RESPONSE TO A COMMENT BY JOHN RUSKAMP:

 I recently received a comment by John Ruskamp in response to my column of 26 November 2022 titled ANCIENT CHINESE INSCRIPTIONS IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO – REALLY? I wrote this column in response to a 2017 paper titled “Two Ancient Rock Inscriptions Indicate and Archaic Chinese Presence in the American Southwest,” which had been printed in Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts, Volume 6, Numbers 2-4, published by the Early Sites Research Society, Independence, Missouri.

John Ruskamp's ancient Chinese figures. Online illustration from unexplainedmysteriesoftheworld.com.

Any comments made to my columns through RockArtBlog come to me anonymously (without a return address) so if I think it is important enough to respond to I have to do it in this fashion, as an editorial, and John I believe you deserve a response.

Now my readers know that I am skeptical about epigraphic interpretations of any rock images although I certainly admit the probability of Pre-columbian contact between the Americas and the rest of the world. But please note, I use the word skeptical. I have never denied the possibility, I just maintain that each claim must be evaluated on its own merits. So I will state outright, I am highly skeptical that ancient chinese mariners crossed the Sonoran Desert to leave a handful of pictograms in New Mexico and Arizona. Please note that I have also expressed disbelief that ancient Celts sailed to southeastern Colorado to leave runic inscriptions, even though they had the Arkansas River to sail up.

I am also quite skeptical on most statistical analysis of rock art sites. We have seen way too many examples of statistical analysis proving exactly what the researcher is trying to prove, even if he has to try more than one statistical analysis to get to that point.

John Ruskamp's ancient Chinese figures. Online illustration from epochtimes.de.

In his report Ruskamp goes to great length to point out similarities between some of the ancient Chinese pictograms and early Native American First People's imagery. This is to suggest that the American First People's imagery was influenced by Chinese visitors. One example is the Hopi nakwatch symbol and another is the squared spiral. My response, as it has always been in the past, is that there are only so many different basic shapes that the human brain can invent (perhaps innumerable variations, but limited basic shapes). Every culture in history has probably used the squared spiral symbol, but that does not mean they got it from China.

The paper listed below is not the first example of Ruskamp's finding ancient Chinese inscriptions, and I am not the only reviewer to disagree with Runkamp's interpretations, but I would urge you to go online and check his work out for yourself. I would have found his paper much more credible if it had not been published through the Early Sites Research Society of Independance, Missouri. They have a history of publishing articles that I disagree with (and they, of course, disagree wholeheartedly with me).

So, John, I do not expect to change your mind, and I am pretty sure that you will not change mine. But, keep up your search, the broader the range of ideas we sift and winnow through the more likely we will eventually find the truth.

- And John, as to your complaint that I used your pictures, as I told you I found them all online in a search for public domain pictures - both times.

REFERENCE:

Ruskamp, John A., Jr., with a comment by Stephen C. Jett, 2015-2017, Two Ancient Rock Inscriptions Indicate and Archaic Chinese Presence in the American Southwest, from Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts, Volume 6, Numbers 2-4, Early Sites Research Society, Independence, Missouri.