Chachapoya: Was America discovered in

ancient times?
By Al Bell

A documentary on PBS entitled “Carthage’s Lost Warriors” made the case for a theory that
Carthaginians escaping Roman conquest had successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean and had, over
the course of time, made their way up the Amazon River to a remote mountainous region of Peru
known as Chachapoya.

This theory struck a chord with me, for two reasons. First, as a teenager I had read
everything available on Greek, Roman, and Carthaginian times. I remembered that the army of
Hannibal was composed mainly of foreign troops, particularly Libyans, Iberian Celts, Gauls,
and Balearic islanders (sling throwers). Second, I had long believed that there was strong evidence of
pre-Columbian contact between Europe and the Americas. The Carthaginian’s were of a seafaring
Phoenician origin, and it was well documented in the ancient world that the Phoenicians had
discovered a great “island” to the west of the Pillars of Hercules.
Aside from extensive parallels between Chachapoya and the Old World in art work, cultural
similarities still exist. For me, the most dramatic of the latter is the similarity of the sling in both
Chachapoya and the Balearic Islands. The PBS documentary showed the current Balearic Islands
champion demonstrating his skills impressively. That man demonstrated that the sling he uses is
identical to the Chachapoya sling.
The documentary credited the theory to Professor Dr. Hans Giffhorn. Dr. Giffhorn worked
35 years at reputed German Universities until his retirement. He always focused on interdisciplinary
research and combined this with the production of TV-documentaries. The PBS documentary was
not his, however, and he distances himself from some of the information in that film. It was based
on partly obsolete hypotheses, contains some grave mistakes, and was neither made nor controlled
by him. Also, he has adjusted his theory as new evidence has come to light. Sadly for me, one of the
first casualties has been evidence supporting the Carthaginian connection to Chachapoya.
The evidence Professor Giffhorn found refutes established paradigms especially maintained
by leading peers of the international archaeological scientific community. Advised by some
archaeologists, he and his partners decided to choose an unconventional way of publishing the
results: all at one time in one book, and written in a way that is also attractive for non-experts. His
book, Wurde Amerika in der Antike entdeckt? (Was America Discovered in Ancient Times?), contains
hundreds of sources, mostly peer reviewed literature.
However, much detailed or very recent information has not yet been published, but provided
by international authorities, mostly archaeologists. Their statements and the whole research have
been documented professionally on video, as well as a major portion of this evidence, which consists
of artifacts in museums and archaeological sites.
 This collection of the evidence will soon be in a two DVD set, including a three-hour TV-
documentary by Dr. Giffhorn, recently broadcast in Germany. (“Celtic Warriors in ancient Peru –
the mysteries of the Chachapoya”: http://www.amazon.de/Hans-Giffhorn-Keltische-Krieger-
Chachapoya/dp/B015OOSVES The DVDs also will be available in English next year via
Amazon.com.)
In 1998 the search for a rare hummingbird brought Dr. Giffhorn to a remote part of the
Andes in North-eastern Peru. He learned of the most obvious mysteries of the Chachapoya region:
- The best known Chachapoya-building,
“Kuelap” - more than 1200 meters of a
20 meter high and 8 meter thick wall
surrounding an enclosure of 415 circular
buildings of stone: the mightiest building
in ancient America, and the hints about
European looking Chachapoya: the red-
and blond haired “Gringuitos” in remote
villages, and reports of early Spanish
chroniclers.
Dr. Giffhorn was informed by local scientists that the research on the origins of the
Chachapoya culture, extinct now for 500 years, had been stuck in a blind alley for many years, and
that it was obvious that at least some important parts of the Chachapoya culture must have
developed in a distant region. Dr. Giffhorn with his broader knowledge of ancient Old-World
cultures tried to help. So his research started. In its course many reputed experts from the Old and
the New World contributed to it.
As a scientist, Dr. Giffhorn knows that a hypothesis never can be proven. To test it, to make
it more reliable, he tried to refute all competing hypotheses, based on all available evidence (among
them the hypothesis that such an immigration could not have taken place, because neither iron nor
wheels where found in the Chachapoya region). The one hypothesis which resisted all attempts at
refutation he uses as his working hypothesis.
First, he and his colleagues checked the hypothesis that it is impossible to cross the Atlantic
in antiquity. A heap of evidence showed not only that it was possible, but also that it had probably
