Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca Head - Hypotheses

Hypotheses

Researchers who have analyzed the artifact have come up with several possible explanations for the object's presence at the site:

• A hoax: according to an informal declaration by Paul Schmidt, an archaeologist at UNAM, the head was planted in the site by a participating archaeologist, Hugo Moedano, in an attempt to play a practical joke on José García Payón, supervisor of the dig. Schmidt moreover stated earlier that García Payón was not present during the entirety of the excavation. García Payón’s son insists that his father stated that he was on the site at the time of discovery. According to Hristov, these allegations are hearsay, and because the individuals directly involved have since died, a confirmation or refutation of the allegations has become impossible.

• An import from an early European visitor who came to Central Mexico. The date range for the burial includes the early period of European exploration of the Americas, though it predates the first sustained contact with Mexico under Hernán Cortés. According to Hristov, it is possible but highly unlikely that the head was introduced during the Medieval or early Colonial period. Hristov notes that other historians have considered the possibility of a Norse visit to the region and that the figure's unusual head-dress bears a possible resemblance to Norse or Viking headgear.

• It was traded or carried to Asia, and was imported to America via a transpacific route from southeast Asia by a Chinese or Indian ship. This thesis was proposed by Robert Heine-Geldern in 1961, and has achieved some support.

• Hristov argues that a Roman, Phoenician, or Berber ship, or the drifting of such a shipwreck to the American shores is the best explanation. Hristov claims that the possibility of such an event has been made more likely by the discovery of evidences of travels from Romans, Phoenicians and Berbers in the 6th or 5th century BC to Tenerife and Lanzarote in the Canaries, and of a Roman settlement (from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD) on Lanzarote island. David Grove, an archaeologist at the University of Illinois pointed out that being washed ashore from a Roman shipwreck does not imply any "contact", let alone Roman "discovery" of the New World.