Who Discovered America?: The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas - Hardcover

A groundbreaking new book that upends our understanding of ancient America

Conventional history tells us humans migrated on foot across present-day Alaska, populating the Americas far later than other continents.

However, emerging new evidence suggests seafarers reached the continents thousands of years earlier and developed far more sophisticated civilizations than previously imagined. . . .

From "distinguished historian" (BBC World Service) Gavin Menzies, the author of the blockbuster New York Times bestseller 1421, comes a revolutionary new account of how the first humans came to North and South America. Menzies reveals that ancient peoples used the oceans' natural currents and prevailing winds to make voyages across both the Atlantic and Pacific. What's more, we now must accept that they had time to develop remarkably advanced cultures. Armed with cutting-edge DNA evidence, newly unearthed artifacts, and astonishing linguistic and archaeological discoveries, Menzies shows

• humans have been making transoceanic voyages as far back as 100,000 years ago, vastly predating the supposed overland migration to the Americas during the last Ice Age;
• the ancient South American civilizations of the Olmec and Maya in Central and South America may have had direct origins and influences from Asia;
• ancient maps held in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., show there must have been sustained and dedicated voyages to the Western Hemisphere by Chinese explorers as early as 2200 B.C.;
• huge Chinese settlements occupied (and made exploratory journeys from) Nova Scotia;
• Japanese, Korean, and even earlier European voyages likewise predated the explorations currently recorded by history.

A maverick scholar, Menzies has made a riveting new contribution to the story of humanity's earliest explorers, revealing the truth behind one of history's most fascinating questions: Who discovered America?

Gavin Menzies is the bestselling author of 1421: The Year China Discovered America; 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance; and The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed. He served in the Royal Navy between 1953 and 1970. His knowledge of seafaring and navigation sparked his interest in the epic voyages of Chinese admiral Zheng He. Menzies lives in London.