happened. As an experienced sailor, I know that no argument can refute the idea that, in antiquity, it
was possible to cross the Atlantic and reach South America.
As the next step of the research, Dr. Giffhorn dealt with the New World. Clear evidence
from Peru and Brazil provided by leading archaeologists left no other plausible explanation than that
an immigration from the Old World took place not after 10 AD, but probably at some time in the
1st Century BCE, and that the immigrants found a new home in the Andes of northeastern Peru, at
the crossroads of an ancient trade-route, which connects the Brazilian Atlantic-Coast with the
northern Andes (the “Chachapoya-region”), and mixed with the native population. There is evidence
that at 10 CE the typical tradition of constructing dwellings had appeared in the Chachapoya region
– suddenly out of nowhere.
 But which group in the Old World at that time could have had a sufficiently strong motive
to risk such an absurd adventure? Most groups and regions had to be excluded. Finally, only three
regions with very old, but different cultures from ancient Spain were left, mainly Celts and
Celtiberians from the Spanish northwest and northeast, but also Balearic (Majorcan) slingers. They
could have carried on their archaic traditions, which at that time in Europe were about to be
extinguished by Romanization. And further research in the Old and the New World and some
reliable and convincing British research showed that these groups in the 1st century BC also had a
surprisingly realistic opportunity to reach the Andes of Peru.
For Dr. Giffhorn the last missing pieces of this thrilling detective story were reliable items of
evidence connecting Old-World-cultures with the Chachapoya culture. He identified 6 typical and
complex cultural traditions in the Chachapoya region, which are not explained by archaeologists
convincingly and which are relevant for testing hypotheses about the origins of Chachapoya culture.
They materialize in a) Kuelap, b) The way dwellings and settlements are constructed, c) Trophy
heads and head sculptures, d) Funeral (combination of fetal position and tombs high up in
inaccessible cliffs), e) A special technique of trepanation: the art of opening a skull for medical and
magical reasons, f) Use and fabrication of slings.
Each of them is explained plausibly and as well completely by one single hypothesis: the
immigration of just the three groups, who also were the only ones known to have had sufficiently
strong and realistic motive and opportunity.
Kuelap (a) is unique in the world. It combines Galician and Celtiberian traditions, b) and c)
match exactly Galician traditions, d), e) and f) equally exactly Balearic traditions.
One example: Slings, the principal weapons of Majorca and the Chachapoya, were widely
distributed in the Old and the New World – with many different shapes. The striking similarity
between Chachapoya and Majorcan slings
alone was not sufficient evidence for Dr.
Giffhorn. But he stumbled upon historical
documents revealing that:
- Slings appeared in the New
World about 2000 years ago in the
northern part of Peru,
- The ancient Majorcans as well as
the Chachapoya practiced a strange
custom: they wrapped the slings around
their heads to show that they differ from
other tribes.
And a long time after Dr. Giffhorn learned about these documents, and, after he filmed this
custom on Majorca (where it´s still alive), he remembered a scene from his 16 year old footage -- a
Chachapoya mummy!
It always was a special combination of attributes singular on each side of the Atlantic which
for Dr. Giffhorn finally changed similarities into evidence.
 He is well aware that there is no exception to the rule that all conclusions only are based on
the currently available evidence. But all the evidence which cumulated over the course of 16 years
was so surprisingly convincing even to him, that he sees no other plausible explanation for this than
that the hypothesis matches reality.
Dr. Giffhorn is puzzled by the fact that to this day archaeologists not only do not use his
results, but also try to ignore them.
So Dr. Giffhorn wanted to know the reason for the permanent antipathy of the international
scientific community to any idea of ancient transatlantic voyages. A study of the last 500 years of
scientific literature led to a surprising explanation:
This paradigm was invented in the 19th century as
part of Eurocentric and racist ideologies, which
were used to legitimize colonization and
exploitation of “underdeveloped” regions – and
the paradigm has not lost its power to this day.
Could the last remaining mystery, the
“Gringuitos” and the evidence for European
looking Chachapoya, also be explained by the
hypothesis? Yes. And recently more and more
hints indicate that genetic DNA evidence for a
descent of the red and blond haired “Gringuitos”
in remote Chachapoya villages from ancient Celtic
immigrants cannot be concealed much longer.