[Joe 6-pack]

"Soon the Chinese will claim to have been the first in North America."

That notion was being floated at least as far back as 2004.

[stormer]

I can recall an article from American Heritage in the mid 1960s that discussed the possibility. There are a number of language and cultural cognates between Mayan and Chinese peoples. There is also the story in the 7th century Book of Liang by Yao Silian, about Hwui Shen, a Buddhist monk who traveled to Fusang (America?). This would place him in the Americas toward the end of the classical Mayan period, perhaps when Chinese concepts would be most influential. Interesting stuff.

[muawiyah]

That's a pretty decent brief at that ref. There's also evidence that the Chinese made some serious globe trotting events back circa 1865 BC.

That was another one of those "high spots" just before a serious decline. China has had several flood situations over the last 4,000 years that simply stopped civilization in its tracks, so we can imagine all sorts of advances being wiped out without a trace.