INTRODUCTION 23Figure A.9 Hypothetical map of ancient lost continents. After Robert Wauchope, Lost Tribes
and Sunken Continents: Myth and Method in the Study of American Indians.Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press, 1962, p. 37.
tom of the ocean, but not before its inhabitants escaped to America and other con-
tinents and then gave rise to the major civilizations of the ancient world. The story
of Atlantis was an old one going back to Plato, who wrote that it had been told to
Solon by Egyptian priests many years before. With the “discovery” of America by
Columbus, interest in Atlantis was revived, some Spaniards claiming that America
was the remains of the sunken continent mentioned by Plato. Box A.3 discusses some
of the more interesting theories about the Lost Continent origin of the Mesoamer-
ican peoples.
Box A.3 Lost-Continent RomanticistsThe idea that the Mesoamerican and other advanced civilizations originated in Atlantis was pop-
ularized by a series of remarkably romantic figures. One of these was Ignatius T. T. Donnelly, a
U.S. Congressman who in his 1880 book, Atlantis: The Antediluvian Worldargued that Plato’s At-
lantis was not only real but also was the original Garden of Eden and the place from which Mex-
ico and all the continents were populated. By 1949, Donnelly’s book had already undergone
fifty printings!
(continued)00^111 9
1311(1盼沾躬0^6^1311( 170003
151311(1 3ASIANew ZealandASIAEaSler IslandEaSler IslandEaSlerASIAASIA ASIAASIA ASIA
ASIA ASIA
ASIA ASIA ASIA ASIAASIA ASIA ASIAASIA ASIA ASIA ASIA ASIAASIA ASIA ASIAASIA ASIA0^6^1311(0^6^1311( 1 1