Editing Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories (section)

=== Claims of Japanese contact ===
[[Image:Otokichi.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Otokichi]], a Japanese castaway in America in 1834, depicted here in 1849]]
Archaeologist Emilio Estrada and co-workers wrote that pottery which was associated with the [[Valdivia culture]] of coastal Ecuador and dated to 3000–1500 BCE exhibited similarities to pottery which was produced during the [[Jōmon period]] in Japan, arguing that contact between the two cultures might explain the similarities.<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 17782632 | doi=10.1126/science.135.3501.371 | volume=135 | issue=3501 | title=Possible Transpacific Contact on the Coast of Ecuador | journal=Science | pages=371–2 | last1 = Estrada | first1 = E | last2 = Meggers | first2 = BJ | last3 = Evans | first3 = C| year=1962 |author-link2=Betty Meggers | bibcode=1962Sci...135..371E | s2cid=33126483 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | title=A Transpacific Contact in 3000BC | author1=Evans, Clifford | author2= Meggers, Betty | journal=Scientific American |date=January 1966 | volume=214 | issue=1 | pages=28| doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0166-28 | bibcode=1966SciAm.214a..28M }}</ref> Chronological and other problems have led most archaeologists to dismiss this idea as implausible.<ref>Valdivia, Jomon Fishermen, and the Nature of the North Pacific: Some Nautical Problems with Meggers, Evans, and Estrada's (1965) Transoceanic Contact Thesis Gordon F. McEwan, D. Bruce Dickson American Antiquity, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July 1978), pp. 362–371.</ref><ref>''Prehistory of the Americas'' By Stuart J. Fiedel pp 188–189.</ref> The suggestion has been made that the resemblances (which are not complete) are simply due to the limited number of designs possible when incising clay.

Alaskan anthropologist Nancy Yaw Davis claims that the [[Zuni people]] of [[New Mexico]] exhibit linguistic and cultural similarities to the Japanese.<ref name="Zuni">Davis, Nancy Yaw (200). ''The Zuni Enigma''. W. W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|978-0-393-32230-9}}</ref> The [[Zuni language]] is a [[language isolate|linguistic isolate]], and Davis contends that the culture appears to differ from that of the surrounding natives in terms of blood type, [[endemic disease]], and religion. Davis speculates that [[Buddhist]] priests or restless peasants from Japan may have crossed the Pacific in the 13th century, traveled to the [[American Southwest]], and influenced Zuni society.<ref name="Zuni" />

In the 1890s, lawyer and politician [[James Wickersham]]<ref>Wickersham, James (1892). "Origin of the Indians--The Polynesian Route." ''American Antiquarian'', 16:323-335, partly reprinted in [[William R. Corliss]], ed. (1978) ''Ancient Man: A Handbook of Puzzling Artifacts'', Glen Arm, Maryland: Sourcebook Project, {{ISBN|0-915554-03-8}} pp. 705–709</ref> argued that pre-Columbian contact between Japanese sailors and Native Americans was highly probable, given that from the early 17th century to the mid-19th century several dozen Japanese ships are known to have been carried from Asia to North America along the powerful [[Kuroshio Current]]s. Japanese ships landed at places between the [[Aleutian Islands]] in the north and Mexico in the south, carrying a total of 293 people in the 23 cases where head-counts were given in historical records. In most cases, the Japanese sailors gradually made their way home on merchant vessels. In 1834, a dismasted, rudderless Japanese ship was wrecked near [[Cape Flattery]] in the [[Pacific Northwest]]. Three survivors of the ship were enslaved by [[Makah people|Makahs]] for a period before being rescued by members of the [[Hudson's Bay Company]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.historylink.org/File/9065|title=Japanese Castaways of 1834: The Three Kichis |website=www.historylink.org|access-date=January 30, 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://kuow.org/post/japanese-retrace-path-history-making-castaways-180-years-later|title=Japanese Retrace Path Of History-Making Castaways, 180 Years Later|last=Banse|first=Tom|access-date=January 30, 2018|language=en}}</ref> Another Japanese ship went ashore in about 1850 near the mouth of the [[Columbia River]], Wickersham writes, and the sailors were assimilated into the local Native American population. While admitting there is no definitive proof of pre-Columbian contact between Japanese and North Americans, Wickersham thought it implausible that such contacts as outlined above would have started only after Europeans arrived in North America and began documenting them.