article_snippet.sent: Trade was taking place between East Asia and the New World hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus arrived in the area in 1492.
article_snippet.sent: Trade was taking place between East Asia and the New World the New World hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus (left) arrived in 1492.
article_snippet.sent: A controversial hypothesis, put forward by amateur historian Gavin Menzies, suggests that China discovered the Americas 70 years before Columbus.
article_snippet.sent: A controversial hypothesis, put forward by amateur historian Gavin Menzies, suggests that China discovered the Americas 70 years before Columbusthe Americas Columbus.
article_snippet.sent: The traditional story of Columbus discovering the New World is absolute fantasy, it's fairy tales,' amateur historian Gavin Menzies told MailOnline.
article_snippet.sent: Among amateur historian Gavin Menzies other claims are that the first inhabitants of the Western hemisphere didn't come over land from the Bering Strait, but instead were Chinese sailors who first crossed the Pacific Ocean 40,000 years ago.
article_snippet.sent: amateur historian Gavin Menzies also writes that DNA markers prove American Indians and other natives are the descendants of several waves of Asian settlers.
article_snippet.sent: Most scientists believe that humans arrived in the New World 15,000 years ago by crossing the now-flooded land bridge that had formed across the Bering Strait.
article_snippet.sent: But a recent genetic study suggests there were also journeys taken by people from East Asia to the New World at a later date.