KUNMING, July 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Was Zheng He (1371-1435), the ancient Chinese seafaring hero, instead of Christopher Columbus, the finder of the New Continent? Some scholars from southwestern China's Yunnan Province recently expressed their support to research by a retired British officer on the issue.

    From 1405 to 1433 of the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He voyaged to more than 30 countries in Asia and Africa, traveling more than 100,000 kilometers. At its peak, his fleet comprised more than 300 ships manned by about 27,000 sailors, a number unrivaled in the world at that time.

    But some believed that Zheng not only sailed to southern Asia and Africa but also sailed to the Americas in 1421, around 87 years earlier than Columbus' discovery of the New Continent.

    Representative of this hypothesis is Gavin Menzis, a retired officer from Britain. He said the first batch of European migrants to the Americas found there were already Chinese habitats on the Continent. In his book, 1421, the Year China Discovered the World,Menzis asserted that the first to see the Continent were Chinese, not Europeans.

    Menzis believed the ancient navigation map that was discovered some three months ago was most likely left over from Zheng He. He said more important evidence for the hypothesis came from DNA tests. Many local residents in the above-mentioned original habitats of Chinese on the New Continent bear the same DNA as that of Chinese people.

    Though not a professional researcher and his studies criticized by some western and Chinese scholars as pseudo-science, Menzis has recently won support from some other Chinese scholars for his academic efforts.

    According to He Ming, the secretary-general of the Zheng He Research Center of Yunnan, though his theory is yet to be proven, Menzis attached great importance to field inspections and to use of experiences and means from a wide range of disciplines, including archeology, anthropology, biology and genetics.

    "Given the fact we cannot prove his theory is false, Menzis should be revered for his hard work in research, which is valuable enough to be continued,"He Ming said.

    He Ming also paid attention to the thesis raised earlier this month by Prof. Mark Nickless with the Washington University at an international seminar on Zheng He's voyages held in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Zhejiang Province.

    The professor said ruined rock paintings on a cliff at the Mississippi River valley were virtually designs of Chinese dragons. His argument was based on description by a French priest named Pierre Marquette in the 17th century. Besides, the time when the paintings were created tallied with the Zheng He era, Nickless believed. This paintings, though destroyed in mid 19th century, can be seen as evidence for the discovery of the New Continent by the ancient Chinese navigator. Enditem