New row over who discovered America
Mar 9 2004
Aled Blake, The Western Mail
THE row over who discovered America has erupted again with claims that it was not Christopher Columbus nor even a Welsh prince 400 years earlier.
But historians are claiming that the true winner of the race to America was Welsh, and was a prince. But they say it happened in the sixth century, not the 12th.
Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett , who are leading experts on King Arthur, say the South Walian prince Madoc Morfran sailed in 562AD and made the discovery.
Madoc made his journey after a comet hit the Earth in the 500s, which Welsh scientists say caused famine and disease during that century.
It throws into doubt the academic theory which says another Madoc, the son of Owen Gwynedd, sailed to North America in 1170. It also predates Columbus's voyage in 1492.
Mr Wilson, from Cardiff, and Mr Blackett, from Newcastle, who have published five books on Welsh ancient history, claim British-style hill forts exist in Ohio, and that Welsh became integrated into Native American languages.
They say their research is backed up by records of Native American history which tell of a race of white men arriving in America around that time, as well as discoveries of Caucasian-like skeletons around Ohio.
Mr Wilson said, "There are old-style Welsh hill forts around the Ohio River valley that are patterned as they are in Britain.
"They have a lot of inscriptions out there, carved in caves and on artifacts which are in coelbren, the old Welsh alphabet mainly recorded in South-East Wales.
"The idea is that Madoc did go to America; the question then is, 'Which Madoc?'
"These voyages are described as mystical. There was a strange belief in the 19th century that the ancient British believed in another world. But that was what the Spanish called the New World."
Mr Wilson believes Madoc sailed across the Atlantic from Milford Haven, arriving in Newfoundland and sailing down the coast along Massachusetts and then around Florida.
The Welsh explorers then sailed to the Gulf of Mexico and joined the Mississippi River before continuing along the Ohio River and settling in Kentucky.
Mr Wilson said, "We are working with the Americans on this and what they are saying is the ditches around the mounds have been slowly filled in and they are getting down to the original level of the ditches where sixth century material is coming out.
"There is so much evidence. What we are saying is that this should be looked at.
"Madoc came back after 10 years, he then describes in well-known poetry this place he discovered.
"It is no good dismissing it as fairy tales, it must be done as clinically and honestly as we can.
"We are not jumping up and down and saying this should be believed straightaway, but there is very strong evidence. It is quite a story.
"Everybody forgets the Native American history which says a nation of white men arrived."
Astronomers at Cardiff University this year announced that the cause of poor crops and starvation in the 6th Century was a comet hitting the Earth.
Mr Wilson said Mr Blackett and he had made the discovery in the 1980s.
The comet caused a massive explosion in the upper atmosphere.
Debris from the giant blast enveloped the earth in soot and ash, blocking out the sunlight and causing the extremely cold weather - as would happen after an all-out nuclear war.
Mr Wilson added, "The affect of the massive catastrophe caused by debris from a comet falling on Britain in 562 ADcalls for a re-writing of British history."
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