tested by them have been mysteriously exposed to cocaine."[117]

"A re-examination in the 1970s of the mummy of Ramesses II revealed the presence of fragments of tobacco leaves in its abdomen. This became a popular topic in fringe literature and the media and was seen as proof of contact between Ancient Egypt and the New World. The investigator, Maurice Bucaille, noted that when the mummy was unwrapped in 1886 the abdomen was left open and that "it was no longer possible to attach any importance to the presence inside the abdominal cavity of whatever material was found there, since the material could have come from the surrounding environment."[118] Following the renewed discussion of tobacco sparked by Balabanova's research and its mention in a 2000 publication by Rosalie David, a study in the journal Antiquity suggested that reports of both tobacco and cocaine in mummies "ignored their post-excavation histories" and pointed out that the mummy of Ramesses II had been moved five times between 1883 and 1975.[116]"

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories#Claims_of_Egyptian_coca_and_tobacco

Louis: The consensus at present regarding Farley Mowat's book is that it is a fascinating piece of literature, but that neither the evidence he provides nor his reasoning have demonstrated a Scottish or "Alban" presence in the New World. The hypothesis should remain open, though, as the contact is plausible. If Vikings could reach Newfoundland in 1000, Picts could have done so a few decades or even centuries earlier.

Now if we had some Scotts who had traveled to Egypt to tour the ruins, and had then crossed to Canada and traveled south along the coast to the Yucatan peninsula around AD 900, that would be extremely interesting, but we would still have to face the fact that Mesoamericans had been building stepped truncated pyramidal temple platforms for two thousand years before that date, and that the function and form of these buildings has little to do with Egyptian architecture.

Jasna: Specialists on any subject are usually in touch with each other and are aware of major developments published in other languages, using whatever lingua franca is practical for them. The language barrier can slow things down a bit, though, as can political and cultural differences. The classic case study in this regard is the initial rejection of Russian scholar Yuri Knorosov's readings of the script in the Maya codices. His findings, however, were picked up on at an early stage by Mayanists like Michael Coe, and were translated into English and published; their acceptance by mainstream Mayanist scholars took a few years longer. Here's a brief video that tells part of his story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMdh9Csy3j8

Do you have evidence that this sort of thing has happened regarding transatlantic contact with Mesoamerica?

Jeanan: In Mesoamerica temple platforms are not the same thing as pyramids in the geometric sense. They share little more than the label "pyramid" used in modern times. In the Maya area, and in the other regions of Mesoamerica, temple platforms have been built over or around tombs since the earliest times (that is, the Olmec horizon, ca. 1200-600 BC; there are examples in Complex A at La Venta). This is not surprising, nor need it be cause for confusion. As for mummies, any well-preserved dead human body may be called a mummy. The existence of mummies does not imply the use of Egyptian techniques of mummification, which are sophisticated and technically specific. I won't repeat what I have said earlier about scientific rigor, other than that if we make a serious attempt at using it, it is possible to see beyond a lot of the confusing claims that abound on the Wild and Woolly Web.

Another way to avoid having to search through entire haystacks to find the needle is to use Google Scholar instead of just Google for searching. We run the risk of missing some items, but at least we are in a place with lots of needles among the straw.

-Sigh-

David,

Yes I had noticed that the story was more complicated.  There are always very complicated.  

If there isn't any communication between those two ancient civilizations, with all the similarity in many axes, concepts, beliefs and reactions... I could say that human behavior is very similar to animals. React in the same way all over the world.. just like bird's nest, spider web and other animals with the same reaction toward nature.

Jasna: Spanish (more accurately called Castilian, as there are several Spanish languages), is still the lingua franca in Mesoamerican studies, although there are also important publications in English. Scholars in this field without the ability to communicate in both languages (plus have some knowledge of the native languages spoken in the area they are studying) will only see part of the story. There are also important publications in French and German. These usually get translated into Castilian or English eventually, although, as I said, there can be a delay, and in some cases that delay is a long one.

This is the reason most PhD programs require reading proficiency in one or more languages other than the mother tongue of the student.

Hi Jeanan,

your question is very interesting.

Obviously, I have no answer, and I have no experience in your field of research.

