This Olmec Head (right) is thought to be over 3000 years old. The man's features are clearly African, but this giant 8 foot tall stone statue was found in the jungles of Mexico - and is but one of 17 so far discovered, in varrying stages of erosion from millennia in the deep jungle.

One imagines, in any century, it is to be considered a high honor for someone to take the time to carve your likeness in anything even approaching the size of a volkswagon - thus, they were leaders, or heroes; certainly revered figures. Before Rome or Greece, or even the pharaohs of Egypt, there was a civilization, a dominant culture in Mexico from the Pacific to the Yucatan - and the people who posed for the Olmec Heads are known to have written in symbols almost identical to that of the Nubian, Kush, Vai and Mande tribes of West Africa.

While his helment looks like something right out of the Bronze Age, on closer inspection, doesn't appear to have been made of metal at all - it could very well have been leather, or any form of cloth attributed to the time. Could it be simply a hat, or even a religious costume? The thing is, each Olmec Head is of a different person - with slightly different features, and slightly different hats.

While this may seem to have nothing to do with aliens, or even a particularly advanced ancient civilization, it is stunning proof that people from Africa set out across the Mid Atlantic and settled in the Americas. Given that, one has to understand what an incredible feat it was for the time - and how impressed the locals must have been.

There was certainly trade between the two continents of Africa and South America: Egyptian mummies were recently forensically found to have traces of cocoa and tobacco (perhaps as medicines, shortly before their deaths) plants that were originally indigenous to the Americas. But this is not the only connection: ancient Egyptian boats are exactly like what Peruvian natives weave today, out of reeds, to venture out onto Lake Titicaca - shaped just slightly more like a crescent moon than a canoe, or a classic dragon headed Viking vessel - and just so happens to be the perfect shape for a relatively small ship to handle an ocean's waves.

We've all heard stories of the Vikings settling in Iceland, Greenland, and as far as Eastern Canada - legends have those expeditions drifting further inland, and assimilating into the population. Even in mainstream science, it is becoming more and more accepted today, that Columbus did not discover America - it was more of a validation of its existence to the political dominance of the day. There is even a legend of a Chinese expedition across the Pacific - which landed in California, and set out north, east and south from there - the southern band having settled among the Aztec and Inca, eventually assimilating into their societies, bringing with them the same circular calendar, the same dragonesque lizard gods; even the same styles of clothing.

Perhaps the one reason why these expeditions are reduced to legends, and even myths, may be because they either failed to thrive; or were for whatever reason either unable or unwilling to return. The Olmecs are said to have arrived in Mexico by twelve roads through the sea, (referring to twelve seperate expeditions, out from West Africa) and settled in a variety of places, even as far south as Guatemala - where they are credited with dividing the early Maya culture in half, via language. Cultures were forced to adapt or perish. Battles were won and lost - fought, and even avoided - and we will likely never know any of their particulars. We can only gaze in awe and wonder at what they've left behind.

In the 16th Century, when Cortez arrived in America, the dominant culture of Mexico City was the Great Aztec Nation. Expecting primitive natives, and hoping for El Dorado, he found instead Teotihuacan (below left). Stumbling upon an entirely new civilization - with such imposing landmarks as the Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon and Avenue of the Dead - what must he have thought this civilization capable of? Whatever his thoughts, he easily conquered its people and looted all of its gold.

Outnumbering Cortez nearly 100 to 1, Montezuma had no reason to contemplate extinction. But the fall of the Aztecs - whose bloody religious rituals looked exactly like devil worship to the equally superstitious pre-renaissance Christians - goes down in history as by far the most stunning slaughter of all time. Palaces were looted, libraries raided, temples burned - every last golden trinket was melted down, and uncountled priceless jade statuettes were smashed - very few ancient historical records escaped destruction. But it almost goes without saying that a civilization like the Aztec (based on little of their own invention beyond bloody human sacrifice) is probably fairly incapable of designing, much less constructing, the massive pyramid cities which we associate with them today.

Just being in the presence of such monuments seems to conjur up the spirits of our ancestors. But nothing we know of our past, firsthand, can account for the vast number and precision of the alignments incorporated within. Stepped pyramids representing every planet in our solar system, each laid out as accurate as we could manage today; were not possibly built by a people who did not possess the wheel, and whose major pastime was mass Human sacrifice. It is important to remember that Uranus and Neptune were not discovered until well after the Aztec empire was a distant memory - and Pluto, in the early 20th Century, several centuries after the Aztecs put their violent marks on the grand pyramids of Mexico; and likely millennia after they were originally constructed.

Looking harder at the symmetry and mathematics permeating every angle of these sites, it is becoming more widely accepted today, in mainstream science, that the Aztecs had nothing to do with their original construction. Overlooking any Meso American site, especially Teotihuacan, it is hard to not come away with a sense of standing in the playground of giants - and that is very likely how these ancient peoples felt, when they stumbled upon the scene themselves; and as much is sifted from their legends, surviving to this day, in the people of Mexico. As for the Mayan culture, the word "Maya" means, simply, "old ones" - just as "Anasazi," from the Four Corners area of the American Southwest, means "ancient aliens." Could it be that the Anasazi were assimilated Asians, who eventually migrated south to Mexico?

Mexico City claims the record for longest inhabited city, through its association with and proximity to Teotihuacan - predating Rome, Athens, Baghdad, and many other top contenders; if we only knew by what phoenomenal margin. The pyramids of Teotihuacan are aligned to the planets and stars - as they appeared in the sky during the age of Leo, circa 10,500 BC, the exact same era as the Pyramids of Giza are equally, amazingly, aligned - and in such a way that we would scarcely be capable of today. But why would we want to? We have no need of architectual reminders that there are giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn, and how many moons they have; but yet there are pyramids corresponding to every planet, spaced out in perfect proportions - with even a tiny monument for Pluto, way off in the mountains. If any of us are interested, we can look it up in a book, or turn on the Discovery Channel. It is perhaps to our credit, in this great age of mass communication, that we are able to make connections across fields of science that previously had no interest in each other - and this collaboration may be the key to rediscovering our ancient heritage on this planet.

Piecing it all together: this amazing civilization, only recently emerging from the mists of time, was certainly maritime based. We have no reason to believe their territory did not span the entire world. They knew the measurements of the Earth, and the stars of the sky, as well as we do today - but not just for planting, or religious ceremonies; they didn't stop there. These are far more accurate than is necessarry for mere agriculture, even in hostile climates. Precision accuracy is required, however, to navigate the high seas; perhaps to sail to all the places of the world that they had settled, or colonized - and some of them, on precice points of global alignment, are now many meters underwater: Yoniguni off the coast of Japan; Pohnpei and Easter Island in the South Pacific; Bimini Island in the Bahamas; the Azores; Nazca; Machu Picchu; Tiahuanaco; Stonehenge; Angkor Wot; the phoenominal Pyramids of Egypt, Mexico and China; and many others: all are sites which are arranged at specific regular intervals around the globe, and aligned to each other in familiar patterns that are curiously known to the ancients as Sacred Geometry. Even their architecture could not possibly have been constructed or conceived by primitive people. Each of them, in their own way, tells us their time, their Age, was 13,000 years ago - when Mankind was not supposed to have had much technology beyond fire and stone spears; no wheel, no writing, certainly no mathematics or astronomy. But here all of these sites are. What are we to make of them? Clearly, history has to be rewritten.