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America BC: Ancient Settlers in the New World

Barry Fell

3.78 · Rating details · 217 ratings · 28 reviews

Druids in Vermont? Phoenicians in Iowa? These are just a few of the interesting bits of information contained in this volume of American pre-history. This groundbreaking work shatters many of the myths of America centuries ago.

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Paperback, 322 pages

Published 1984 by Pocket Books (first published 1976)

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· 217 ratings · 28 reviews

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Dec 28, 2012 Erik Graff rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: pre-Columbian fans

Recommended to Erik by: Amarynth Books

Shelves: history

This, to me, was a rather incredible book given its author's claims that North America was regularly visited by Europeans during the Bronze and Iron Ages. The focus is on the Celts, Celts ranging from the British isles to the Strait of Gibralter, Celts sometimes associated with Phoenician navigators.

The evidence for this claim is impressive. There are physical traces of three types. First there are the bronze items found in Amerindian burial sites. Tin supposedly not being available in useable f ...more

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Oct 25, 2009 Brad Belschner rated it it was ok

Shelves: socio-anthropology

I'm not convinced the European presence in North America was nearly as extensive as Barry Fell implies. I'd like to see more research on this subject.

From Wikipedia:
To quote David H. Kelley, an archaeologist at the University of Calgary who is credited with a major breakthrough in the decipherment of Mayan glyphs, complained about Fell in a 1990 essay: "Fell's work [contains] major academic sins, the three worst being distortion of data, inadequate acknowledgment of predecessors, and lack of pre ...more

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May 21, 2017 Preston rated it it was amazing

This is a story of how Ogham was deciphered. Ogham is written script sketched on rocks, caves,and bluff lines found in America. Ogham is an ancient Irish alphabet written in lines. Because of the method used by Mr Valancey, professionals have employed these tatics to decipher other unsolved languages as well. This is the story of Charles Valancey.

He began to pursue the study of Archeology of Ireland by tracking down and teaching himself to read ancient Gaelic, being "self taught" in which at tha ...more

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Jul 23, 2010 Jason rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: archaeology, anthropology, history, revisioning, foreign-language, native-americans, library-university

Interesting and heavily illustrated contrarian look at American prehistory, drawing all sorts of unusual (and unwarranted?) conclusions from evidence that mostly looks to my untutored eye like tally marks engraved on stones. Amongst these conclusions are that ancient Phoenicians, Libyans, and Celts established colonies in the Americas, ranging from New England and Oklahoma in North America to Paraguay in South America. You wouldn't suspect it from his confident tone, but (according to the Wikipe ...more

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Nov 20, 2010 Aaron Meyer rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

The book reads like a story of exploration and adventure. The cracking of old languages and their stories have always been fascinating to read for me. Fell's careful steps in describing the celtic and phonicean explorations and settlements in America is exciting. His recounting the naval battle Ceasar faced in Gaul was spot on considering most people don't consider the Celts as having any type of navy. I had just finished reading the "Conquest of Gaul" by Ceasar not even a few months ago and it ...more

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Jan 16, 2017 B. Ross rated it it was amazing

Love this book. Great information and enough science and evidence to make a case without confusing or boring the reader. This should be taught in every high school and college in America. I suggest everybody in America read this book.

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Nov 14, 2017 Daniel Willis rated it liked it

Lots of pictures make up for the slow reading technicalese so it doesn't get unbearable. Interesting tidbits here and there that true scientists should not wave away derisively. Yes, Fell has his point of view and is overconfident of it. Several alternative views that screamed out even to this untrained eye:

1) Fell admits the "writing" has been mistaken for plow marks on stone, meaning the letters are no more than scratches. Couldn't two cultures have developed such a simple scheme independently ...more

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Mar 21, 2018 Carolyn rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, library-books, nonfiction

This book puts forth the very plausible thesis that ancient mariners from Europe and North Africa were successful navigators a thousand and more years before Columbus. The evidence is in typical structures of the Basque and Celtic peoples in New England and elsewhere, but most importantly, in the written languages, some of them recently deciphered, of the Celts, Iberians, Libyans and Egyptians, carved in stone in many locations around the U.S. east coast, the American heartland, and the southwes ...more

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Mar 07, 2018 Timothy rated it really liked it

Read this book with an open mind. What if Columbus merely re-established long-standing connections between this continent and the rest of the world? Like Morpheus, Barry Fell holds open the door to understanding reality... But fortunately for us, it is far more fascinating than dystopian.

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Oct 03, 2017 Kelley Reid rated it really liked it

One more step in the education of my self. I'd started with the summary in Reader's Digest and was so captivated I had to read the whole thing. Lots of good stuff there. ...more

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Aug 25, 2019 Jane rated it really liked it

Amazing history-book-changing facts! Sorry Chris Columbus, but you are out as the discoverer of the new world (by at least one millennium or more), and we need to scrap the Columbus Day holiday!

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Dec 02, 2017 Kim Zinkowski rated it liked it · review of another edition

B+. A very interesting book about early visitor to this continent.

