When did Indigenous Americans first discover Europe?

Part Five of the Mesolithic Period in Eastern North America

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

In 2008, Dr. Gordon Freeman of the University of Alberta, shook up the academic world when he announced the radiocarbon dates for several astronomical shrines in the Canadian provinces, which are generically called “Sun Wheels,” in both the prairie provinces and the Northern Plains states in the US. The press release was based on research carried out between 1986 and 2006. Many predated the “stonehenges” in the British Isles. Some in Canada were virtually identical to the earliest “stonehenges” in Wales and Ireland.

Readers had barely recovered their senses, when they came to the end of the press announcement, where he theorized that the earliest stonehenges in the British Isles were created by immigrants from North America! He speculated that Indigenous Americans had mixed with peoples, who immigrated into the British Isles from other parts of Europe, to create the advanced Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures in Northwestern Europe.

After retiring from teaching classes at the University of Alberta, Freeman spent three years at archaeological sites in Wales and England, where he found physical proof of his theory. In addition to the concept of a “stonehenge” itself, Freeman discovered styles of cultural artifacts that first appeared in Canada then in the British Isles. Freeman’s book on his discoveries is:

Canada’s Stonehenge: Astounding Archaeological Discoveries in Canada, England, and Wales

Recent scientific research

Recent research by accredited, but open-minded scientists in the Upper Midwest and Ontario have significantly advanced our understanding of the Old Copper Culture in the Great Lakes Region. It is quite clear. The use of copper tools and weapons in North America long predates their use in Europe . . . and that the Old Copper Culture evaporated away, just as copper artifacts were appearing in western Europe . . . but mining of the copper continued up until the European Colonial Period of North America.

These scientific studies consistently state that North American Indians ceased making copper weapons and tools thousands of years ago. That is not true! It is important to know that the Uchees, Creeks and Chiskas in the Southeastern United States continued to utilize a wide range of copper weapons, tools, armor and art from copper deposits in Georgia and Tennessee, until iron and steel objects became available from European traders. The Chiskas definitely knew how to smelt copper ore into pure copper.

In other words . . . these copper tools and weapons were developed by indigenous Americans and are not the result of Mediterranean civilizations establishing colonies in North America. Old World civilizations may have established trading and mining colonies in North America, but that was in response to a previously existing copper culture, which was technologically more advanced at that time than anything in Europe.

Most recently, in 2022, Canadian archaeologists and scientists have found profound evidence that many of the original peoples of the Americas crossed the Arctic Ice Cap on sleds rather than walking across the Bering Strait Bridge. This would have occurred 8-28,000 years ago . . . perhaps much later also. Then they speculate that the Arctic Ice Cap and North Atlantic Ocean was a two-way route for cultural exchanges.

Of course, this is exactly what the Maya Migration Legend says. This is important because the earliest Maya glyphs and number symbols are found near Nyköping, Sweden and date from c. 2,000 BC. The Mayas told Spanish authorities that their ancestors once lived far to the north in a land of ice and snow. They were persecuted by giants. Remember the Norse legends about “ice giants?” The ancestors of the Mayas migrated southward along the coast of North America, until they reached a land with no snow.

The findings of these recent scientific studies are quite different than what one reads in textbooks and museums, but consistently ignore what was going on elsewhere in Eastern North America, Mesoamerica and northern Europe. That’s where I can be helpful. I do not have the educational training or professional experiences to do the basic scientific research, done by these academicians, who have followed in Gordon Freeman’s footsteps. However, my employers in Sweden did require me to be thoroughly immersed in Early Swedish history before designing a pedestrian village in the midst of and on top of 10,000 years of human occupation. Since then I have become thoroughly immersed in early Southeastern and Mesoamerican history.

Thus, the format of the articles on recent research will first present the findings of scientists then tell you what was happening elsewhere. I am not qualified to challenge their basic research methodology.

Most of my outside income is from book sales. I do not receive advertising payments from either The Americas Revealed or the People of One Fire Youtube channel. Henceforth, I will be promoting my most up-to-date books at the end of articles to help keep up with inflation.

300 full color pages (8 1/2″ x 11″) ~ 762 photos & architectural renderings

E-book (PDF) may be downloaded from the publisher for $20.

Publisher’s Digital Website: Lessons Learned . . . A Native American Architect’s Visual Journey Through Five Decades (lulu.com)

Publisher’s Printed Book website: Lessons Learned . . . A Native American Architect’s Visual Journey Through Five Decades (full color book)

(The printed book is $74.25 in the United States.)

Topics

• The first Barrett Fellowship awarded by Georgia Tech (Mesoamerican Civilizations)
• Experiences while working in southern Sweden
• A Saturday afternoon playing Southern Rock music with Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden
• Master planning of the Peachtree City Newtown and design of its path system
• Creation of the Urban Design Plan for Midtown Atlanta
• Planning the Revitalization of Downtown Asheville
• Creating the second licensed goat cheese creamery in the USA
• Architectural projects in Western North Carolina
• Restoration of a 1754 farm in the Shenandoah Valley
• Creating the first federally-licensed goat cheese creamery
• Architectural projects in Virginia and Washington, DC
• Principal Planner of Cobb County, GA
• The Smyrna, GA Downtown Revitalization Program
• Architectural and planning projects in Georgia
• The Trail of Tears Memorial in Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Museum models and virtual reality models of ancient towns
• Talamachusee Ceramics Studio