Page 278 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

[1510-144° B-c-J 1 he Amber iioute
The events of the reign of Hatshepsut and Thothmes III are
authenticated, while the extent of Egyptian trade is evidenced

by faience beads found in England, Ireland, and Denmark, at
Nakuru in Kenya, and on the upper Tobol river east of the Urals.
(For more on this interesting trade see the article by J. F. S.
Stone and L. C. Thomas in the Proceedings of the Prehistoric

Society, 1956.) The rock carvings of the Italian Alpine region of
Vai Camonica are most recently described in Emmanuel Anati’s
Camonica Valley. The precise date of the building of the present
Stonehenge is not known; but it must have been during or

around this lifetime.
Let it be stated categorically that there is no evidence
whatever that ships from Europe or the Mediterranean ever
reached America at this period. All that can be said is that
Bronze-Age carvings on the Canaries show that they reached that

far; that a thousand years later Carthaginian ships no larger than
those of this period reached the Azores; that the set of wind and
current, in the words of Professor Brpgger of Oslo (Opdagelsenes
nye arhundre, Oslo, 1936), “practically compels the discovery of

Central America from Spanish and Portuguese harbors when
once deep-sea sailing begins”; and that it would appear that the
use of copper and gold commenced at or shortly after this period
among the natives of central America and Peru. The discussion
between those who favor theories of diffusion of culture and

those who favor independent invention will doubtless con­
tinue, and no standpoint is here taken. It is reasonable to assume
that there was no contact between Europe and America in the
Bronze Age so long as there is no evidence that there was. But

when the basic conditions for contact were present, it would be
unscientific to reject the possibility completely.