Carvings identical to ancient Chinese characters have been found in American Indian sites dating back thousands of years, the China Daily reported. They so closely resemble the 3,000-year-old Shang Dynasty characters for the sun, sky, rain, water, crops, trees and astronomy that if they had not been found in America, Chinese experts would have classified them automatically as pre-221 B.C. Chinese script, the newspaper said.
American Indian and Chinese pictographs in 56 matching sets were shown to senior academics at a symposium in Anyang, former capital of the Shang Dynasty.
Chang Yuzhi of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said if the carvings were genuine, they were "very strong evidence" of a link between the two cultures.
"Before, some scholars just put forward theories, but now we have something real. When you are looking for a resemblance between two cultures, the writing is the most important thing.
"If this is true, then as a Chinese person I am very proud, because it means that native Americans culture is a branch of Chinese culture," said Chang, an expert in Shang Dynasty script.
The script was only discovered in 1899. Excavations near Anyang have since uncovered characters scratched onto 150,000 "oracle bones" and fragments of tortoise shells.
More than 300 pictographs presented to the symposium were collated by Mike Xu Hui, a linguist at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, from sites in Mexico, Central America and the southern United States.
The new linguist evidence supports the theory that Chinese crossed what is now the Bering Strait to North America millennia ago, possibly after a series of civil wars, Professor Fan Yuzhou of Nanjing University said.
"Personally, I am convinced. These are not coincidences.
"For instance, the ancient Chinese character meaning 'possess' is found on the base of food bowls made by modern Native Americans. I have seen a photograph of a brass bowl inscribed with the Chinese character for 'luck.' "
Several of the characters matched so far are extremely simple, and offer little proof of links. But others are complex and are found in similar sequences, suggesting many years of gradual contact, Chang said.
By David Rennie, Chicago Sun-Times, August 31, 1999.
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