Ivan Van Sertima: Difference between revisions

{{shortShort description|British Africanist (1935–2009)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=AugustFebruary 20142024}}

| name = Ivan Van Sertima

| image = IvanVanSertima1995.jpg

| caption = Van Sertima in 1995

| birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1935|1|26}}

| birth_place = Kitty Village, [[British Guiana]]

| death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2009|5|25|1935|1|26}}

| death_place = [[Highland Park, New Jersey|Highland Park]], New Jersey, United States

|residence citizenship = [[Highland Park, New Jersey]], United StatesKingdom

|citizenship nationality = United[[Guyanese Kingdompeople|Guyanese]]

|spouse =* Maria Nagy (m. 1964; divorced)<br>
* {{marriage|Jacqueline L. Patten|1984}}

| field = [[Africana Studies]]

|alma_mater work_institutions = [[University of London]], [[Rutgers University]]

| doctoral_advisor =

| doctoral_students =

| known_for = Theory of [[Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories|pre-Columbian contact between Africa and the Americas]]

|influenced influences = =

|signature influenced =

He was best known for his discredited [[Olmec alternative origin speculations]], a brand of [[Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories|pre-Columbian contact theory]], which he proposed in his book ''They Came Before Columbus'' (1976). While his Olmec theory has "spread widely in African American community, both lay and scholarly", it was mostly ignored in Mesoamericanist scholarship, and has been dismissed as [[Afrocentrism|Afrocentric]] [[pseudoarchaeology]]<ref name="Alternative">{{cite book |last1=Card |first1=Jeb J. |last2=Anderson |first2=David S. |title=Lost City, Found Pyramid: Understanding Alternative Archaeologies and Pseudoscientific Practices |date=2016 |publisher=University of Alabama Press |isbn=9780817319113 |pages=73, 75, 76, 79 |url=https://wwwbooks.google.com/books/edition/Lost_City_Found_Pyramid/cjOHDAAAQBAJ?hlid=en&gbpv=1cjOHDAAAQBAJ&dq=Van+Sertima+pseudoarchaeology&pg=PA73&printsec=frontcover |access-date=12 November 2019 |language=en}}</ref> and [[pseudohistory]] to the effect of "robbing native American cultures".<ref>[http://consciousness.co.za/ivan-gladstone-van-sertima/ Ivan Gladstone Van Sertima]</ref>{{refn|group=n|"either completely ignored or generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians and other academic professionals." Haslip-Vierra, de Montellano and Barbour.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fritze |first1=Ronald |title=Goodbye Columbus? The Pseudohistory of Who Discovered America |journal=Skeptic |date=1994 |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=88–97 |url=http://www.hallofmaat.com/papers/america_goodbyecolumbus74.html |access-date=12 November 2019 |archive-date=12 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191112200037/http://www.hallofmaat.com/papers/america_goodbyecolumbus74.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Haslip-Viera"/>}}

Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, near [[Georgetown, Guyana|Georgetown]], in what was then the colony of [[British Guiana]] (present-day Guyana); he retained his British citizenship throughout his life. He completed primary and secondary school in Guyana, and started writing poetry.<ref name=Browne /> He attended the [[School of Oriental and African Studies]] (SOAS) at the [[University of London]] from 1959. In addition to his creative writing, Van Sertima completed his undergraduate studies in African languages and literature at SOAS in 1969, where he graduated with honours.<ref name=Browne /><ref name= Obit1 >{{cite web
|access-date= 6 June 2016

|title= Ivan Van Sertima (In Memoriam, 1935-2009)
|website= [[Rutgers University]]

}}</ref><ref name=Obit2 >{{cite web |accessarchive-date=6 June1 July 2016

|date= 29 May 2009 |website= [[Kaieteur News]]

In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered [[Rutgers University]] in [[New Brunswick, New Jersey|New Brunswick]], New Jersey, for graduate work.

After divorcing his first wife, Van Sertima remarried in 1984, to Jacqueline L. Patten, who had two daughters.

Van Sertima completed his master's degree at Rutgers in 1977.<ref name=Browne>{{cite web |access-date=6 June 2016

| first= Murphy | last= Browne <!-- Authorship unclear, but this is the name shown -->}}</ref> He became Associate Professor of African Studies at Rutgers in the Department of Africana Studies in 1979.<ref name=Browne /> Also in 1979, Van Sertima founded the ''Journal of African Civilizations'', which he exclusively edited and published for decades.<ref name=Browne /><ref name=JAfSt >{{cite web |url= http://www.journalofafricancivilizations.com/VanSertima |access-date=6 June 2016

