The Lost Colonies of Ancient America: A Comprehensive Guide to the Pre-Columbian Visitors Who Really Discovered America

This was a great read. It's very well laid out and based on facts, not just opinions. I know extremely little about history however I've taken an interest in it as of late. This books was easy for me to jump right into and understand. I knew a little about the Norse artifacts we found in America but had no idea of the plain massive amount of evidence showing Columbus was not the first to discover America. Everything was backed up with references and facts that can be checked. This book changed my entire perspective of our world and helped me to learn more about our history along with the history of other cultures and colonies. You MUST read this book! It's truly a necessity.

Why four stars? It seems too easy to score points against this book. It is in serious need of an editor, to tighten up the narrative, or even just a proofreader, to eliminate stray superfluous words which resulted from careless cut-and-pasting. It certainly needed a fact-checker: if you are going to explain the Christian use of the fish as a symbol for Jesus, at least get your Greek right, and, as many people have already pointed out, Wyoming is not in the Four Corners region, etc.. The citations are dubious: too many are to Ancient American, of which the author was editor-in-chief, and others are to books published by companies most of us have never heard of. (Note that I don’t think “Frank Joseph”’s past history, as a pedophile and a neo-Nazi, is of any relevance here, although others seem to. Anyone is entitled to the benefit of the judgment after serving their time, and the one thing this book is not is white-supremacist - it claims to be an account of the remarkable achievements of just about every race on earth!). But nevertheless I think four stars is what it deserves. Unless every one of the examples cited was fabricated by people every bit as obsessive as I suspect the author himself is, this is an astounding compilation of little pieces of evidence which, taken together, add up to a good case for reexamining the historical narrative taught in our schools. As Karl Popper said, no amount of experiments can ever prove a scientific theory, but a single experiment can disprove one, so we should welcome uncomfortable findings as advancing the frontier of knowledge (especially in this young country, which has such a strong foundation myth). Of course, some of his sources, such as Gavin Menzies’ “1421: The Year China Discovered America”, have already attracted quite a lot of criticism, and on closer attention may not survive to be of much help (he does not mention one of my favorites in this category, Farley Mowat’s “The Farfarers: A New History of North America”, which I think would actually strengthen his case considerably). The impression the author gives is that the archaeological establishment has scorned these findings because they do not fit with majority academic opinion - often without even bothering to examine the evidence (or, as in the case of the Roman amphorae in Rio harbor, actively concealing the evidence for theological reasons). So - four stars for stirring up the hornets’ nest in a most entertaining way, and in the hope that a strictly neutral researcher will one day untangle this web.

For a very long time, I have suspected many of the things Frank Joseph has presented in his book. This is a spell binding series of events that prove people were coming here long ago. I always suspected the Minoans and Phoenicians, but Mr. Joseph shows how many other peoples came here and some as a joint effort between countries. Even as a young man it seemed that Columbus must have had a map. Recently I read that he admitted there was a map. He ran into an Island before he got to the mainland, but many followed in his footsteps and that helps to prove it could have been done long ago. The saddest thing is the most overwhelming cover-up that has been performed by our leaders and this starts even before Thomas Jefferson, but he helped the cover-up considerably. It couldn't get out that there were Europeans here, and the Indians were savages that had to be eradicated. That allowed our ancestors to take all the land. So many artifacts have been lost and destroyed, because the powers that be, said they were fakes. In 1848 Abe Lincoln made a comment about giants being found in "Indian Mounds". He had been informed of these people with two rows of teeth, both uppers and lowers and ranging from seven and one half to over ten feet. Some had six fingers and toes. These all disappeared to some place, maybe even destroyed. My copy is loaned to a friend and I'm going to read it again when he gets done. I plan to order some more for fellow history buffs. This is a book that must be read, but you are going to be unhappy with the cover-up. I'm going to look up some of these ancient fortresses as they are within an hours drive from me.