But a question arises quite similar in technology: the wheel.

the answer is that both originated from the same primordial society far older than each of them - but whose trace/foot prints have been lost. For instance the bible records (read the book of Genesis chapter 11) that ever since man became sophisticated and learn to congregate rather than segregate, we have always been fascinated about building edifices and towers to reach up to heavens- which we can interpret to mean pyramids. It is like we just want to peep behind the hanging curtains of the skies and the heavenlies. Take for another example how some children automatically produce the pastimes of their fathers/mothers. some just produce what their fathers loved to do even when such ones have never met their parents. That is why for me the traces of the past is what we do today. Whatever we do today is what some have tried to think about, dream about and work at until it arrived in people of today. There is nothing that we are that people never conceived in the past, somehow, someway or somewhat! If you look at the individuals, there is something in each that was in his/her history. If you meet violent people, a lot of times violence is in their history, their linage, their blood etc They are just taking it to another level. So it is with people gifted in one artistry or the other.

https://www.academia.edu/16267813/Far_Far_More_are_We

David Charles,

Sorry I missed the discussion, I just saw your reply to my comment.

The subject of transatlantic communications in ancient times has been under discussion since ancient times only in Greece with numerous publications by ancient authors and many more in recent years. I believe the only book on the subject that is in the English language is Henriett Mertz's The Wine Dark Sea. Although she is not a historian, she travelled to prove her ideas of the Argonauts visiting South America.

In high school we learned that Hercules visited what would be Mexico today to plead with the people to stop the human sacrifices. I believe Diodorus Siculus reported that.

Therefore, the ancients knew about the habits of the Mexicans at the time.

When I started teaching North American natives 25 years ago I was startled to hear they were speaking some form of ancient Greek. Some words are identical, Mycenae means turtle (a girl's name today), Kimon means rain to them, etc etc, but in Greece nobody knows the origin or the meaning of these words, probably because they are very old Greek.

This is a big subject for me (I am in geology, but prefer to study and explore history). The similarities between ancient Greek and Mapuche (Chile) are very easy to see both in language and customs. The Mapuche themselves know these and have written a book on the subject. Its Greek translation has reached the 13th edition. Recently, the American Cree have signed a treaty with the Mapuche - they see the obvious connections they share.

How to study and prove the connections needs some dedicated researchers who are interested on the subject. I have been trying to find some for years. The ones that I have asked they laugh at my suggestions. 

Dear Michael,

Your answer reminds me about "Fuzzy logic", which is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth values of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1, considered to be "fuzzy". Fuzzy logic has been employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely false.

It was one of the questions in RG and one of the answers was " by the fuzzy logic now a day nothing could be completely wrong" that's mean, everything could have a percentage of possibility... Thanks

Michael: Thanks for responding. I think that applying a more rigorous methodology to the evaluation of the claims you mention may clear up most of your doubts. The links I provided in several of my previous posts on this thread may be of use, if you would like to follow up on these ideas.

For comparing languages there are sound methodologies that would enable the researcher to avoid falling into the trap of confirmation bias, that is, counting the hits and ignoring the misses. These might be of use:

Campbell, Lyle Richard, Historical linguistics: An introduction, 2a. ed., Cambridge, The MIT Press, 2004.

Foley, William A., Anthropological linguistics: An introduction, reprint of the 1st. ed., Malden/Oxford/Victoria, Blackwell Publishing, 2004.

Holman, Eric W.; Brown, Cecil H.; Wichmann, Søren; Müller, André; Velupillai, Viveka; Hammarström, Harald; Sauppe, Sebastian; Jung, Hagen; Bakker, Dik; Brown, Pamela; Belyaev, Oleg; Urban, Matthias; Mailhammer, Robert; List, Johann-Mattis; Egorov, Dmitry, “Automated dating of the world’s language families based on lexical similarity,” in Current Anthropology (University of Chicago Press), vol. 52, no. 6, December 2011, pp. 841-875 (preliminary version avialable at ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/202321178_Automated_Dating_of_the_Worlds_Language_Families_Based_on_Lexical_Similarity, access: 18March 2013).

Nichols, Johanna, Linguistic diversity in space and time, reprint of the 1st. ed., Chicago/London, The University of Chicago Press, 1999.

Ruhlen, Merritt, The origin of language. Tracing the evolution of the mother tongue, New York/Chichester/Brisbane/Toronto/Singapore, John Wiley & Sons, 1994.

Wichmann, Søren; Holman, Eric W.; Müller, Anfré; Velupillai, Viveka; List, Johann-Mattis; Belyaev, Oleg; Urban, Matthias; Bakker, Dik, “Glottochronology as a heuristic for genealogical language relationships,” in Journal of Quantitative Linguistics (Routledge), vol. 17, no. 4, nov. 2010, pp. 303-316.

Article Automated Dating of the World’s Language Families Based on L...

David Charles,

Thank you very much for your references. 

They are very informative and I would be excited to follow this investigation using the sources that you gave me.

Thanks again!