He published several annual compilations, volumes of the journal dealing with various topics of African history. His article "The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview" (1983) discusses early African advances in metallurgy, astronomy, mathematics, architecture, engineering, agriculture, navigation, medicine and writing. He posited that higher learning, in Africa as elsewhere, was the preserve of elites in the centres of civilisations, rendering them vulnerable in the event of the destruction of those centres and the loss of such knowledge.<ref name="Science">{{cite journal |last= Van Sertima |title= The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview |journal= Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern, Journal of African Civilizations |volume= 5 |issue= 1–2 |date= 1983}}<!-- which journal? two titles given, date of original publication? page number in republished book version? --></ref> Van Sertima also discussed African scientific contributions in an essay for the volume ''African Renaissance,'' published in 1999 (he had first published the essay in 1983).<ref name="Science" /> This was a record of the conference held in [[Johannesburg, South Africa|Johannesburg]], South Africa, in September 1998 on the theme of the [[African Renaissance]].

On 7 July 1987, Van Sertima testified before a United States Congressional committee to oppose recognition of the 500th anniversary of [[Christopher Columbus]]'s "discovery" of the Americas. He said, "You cannot really conceive of how insulting it is to Native Americans ... to be told they were 'discovered'."<ref>{{cite news |url= https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/newsday/access/104527398.html?dids=104527398:104527398&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+04%2C+1987&author=By+Jack+Sirica.+Newsday+Washington+Bureau&pub=Newsday+(Combined+editions)&desc=Native+Opposition+to+a+1492+Party&pqatl=google |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110604121658/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/newsday/access/104527398.html?dids=104527398:104527398&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+04,+1987&author=By+Jack+Sirica.+Newsday+Washington+Bureau&pub=Newsday+(Combined+editions)&desc=Native+Opposition+to+a+1492+Party&pqatl=google |url-status= dead |archive-date= 4 June 2011 |first= Jack |last= Sirica |title= Native Opposition to a 1492 Party |magazine= Newsday |date= 4 August 1987}}</ref>

=== ''They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America'' (1976) ===

In this book, Ivan Van Sertima explores his theory that Africans made landfall and had significant influence on the native peoples of [[Mesoamerica]], primarily the [[Olmecs|Olmec]] civilization. Van Sertima accomplishes this through chapters relying heavily on dramatic storytelling. This technique, as well as the ambiguity of the evidence Van Sertima used, have led to the rejection of his work as [[pseudoscience]] or [[pseudoarchaeology]]. This work was published by [[Random House]] and did not go through a [[Peer review|peer review process]].

In a ''[[New York Times]]'' 1977 review of Van Sertima's 1976 book ''They Came Before Columbus'', the archaeologist [[Glyn Daniel]] labelled Van Sertima's work as "ignorant rubbish", and concluded that the works of Van Sertima, and [[Barry Fell]], whom he was also reviewing, "give us badly argued theories based on fantasies". In response to Daniel's review Clarence Weiant, who had worked as an assistant archaeologist specialising in ceramics at [[Tres Zapotes]] and later pursued a career as a chiropractor, wrote a letter to the ''New York Times'' supporting Van Sertima's work. Weiant wrote: "Van Sertima's work is a summary of six or seven years of meticulous research based upon archaeology, egyptology, African history, oceanography, astronomy, botany, rare Arabic and Chinese manuscripts, the letters and journals of early American explorers, and the observations of physical anthropologists.... As one who has been immersed in Mexican archaeology for some forty years, and who participated in the excavation of the first giant heads, I must confess, I am thoroughly convinced of the soundness of Van Sertima's conclusions."<ref>Dr. Clarence Weiant Letter to the ''New York Times'', 1 May 1977.</ref>{{refn|group=n|Weiant, who had a PhD in archaeology, also wrote numerous articles on extrasensory perception and was an active member of the [[American Society for Psychical Research]]. In 1959 he presented the paper "Anthropology and Parapsychology" at an annual meeting of the [[American Anthropological Association]] in [[Mexico City]]. It was based on his 1939 discovery of the cache of figurines at Tres Zapotes through what he believed to be the clairvoyance of Emilio Tamago, a peasant worker.<ref name="Smithsonian">[http://anthropology.si.edu/olmec/english/archaeologists/weiant.htm "Archaeologists & Scholars: Clarence Wolsey Weiant 1897 – 1986"], Smithsonian Institution, 2011, accessed 12 January 2014.</ref>}}

Van Sertima retired in 2006. He died on 25 May 2009 aged 74.<ref name= Obit4 >{{cite web |title= Historian Dr. Ivan Van Sertima Passes

|url=httphttps://www.bet.com/newsarticle/newssufmnn/2009/05/29/newsarticlehistoriandrivanvansertimapasses.htmlhistorian-dr-ivan-van-sertima-passes

[[Category:20th-century Guyanese historians]]