According to a review in New Scientist for February 12, evidence has been brought forward that the Romans may have set foot in the New World long before Columbus landed there. The artefact supporting this idea is a black terracotta head a few centimetres high, depicting a bearded man, which was originally excavated in 1933 in the Toluca valley of Mexico but remained hidden in a Mexico City museum until rediscovered in 1994. The artefact differs in style from any other work of art known to belong to the pre-Columbian period of history.
The head was originally excavated by professional archaeologists from a burial ground where it had been sealed down since before 1510 - 10 years prior to the Spanish conquest. A thermoluminescence test of powder derived from the neck of the specimen indicated that it had been fired in about AD200.
This discovery is claimed to be the first hard evidence encountered that some contact took place between the Old World and the New before the Spaniards invaded Mexico. There is general agreement between archaeologists that the terracotta is indeed Roman in origin. Nevertheless, some question its significance in the setting in which it was found. The suggestion has been made that it may have been taken from a Roman vessel shipwrecked off the coast of Mexico, and that it cannot be assumed that there was any social contact between European and American civilisations at that time. And, significantly, there is no other evidence that ancient cultures from Europe or elsewhere have ever exerted an influence on the artefacts of pre-Columbian culture in that part of the world.