Dr. Ivan Van Sertima is a literary critic, linguist, anthropologist, and writer.
In 1977 he wrote They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America, for which he won the Clarence L. Holte Prize for excellence in literature and the humanities relating to the cultural heritage of Africa.
He is the editor of the Journal of African Civilizations, and has edited numerous recent books including African Presence in Early America, Great African Thinkers, and Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern.
An author and editor, his prize-winning They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America is in its twenty-first printing;
He has defended this highly controversial thesis before the Smithsonian, which has recently published his address.
During the European Dark Ages, between the 7th and 14th century AD, the Moorish Empire in Spain became one of the world's finest civilizations.
General Tarik and his Black Moorish army from Morocco, conquered Spain after a week long battle with King Roderick in 711 AD. (The word tariff and the Rock of Gibraltar were named after him). They found that Europe, with the assistance of the Catholic Church, had returned almost to complete barbarism.
The population was 90% illiterate and had lost all of the civilizing principles that were passed on by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
The Moors reintroduced mathematics, medicine, agriculture, and the physical sciences. The clumsy Roman numerals were replaced by Arabic figures including the zero and the decimal point. As Dr. Van Sertima says, "You can't do higher mathematics with Roman numerals."
The Moors introduced agriculture to Europe including cotton, rice, sugar cane, dates, ginger, lemons, and strawberries. They also taught them how to store grain for up to 100 years and built underground grain silos.
