And Dr.Ivan van Sertima gave countless references that checked out in his work they came before columbus even quoting Columbus & Vasco Nunez de Balboa themselves seeing africans in the americas. The evidence is there you will always have haters & naysayers trying to knockdown Africans cause in reality we did everything first & it irks people to know this. As for your assertion Chuy that Cleopatra was not black, what do you make of this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/also_in_the_news/79453…

Step your game up

excuse me for Your disturb,
the Africans wouldn’t navigate and make explorations by ships before Columbus. The Negroes hadn’t enough technical things to reach America through the Atlantic. There’re NOT (enough) undoubtly evidences of the pre-Columbian African presence or African influences in the pre-Hispanic America. The first Africans were shipped as slaves by the Spaniards to America in 1501. The first ship with enslaved Africans arrived to Hispaniola in 1503. The enslaving of the Africans from Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali, etc. began “officially” in 1517 in the Caribbean and South America. From 1608 were Africans transported to North America. From the 16th century AD is the presence of the African dated in Mexico. The Olmecs were wholly native Americans and the sculptures in Tres Zapotes, La Venta were made by these Amerindians without any African influence.
These are the historical facts and not the speculations (for example) of Ivan Sertima and Tim Makekoutu about the pre-Columbian African-American relations or trade!
I wate for Your Kindly Answer!

I would love for you to explain with your unique expertize
to us Afro Centrist Maniacs and to the rest of the world
just a few of the recorded ancient olmec finds. I’m sure
that you’ll do your very best.
No.1, The visually stunning 10 ton olmec head which shows
irrefutablly a very obvious looking African Male with an Afro hair style. No.2, The clay Olmec statues of African
Elephants displade in a Jalapa Mexico museum. No.3, The
statues of Gorillas that were unearthed in the Yucatan area of Mexico. This is your assignment for today. I can hardly
wait !

No continent is more central than the other. Unless you mean centered on the equator. Africa has some of the largest diversity of animals in the world, no doubt. The problem is that the vast majority are not domesticable. Even to this day. Most animals that are domestic that are used in Africa, and the Americas, come from Eurasia.

There are no races. There are just genetics for individual facial features. Some may be reciprocated in various parts of the world without any contact. Convergent evolution. Some might be in the genes from the first migrations out of Africa. To assume one way or another without actual evidence is just that, an assumption.

No one claims humans started anywhere except Africa. But for various reasons, Eurasia, North Africa, that latitude, provided a lot more opportunities for farming dispersion and for animal domestication. From diseases that would kill domestic animals and human expansion would be much harder because of lack of food sources and risk of disease explosions. This is true, even to this day.

The fact remains that Von Wuthenau presents a ton of terracotas that look nothing like earthenware that is carbon dated and classified from in situ corroborated digs.

Therefore, his claims as to their provenance are highly suspect. A much more plausible explanation is right in front of your face. Africans were over 10% of the population during colonial times. Especially in Veracruz where Von Wuthenau acquired the vast majority of his terracottas. Africans in the Americas also did art work. And those terracotas would be excellent examples of colonial African artwork (Some have claimed outright fraud, but I believe that would be a discredit to the Afrodiasporic experience in the Americas)

As for your supposed Africoid hair claims, they have been addressed ad nauseum in these videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScnaRa9fb6I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9efzhf_4uRs

No evidence WHATSOEVER of cornrows in Olmec art. (even though straight haired people use them ALL THE TIME, in fact it is very popular among mixed people who can’t do the regular Afro styles and in wannabes, LOL)

As for videos of the REAL Afrodiaspora in Latin America (my heritage)

Besides, you carefully and conveniently avoid dealing with the AFRICOID BRAIDED HAIRSTYLE, which is a distinctive African feature (see photo in my above article). As a result of your desire to deny objective visual evidence of Africans in ancient Mexico, it does not occur to you that the Native Americans have the common STRAIGHT hair (check your own photos), which does not easily lend itself to cornrow braids. I advise that you learn about the intimate link because coarse African hair and cornrow braids before you continue wasting your time posting irrelevant photos.

