Before the Trails West


The authors of the web site on Before the Oregon Trail e-mailed me and asked if I'd be interested in linking to their site. After reading each page of their extensive site, I decided to create a new page of links, calling it "Before the Trails West." I'd long been interested in early peoples inhabiting America, peoples here long before the Native Americans, and became even more interested after reading works by Barry Fell, a Harvard scholar with an avocation for ancient writings. Following is information regarding possible evidence of early peoples in the West.

  • America's Ancient Writings Explorers, traders, even settlers, left their words inscribed on canyon walls, on artifacts, and on trade goods found in the Americas many centuries before Columbus.

  • Ancient American: Archeology of the Americas before Columbus Not a rehash of well-worn theories, Ancient American offers up-to-the-moment news about ongoing discoveries and original perspectives, bringing to light a surprising abundance of fresh material that is seriously challenging entrenched conceptions of our past.

  • Ancient Coins Found in America The discovery of ancient coins in an acceptable context could be supporting evidence of the presence of European and Mediterranean pre-Columbian visitors to America. Coins from Ancient Greece, Tunis, and Italy have been found in the East and South, and also along the Trails West in Nebraska and Kansas.

  • Before the Oregon Trail The American countryside is thoroughly peppered with ancient graffiti, writes historian Patrick Huyghe in his book, Columbus Was Last. Strange inscriptions can be found on rocks, tablets, and stone monuments all across the continent. But few people have expressed any interest in this historical bonanza. It is significant that circular petroglyphs found in California and Nevada depict the designs found on ancient Chinese coins, as of the Sung dynasty (960-1279).

  • City of Rocks, New Mexico The City of Rocks is NOT a real city. It is a grouping of rocks (VERY BIG ROCKS) out in the middle of a mesa. The City of Rocks was settled between 750 and 1250 by the Mimbres Indians. Many of the rocks show evidence of being used for grinding. Later, Apache Indians settled the area and then the Spanish arrived in the 1500's.

  • Clovis and Folsom Man During the ice age, 12,000 years ago, people started following big game across a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska. As ice melted, the water raised until their bridge was covered. These people were trapped in North America. From the Los Alamos New Mexico students.

  • The Clovis Conundrum Evidence that may prove contrary to the Clovis theory is the newly discovered site of Cactus Hill. Scientists who have worked on this site claim to have evidence that prove the presence of inhabitants in America long before the approximated 12000-13500 year old Clovis migration. The tools found here can only be found, outside this site, in northern Spain in the form of the Solutrean technology. Researchers claim that the first Americans were not Asians but were actually Europeans who came here by boats via Ireland.

  • Egyptian Ruins in the Grand Canyon? An excerpt from Archeological Coverups. The April 5, 1909 issue of the Phoenix Gazette has the story. More detailed information here and descriptions of the find here.

  • Equinox Site at Lone Pine, California Here there are several groups of concentric circles that appear to serve as astronomical markers. They are located such that shafts of sunlight or shadow fall precisely in the center of a circle-group at the equinoxes or the summer solstice.

  • Los Lunas: An Ancient Hebrew Inscription in New Mexico At the foot of a mini-Masada like natural plateau there is an inscription written in paleo-Hebrew. Is it fact or fraud?

  • The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone Carved into the flat face of a large boulder resting on the side of Hidden Mountain, near Los Lunas, New Mexico, about 35 miles south of Albuquerque, is the Los Lunas Inscription is an abridged version of the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. The language is Hebrew, and the script is the Old Hebrew alphabet, with a few Greek letters mixed in.

  • Petroglyph National Monument The NPS site. More than 20,000 prehistoric and historic Native American and Hispanic petroglyphs (images carved in rock) stretch 17-miles along Albuquerque, New Mexico's West Mesa escarpment.

  • Pony Hills Petroglyphs in New Mexico This area is about 16 miles North of Deming, NM, in the Cooke's Peak area. There are two main areas of petroglyphs (Pony Hills and Frying Pan Canyon), along the old Butterfield trail. The petroglyphs date between 600 and 1200 AD. Lots of photos on this page.

  • Rock Art....or History? It is believed that four hundred years before Christ was born, Celtic traders from what is now Spain and Portugal teamed with North African sailors and navigated America's river systems for trade and settlement, including at California's Owens Valley, along a major north/south trail.

  • Who Was First? Untangling America's Pre-historic roots. New discoveries in recent years have added some strange plot twists, and answers to all the big questions regarding the first Americans-- who, when, where, how, how often, and why--appear to be up for grabs. From the Discovery Channel.

  • Who were the Si-Te-Cah? Lovelock, Nevada, about eighty miles northeast of Reno, was where in 1911 in a cave that guano miners found mummies, bones, and artifacts buried under four feet of bat excrement. The desicated bodies belonged to a very tall people - with red hair. The local Paiutes had legends about these towering troublemakers, whom they called the "Si-Te-Cah." According to them the redheads were a warlike people, and a number of the Indian tribes joined together in a long war against them.

    See also my page of links on Ancient Footpaths.

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