More than twenty-nine years have passed since They Came Before Columbus appeared, in which Van Sertima presented most of the facts that were then known about the links between Africa and America before Columbus. But since then, many more sculptures have emerged from the earth or from the back rooms of private collections. New stone heads have surfaced in recent excavations while a very old one with a seven-braided Egyptian hairstyle has come out of a century of obscurity into sudden prominence.
Far more sophisticated analyses may now be presented of ancient African astronomy, scripts, map-making, navigation, trade routes, pyramidal structures, linguistic connections, technological and ritual complexes. In this collective work, Van Sertima is joined by half a dozen other colleagues. The work focuses largely on contact between Africa and America towards the close of the Bronze Age (circa 948-680 B.C.) and the Mandingo-Songhay trading voyages (from early fourteenth to late fifteenth century).
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