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Oct 27, 2011 Joe White rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: archeology_evo, on-shelf, history

Pros: this book has some interesting ideas put forth by the author as an accumulated aggregation of ideas.The author has enough credentials both academically and professionally to deserve to be allowed to state his views and to have those ideas independently investigated. The historical sequences stated for the European background material pretty consistently appear to be correct as to a timeline-historical actions or events. Just doing Google research, and having read a few books on nautical hi Pros: this book has some interesting ideas put forth by the author as an accumulated aggregation of ideas.The author has enough credentials both academically and professionally to deserve to be allowed to state his views and to have those ideas independently investigated. The historical sequences stated for the European background material pretty consistently appear to be correct as to a timeline-historical actions or events. Just doing Google research, and having read a few books on nautical history, the Mediterranean is very well documented. The Spanish and Portuguese coastal activity and ship types receive very little attention and almost no detailed documentation. Phoenician ships in general don't get the detailed attention given to Greek, Egyptian, and later Roman ships. Obviously some were used on the Atlantic coast from Spain to Britain and into the North Atlantic coasts and Baltic seas. There was a documented expedition ordered by an Egyptian Pharaoh Necho around 600 BC, which circumnavigated Africa from East to West. In a recent recreation of this event, the replica Phoenician ship crew targeted the Azores for their turn to the East to head back into the Mediterranean. One of the leaders of the crewed expedition stated that they could have chose a different set of currents and trade winds and followed part of the Southern Atlantic Columbus route to the Americas. However, these were contemporary navigators with charting, electronics, and contemporary supplies based on contemporary knowledge of dietary requirements for a voyage. Earlier voyagers would have had to develop that knowledge gradually or been very lucky on a one shot try to find new routes. The Earth's relative size had been fairly accurately estimated, but the information might not have been well disseminated for normal use. Atlantic seasonal weather and currents wasn't as well research as it is today.

Back to the book :
Cons: While the European facts presented appear to be valid and accurate, particularly as to citations of known timed events, the American evidence presented was somewhat sketchy. This is almost like reading 2 separate books co-mingled into one volume. As you read along in a textual presentation, you are suddenly presented with annotated photos and plate depictions that often don't match up to what the text is presenting at that point. It was a distraction away from the main text.

As to the presentation of evidence, I noted that nearly all the stone carvings pictured were photos of casts with no actual photo of the original source in its context. Even if the original stone were part of a collection, I think it would have added strength to an argument for legitimate claims to let the reader see the source material. There were several hand drawn depictions representing side-by-side comparisons of how carved letters on the American stone should match to corresponding known translations of carved text from Europe. In many cases, the identity of the American carvings required a stretch of interpretation make the match-up.

Only epigraphic evidence was presented. There were several photos of dolmens and the stone chambers in Vermont. Archeology usually requires artifacts and carbon dating of source material in stratified layers, in order to lend the ability to make suggested hypothesis and support arguments.

40 years after this book's publication, I don't know of any shipwrecks, amphora, or pottery inscriptions that support the contention of European merchant ships in American waters. The shipping container of the ancient world was the amphora. If a fleet or sequence of trading ships were plying waters regularly, then there should have been some evidence of at least one of these being recovered in an archeological dig, whether on land or as part of a marine salvage. If Monhegan Island, ME were a trading port, then it should have lots of these with evidence of oil, wine, and grain from Southern Europe, Egypt, or North Africa. Ships that made it to North America would have been exchanging these as trade goods for whatever was being trans-shipped. Otherwise the boat would have been using ballast material which should be evident as unusual piles of non-indigenous rock. I've never seen any evidence for either of these types of proof.

Today's DNA research seems to be destroying claims of ancestry. If the current populations represent replacements, then skeletal remains will be required for DNA research, and in the US, there is a particular opposition to skeletal DNA investigation. This sounds like a conspiracy to suppress knowledge, however so few skeletons and artifacts are reported that there may not be enough source material to generate a strong controversy.

Overall this book presents interesting concepts thrown out by an educated author writing a popular format book targeted to a large mass of readers. The author didn't attempt to use sensationalists material or explanations, but he did draw a lot of material from a relatively small circle of individuals, who may have been attempting to generate facts to support a reasoned conclusion, which may not be correct. ...more

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Sep 20, 2016 Merko rated it liked it

I very interesting read if you like history. The much of unknown/un-taught history of America is covered in detail.

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Nov 08, 2016 Daniel Callister rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Really fun read, especially living in NH and so close to all the sites he and others investigate in this book. I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of his theories, and you definitely need to have an open mind to enjoy this book, but I found it to be an incredibly fun and interesting read. After you read this, I would highly recommend reading Vermont's Stone Chambers: An Inquiry Into Their Past by Giovanna Neudorfer. It is a historic and scientific survey of the stone chambers in VT and, honestly I am ...more

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Jan 28, 2015 Daniel Callister rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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Nov 22, 2009 Tom rated it liked it

Shelves: history

Not everyone would agree that this classic is history. Fell interprets a number of 'ruins' as evidence that ancient Europeans visited N. America long before Columbus. When this was first published it was considered heretical, but since then a number of books have been published that suggest that there were many visits from Europe and, even perhaps, China to this continent in ancient times. these remain outside mainstream history but you get the sense that even there, a sea change is about to occ ...more

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Nov 18, 2015 Inis Fal rated it it was amazing

This is an absolutely outstanding book! Barry Fell bring to light the amazing history of pre-colonial America and archaeological evidence missing from every history and text book in this country. Every page is laced with the thrill of discovery and amazing evidence of ancient civilizations coming to these shores, from Celtic Ogam to Iberian Punic, to Egyptian and Basque influence as well. Well written, and well worth the read, especially for any and all linguists out there interested in the conn ...more

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Jan 25, 2008 Sally rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

A book that gives evidence for the pre-Columbian presence of Europeans and Africans in North America; his views are still considered radical, but I've run into similar statements even in some recent school textbooks, so things do move slowly forward. ...more

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Feb 07, 2016 RA Ratterman rated it it was amazing

Most books are rated related to their usefulness and contributions to my research.
Overall, a good book for the researcher and enthusiast.
Read for personal research
- found this book's contents helpful and inspiring - number rating relates to the book's contribution to my needs. ...more

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