Contact With Ancient America

New book by Ida Jane Gallagher & Warren W. Dexter

Contact with Ancient America by Ida Jane Gallagher and Warren W. Dexter. Prior to his death in 1989, Dr. Warren Cook, to whom the book is dedicated, handed the authors the task of recording their combined research that has been ongoing for 28 years. Selected topics from their long collaboration and numerous photographs (including eight pages of color photos) from the Dexter/Gallagher collections are incorporated in the publication.

The book presents evidence of pre-Columbian contact between Amerindians and foreign cultures. Several chapters will be of particular interest to NEARA readers. They include the relationships between megalithic architecture, ancient astronomy, and an agricultural/fertility religion in North America and abroad. The pre-Colonial writing systems of Northeastern Native Americans and their signatures on Colonial deeds and treaties are presented from both the Native American and the epigraphic viewpoints. Research on the Norse presence in New England includes discussion of the Spirit Pond Runestones (Carlson, Buchanan, Chapman, and Nielsen) and the Newport Tower. Richard Nielsen’s work on the Kensington Runestone, and the Peterborough Petroglyphs are concisely summarized, as well.

Other chapters include significant information about the inscribed burial tablets found in Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian mounds and the significance of some of the symbols found on artifacts of the Moundbuilders and the Southern Cult groups. Warren Cook’s work on Inca tocapus, and the Dexter/Cook collaboration in recording the Padre Carlo Crespi collection are included. Finally, the astronomical sites in West Virginia and southeast Colorado and Oklahoma are evaluated along with the widespread use of the Ogam alphabet in America and around the world.

As might be expected, Contact is an incomplete work which publication might be compared to running a marathon. The authors have published their research so that the torch can be passed to another group of scholars who will evaluate and build on their findings as they add new pieces to the puzzle of ancient American history.

Website & Ordering Information:

Website: Adventures in American History

$28.00 + 2.00 shipping. Check payable to Ida Jane Gallagher, 858 Sovereign Terrace, Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464.  On sale at NEARA meetings for a discounted price.