© @any1mark66
“Wallace, I’ve seen your evidence and the supporting papers, but they don’t explain one critical piece of information.”
“Like if the Chinese had visited America frequently and in numbers from 1,300 BC until 500 AD, why didn’t they colonize, right Hendricks?”
This was a frequent argument between the British and Native American archeologists, however Hendricks had a point. Pictographic evidence of extended Chinese visits to North America included numerous artifacts in Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico. So why did they stop?
“I’ve already introduced Dr. Christina Esquivel, Hendricks.”
“Charmed,” though the older man’s tone indicated he wasn’t. “What’s a geneticist have to do with archeology, Wallace?”
Christina looked forward to deflating this air bag. “I’ve just finished a five-year comparative genetic analysis between various Native American peoples and those from the Hubei, Hunan, and Yunnan regions of China. DNA markers are too similar to be the result of chance.
Meaning?” Hendricks’s voice was laced with anticipation and dread.
“Meaning,” Wallace continued, “that the Chinese did colonize America. Indigenous people like Christina and I are their descendants.”
I wrote this for the FFfAW Challenge of the Week of November 14, 2017. The idea is to use the image above to inspire writing a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.
The pictograph reminded me of articles I’ve read suggesting that the Chinese rather than Columbus or any other European or people from across the Atlantic, “discovered” America, perhaps sometime between 1,300 BC and 1,421 AD depending on which source you consider. Granted the information is highly speculative, but it makes a good basis for a story. The suggestion that there could be a genetic similarity between the Chinese people and Native Americans was also briefly mentioned in my source. To read more, go to DailyMail.com.
To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
Wow! We find indicators of cross-cultural influence in language, architecture and customs. To trace it down to genetics is marvellous. Brilliant story!
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Thanks. The evidence seems compelling on the surface, but then again as I mentioned, it’s highly speculative.
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That’s very interesting! That the Chinese people could have first colonized North America. I wonder if we could find that out through DNA from the modern day native Americans. Great story!
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Thanks. Don’t know. I’d have to read a lot more about it to see how credible it all is.
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Great story and a very interesting theory .
Thanks for sharing.
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You’re welcome, Moon. Thanks for reading and commenting.
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Put us all into one big melting pot, and a Native American might be the result.😉
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Interesting theory that certainly merits further investigation and I liked the story, although bear in mind that the Daily Mail – a particularly loathsome tabloid in the UK – has been banned as an unreliable source by Wikipedia…
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Yes, I realize that, Iain. I wasn’t looking so much for iron clad facts in my research as something I could base an alternative history story upon. Just a bit of fun.
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Alternative history or a conspiracy theory? Interesting!
Click to read my FFfAW!
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I suppose a little of both, Keith. There is a movement here in the U.S. to change “Columbus Day” to “Indigenous People Day” and it my fanciful tale were actually factual, it might add fuel to that effort.
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Now this is real piece of fiction based on the facts! Its so intriguing, James!!! This is the best I have read so far on this prompt, for sure.
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Thank you for your kind comments, Anagha.
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