Chinese Petroglyphs in America? – A
Book Review 

Asiatic Echoes: The Identification of Chinese Pictograms in North
American Rock Writing; Ruskamp, Jr., John A.; Amazon Press, Charleston,
SC;  2012. ($29.50)

Asiatic Echoes: The Identification of Chinese Pictograms in North
American Rock Writing – Addendum 2012; Ruskamp, Jr., John A.; Amazon Press,
Charleston, SC;  2012. ($9.25)

In
his best-selling book, 1421: The Year
China Discovered America, the author Gavin Menzies claims that it was not
Christopher Columbus, but the Chinese that were the first to land in the
Americas (excluding the native inhabitants, of course, who have been purported
to be living there since the last glacial period).  Dr. John A. Ruskamp, Jr., an ESCONI member, builds
upon the premises popularized by Menzies and theorizes that in the rock art of
North America there is evidence of early Chinese trans-Pacific contact at
scattered sites, particularly, in the southwestern U.S.  The rock art (petroglyphs), it is proposed, take
the form of ancient Chinese pictographic characters.  

The Introduction presents information on the locations where
writing first originated and the glyphs being examined.  According to the research, writing developed independently
in five regions of the world, i.e., China, Egypt, the Indus Valley,
Mesoamerica, and Mesopotamia.

The first chapter of the volume highlights the early attempts
to interpret rock writing and helps to ground the reader with basic
terminology.  Chapter 2 gives a brief history
of Chinese writing from oracle bone script, originally developed for
divination, to modern Chinese script in current use today. 

This is followed by a unit on the interpretation of rock
writing by use of statistical means.  A
form of analysis used for comparing images in the legal profession, the concept
of substantial similarity, is introduced. 
Jaccard’s Index of Similarity (J),
a statistical technique that is the essence of the monograph, is explained in
detail.  Basically, this rubric compares
the likeness of two similar pieces of art (in this case, North American
petroglyphs to historic Chinese pictograms using line strokes of the writing
for the analysis.)  J-values can range from zero to 1.000, with higher values indicating
a greater degree of similarity.

Chapters 4 – 7 portray a variety of pictograms under
investigation in the research.  Examples
of pictograms of boats, water, ponds, trees, forests and fields are
displayed.  Boat (Zhou) pictograms are
analyzed in some detail.

The eighth chapter relates combinations of Chinese pictograms
in North American rock writing.  Here a
few petroglyph sites that have two or more Chinese-looking characters presented
side-by-side on the same rock face suggest that their ancient authors were well
versed in ancient Chinese writing.

The chapters titled “Conclusions”
and “Identifying the Authors” contain
a summary of the study analysis that; “Collectively, the substantial similarity
of the pictograms and the glyphs evaluated in this study establish with
statistical certainty their shared Asiatic history.”  The possibility of parallel creation of the
symbols is ruled out.  However, the
likelihood that Native Americans appropriated Asiatic written symbols for use
in their rock writing is emphasized.  Therefore,
this chapter leads the readers to the conclusion that the study’s North
American petroglyphs are of Chinese origin and that the Chinese visited
America, perhaps many times, prior to its “rediscovery” by Columbus.  “In [this] first-of-a-kind report, the Asiatic
ancestry of twenty-four examples of North American rock art is demonstrated
with supporting statistical evidence.”

Appendices provide supplementary material vital to the
interpretation of the book.  Appendix A,
in both books, provides comparison charts of Chinese pictograms and North
American petroglyphs.  For each of the
glyphs/pictogram contrasts, comparison of line strokes; comparisons of line
stroke touch relations; and the calculation of Jaccard’s Index is presented.  Appendix B focuses on age estimates for the
study’s pictogram-glyphs and Appendix C is a table of significant values for
the Jaccard Index of Similarity.

The Addendum to the original work provides readers with ten
additional examples of Chinese pictogram petroglyphs.  These glyphs are representative of dogs,
flowers, elephants, and more and evoke additional support for the theory of
pre-Columbian North American visitation. 
However, in addition to the use of Jaccard’s Index to test similarity,
probability measures are presented to that discredit the idea of parallel
evolution of the glyphs.  It is reported
in the Addendum that, “The probability of chance creation upon Newspaper Rock
of the four Chinese script images of Xiang, Si, Zhou, and Shui, separate from a
working knowledge of Chinese calligraphy, is less than one out of 20
billion.” 

Overall, the books are
well thought out and lend additional credibility to support the original
hypothesis.  However, as always,
additional research needs to be conducted in this area.  The next logical step is to develop and/or
discover methods of dating the rock art itself and to provide still more
examples possibly from other countries such as Mexico and from Central and
South America.

The author encourages discourse on the topic and, if people wish
to contact him directly, you can obtain either of both of the books at a
discounted price. He also is working on a webpage for the book currently which
will be operational, in a basic form, in early March 2013. In the interim, Mr. Ruskamp can be reached at
info@asiaticechoes.org.

By now, Dr. Ruskamp has given an oral presentation to the
ESCONI archaeology group on the subject. 
It is hoped that his presentation and this review encourage more thought
and research on this very interesting and thought-provoking topic.

-Joseph D. Kubal