You overlook the combination of facial features *and* hairtype as important racial indicators because you are burdened down by outdated misinformation and old false notions that have been fading away since 1992.

You need to actually look at the numerous stunning Africoid photos in Van Sertima’s works, including “The African Presence in Early America” and “Early America Revisted,” and read the numerous categories of evidence of African influence on Olmec culture.
http://www.journalofafricancivilizations.com/page/189

Then, if you are serious, look at the numerous Africoid images collected by Alexander von Wuthenau, etc. Otherwise you will remain very confused.
http://www.bookfinder.com/author/alexander-von-wuthenau/

Any honest and rational person who actually looks at the evidence (starting with BOTH photos in my article) can see the African influence on Olmec civilization, which is beyond all *sane* and rebuttal.

Or this Paviotso Indian
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s157/legeonas/A_Pyramid_LakePaviotso1924.jpg

Or this Guarani Indian
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s157/legeonas/artesana-guarani–seccion-1.jpg

And I see Olmec faces.

Here I’ll help you with even more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqMi9YDRlEI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVCSttXBapw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKimQ8qaC-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9efzhf_4uRs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgNT8xId_2c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYoTFE3a7cc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff2g-G0ogVI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScnaRa9fb6I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhWeMl4LZzI

This comment is absurd. If you simply bother to look at the objective and clear images of the Olmec king that I provided in the article, then this clearly shows that there was an important African presence within Olmec civilization, and this is beyond all *sane* rebuttal.

You guys are seriously confused if you think the Olmec were African. The evidence refutes that claim quite convincingly.

This type of historical ignorance and propaganda denying an African presence and contributions in the world can be effectively challenged. For example, it was our collective effort throughout the country from 2005-2007 that eventually stopped National Geographic and A&E International from continuing to exhibit an absurd modern Caucausoid image allegedly representing King Tutankhamen. As a result of this collective community effort, the current King Tut exhibit in S.F. no longer contains this absurd image.

The next venue for the “African Presence in Mexico” exhibit is the Anacostia Community Museum (ACM) in Washinton, D.C., and it will display from November 9, 2009 to July 4, 2010. People should contact everyone they know in D.C. to help apply pressure on ACM to make sure this exhibit is not displayed with the same misinformation as was done in Oakland.

Advancing the work,

Manu Ampim

The time has come for Africans of all strips to come together
and take back our heritage. And for God’s sake, Be Loud About It. The recent discoveries in the Sudan , the Timbutu
manuscripts in Mali, The ancient astronomical stone structures in South Africa and on and on. Only the real
truth about earth’s past and the Ancient African involment can provide the light in which to save all humanity from destruction. Peace !!!!!

However, it should be said that the value the exhibit held was not in proving undoubtedly through “racial” and cultural characteristics (read, stereotypes) seen in ancient Mexican culture that there was an African presence in Mexico, but that the line between what is “indigenous,” what is “African,” and what is Mexican is not always clear.

It is radical to take race out of a binary (in this case black/ white/ indigenous) and consider that most Mexicans are also part African, whether or not the they have obviously Africoid features or hairstyles.

Secondly, if you (rightly) believe that there was an African presence in Meso-America, why is it so far fetched to believe there could also have been an Asian presence? To assume this is impossible to perpetuate the nationalistic/regional binary that insists Europeans were the “first” to have presence, and is violent toward the native peoples.

Who is to say some of our people (indigenous Meso Americans) did not naturally have facial features similar to Africoid features? With the example of the Africoid hairstyle, it is certainly possible that it is a depiction of African influence, but trenzas, or braids, were a huge part of indigenous spirituality from the very founding myths of Meso-America. Commonality does not always mean collaboration.

I am not trying to say there was not an African presence in Mexico. I firmly believe that there was. I also believe that world was a much more transnational and global community than previously imagined. Although the exhibit ultimately failed to present Black scholarship on the issue (vital for an exhibit claiming to give voice to Afro-Mexicanos) it laid a good groundwork for starting to deconstruct the assumptions that most in the Latino community make about our own heritage (a difficult task given the extent that Eurocentric visions have shaped our sense of self image and history).