Frank Joseph has devoted his life to gathering information about pre-Columbian America. Hence he is in a good position to write this book, which summarizes the evidence against the conventional histories of the Americas. In particular, he shows that there is a mountain of evidence that suggests that the Americas were visited by people from the Old World many times prior to Columbus. The book is required reading for anyone who is even a little curious about the topic. The conventional view is that the oceans were an impenetrable barrier that prevented ancient peoples from traveling to the Americas. The alternative view is that the oceans were highways that facilitated such visits. In my mind, the latter view is much more plausible, despite what the academic authorities say. Academics, like all other people, suffer from what psychologists call "confirmation bias." That means that they look for evidence that confirms what they already believe, and discount evidence to the contrary. To be sure, people from the alternative schools of thought suffer from the same problem. But by now the evidence that pre-Columbian America was visited many times by people from the Old World is simply too great to ignore. So expand your mind; read this book.

A fascinating book containing interesting, maybe controversial, theories about the origins of the indigenous populations of North, Central and South America. Not particularly scholarly nor scientific, (e.g. a mistake identifying the four states that comprise the "Four Corners") but a good start for further reading and makes some very perceptive connections and conclusions. For example the close similarity between the native language spoken by some Northwestern (Washington state, etc.) tribes and the Japanese. An eye-opener and very interesting.

They long held belief that the migrations across the Bering Strait land bridge was the way all Amerindians arrived in Americas. However newer discoveries and the availability of DNA testing has shattered that paradigm. Frank Joseph's book The Lost Colonies of Ancient America demonstrates that America was a melting pot long before it was called America. Joseph shows how peoples from all over the world came to North and South America. Not always to settle but to trade. Scattered across the continents is evidence that America was indeed was a land of opportunity. During the Bronze Age Europeans, Africans and Asians came to America to get copper from the copper mines from what is now the upper peninsula of Michigan which is the highest grade copper in the world. Copper is a major ingredient in Bronze. Even before that trade blossomed, coca leaves, maize, and other highly prized trade goods were sought from these two western hemisphere continents. Joseph posits that there was trade with the Americas from as far back as the Sumerians to the Phoenicians, the Egyptians, The Greeks and Romans, the Norse and even the Knights Templar, and more. They all left their "footprints" all over the Americas. When Columbus sailed west he already knew there was a continent between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Joseph has an easy style of writing that can be understood by the average person. When the Amerindians crossed the land bridge to the "new" world they found an older society already in place. Apparently there has been trade ever since humans learned to float a seaworthy craft.

A great summary of the groups that have visited the Western Hemisphere prior to Columbus. Unless a whole lot of people have lied through the ages there is plenty of evidence that our ancestors from around the world having been criss crossing the oceans for thousands of years. I just don't understand how one can still deny that ancient humans were gifted sailors with solid seaworthy ships. Way too much evidence to rule out Western Hemisphere isolation pre Columbus. Yams, corn, cotton, words meaning the same thing in two separate languages, pyramid designs, etc. how can you deny this?

essential reading for anyone truly interested in history, geology and origins in material and linguistic artifacts. should be part of high school history curricula. I like all pre-roman church history, before someone reset the calender to 0.

A great book which describes a large number of archaeological finds which indicate that numerous ancient civilisations visited mainland USA long before Columbus 'discovered' it. Plus other information: for example, did you know that Columbus had a map?

Well researched. Insightful. It helped me follow up on many of the points in the book and confirm much of what was written.

Given as a gift to my husband who has found it extremely interesting.

Did sailors from other continents travel to the Americas before Columbus? We know for a fact that they did, but prior to the discovery of L'Anse-aux-Meadows in 1960, the official answer would have been NO. Since that time, Viking settlements and artifacts have also been found in Nunavut. Would it really be so shocking to find a larger Viking presence here? Or, since we know the Vikings made it, and did so regularly, that others may have as well? It's only common sense to acknowledge that it is possible, but did it happen? Frank Joseph presents compelling evidence that it did. Archaeological evidence, combined with DNA evidence suggest that the Americas were important trading sites for such ancient peoples as the Minoans, Phoenicians, Chinese, Hebrews, Japanese, etc. Does he correctly interpret the evidence? That, I can't say. But it's interesting to contemplate.

There is only one word to describe it - FANTASTIC!!!!!