Chinese travelers at the meeting of two worlds

Abstract

The official story states that Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) accidentally discovered what we now call the American Continent on 12 October 1492 while attempting to reach China. However, perhaps because contact had already been established between China and America before that date, in their conquest of Peru the Spanish were able to confirm the widespread and longstanding use of the ''quipu', a system for memorising numerical information using knotted cords, the same as one used in China for identical purposes since the third century BC.  Another detail that could suggest pre-Hispanic contact between China and America is that on the arrival of the Spanish and Portuguese in Southeast Asia in the sixteenth century, local communities were seen harvesting corn using 'metates' to grind the grain – a crop unknown in Europe at the time –, the evolution of  the corn from the primitive 'teocintle' had been documented exclusively in America 11,000 years ago.