去年底，我被中西部古文字岩画学会推选为学术会刊主编。这个会，会员不多，大半是退休人士，学历有中学教师到工程师，计算机程序员，教授都有。大家对美洲史前哥伦布时代，古文明有兴趣，因为俄亥俄州附近有很多原住民的土坟，古代石器，原住民的遗址。我是唯一的亚裔会员，也是最新的会员之一。2011年被邀请做了两个主题报告，谈宣德金牌与《坤輿万国全图》，从此加入，每年季会都做报告，讲中国文化的特点，会员都感到很新鲜。

以下是我主持的第一次会刊的开篇词，总结了一下一些想法，原文是英文，就不翻译了。

From the Editor

As one of the most junior members, I was surprised and honored when asked to take upthe journal   editorship of Midwest Epigraphic Society. My first contact with Midwest Epigraphic Society was 2011 when I was  invited to present two papers. Since then, I have presented at almost every quarterly meeting. My ethnic  Chinese background, being unique among the members, often brings surprises to our members. I need to  thank Dave Rush, Jim Leslie, Jack Burgess, Daneen Axelrod,Bill Barr, Weldon Mortine, John White, Hu  McCulloch, and many other members for their friendship, support, and mostly for their open-mindedness.

Having a former career in biochemistry in academia and industries, I would never thought of history as  something to spend my retirement years. The serendipitous acquisition of a Ming medallion in 2006 has  changed my life.  The curiosity to authenticate themedallion turns out to be a 10-year pursuit and probably the most important turning point of my interesting post-retirement endeavor. My two papers viewed and downloaded by scholars from more than 50 nations in  academia.edu are now listed as the top 0.5% most read in the last 30 days at this site.  My two books, still   only  available in Chinese, should have been in English in 2015 if I had not been drawn to so many lectures in  Asia  and US. The exposure in the television program “America Unearthed” in Dec 2014, thanks to Scott Wolter’s invitation, opened up other opportunities for me and for those who have been holding some artifacts for  decades not knowing how to characterize them. Some are presented in this Journal. I believe it is this quest  for new perspective to fill in the gap iswhat brought me to this position at  MES.

America, named after Amerigo Vespucci, has been a continent of immigrants since more than 10,000 years ago. Who came to America first is hard to conclude. However, how America became a magnet for  international immigrants may be a question that could be answered. For more than two centuries, textbooks have been  inundated with erroneous information; so are we, taught by unwary teachers. The “pre-history” before 1492 is little known or distorted at best for various reasons, among which cultural  misunderstanding may be the most responsible. In the advent of the Internet, books and maps of the  fifteenth century to  eighteenth century are readily available, so are current photos, videos of places that we previously had no access.  The powerful combination of these tools dramatically changes the way we look at “pre-history”.

Learning pre-Columbian history of America is the theme of MES. It has nothing to do with reverting sovereignty to certain ethnic groups or nationality, which is just as  futile as any attempt to delineate the bloodline of a “true”  English, or any nationality for that matter. It would be a thousand times more complicated for Americans,  many of whom find that their previous assumptions are so ludicrously absurd. The “Native American” or  Asian  genetic components they  never knew before DNA analysis are now prompting themfor more ancestral   information.  It is human instinct to learn our origin. This is really part of the question MES members are  trying to answer. Inevitably,  this would eventually converge to the  conclusion that the human genomic   difference for all races is only 0.1%. Each of us is nomore than a citizen of a shared planet for a finite period of time. Looking down from a space ship, who can tell the national border and skin color? If this was defined and agreed upon, it might save us from many conflicts, let alone lives, due to ethnic, racial and religious   differences.

The process of confrontation, coalition, and peaceful coexistence could be shortened through understanding evolution and conglomeration of civilizations. For the human species to survive there should be less and less “they” than “we”. If the association to certain ethnicity and nationality in the papers bothers you, it is merely there for historical reasons. Now, please enjoy the diverse  experience of this group of unconventional authors outside the  “mainstream”.

李兆良 2015.12.24