The main pieces of evidence presented by Van Sertima are the monumental carved basalt Olmec heads. It was generally 'ignored or dismissed' by academic experts at the time and strongly criticized in detail in an academic journal in 1997. The book, published by Random House rather than an academic press, was a bestseller and achieved widespread attention within the African American community for his claims of prehistoric African contact and diffusion of culture in Central and South America.

The book deals mostly with his claims of African origin of Mesoamerican culture in the Western Hemisphere, but among other things also writing that the kings of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt were Nubians.

He published his They Came Before Columbus 1976, as a Rutgers graduate student. In 1970 Van Sertima immigrated to the United States, where he entered Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, for graduate work. In doing field work in Africa, he compiled a dictionary of Swahili legal terms in 1967. Van Sertima married Maria Nagy in 1964 they adopted two sons. From 1957 to 1959, worked a Press and Broadcasting Officer in the Guyana Information Services During the 1960s, he worked for several years in Great Britain as a journalist, doing weekly broadcasts to the Caribbean and Africa. During his studies, he learned Swahili and Hungarian. In addition to his creative writing, Van Sertima completed his undergraduate studies in African languages and literature at SOAS in 1969, where he graduated with honors. He attended the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London from 1959. After his divorce from Maria, he married Jacqueline Pattern in 1984 and gained two stepdaughters. In 1970, Van Sertima began his graduate work at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He then attended the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, graduating in 1969 as an honor student with a Bachelor of Arts degree in African languages and literature. In 1964, Van Sertima married Maria Nagy and together they adopted two boys. Ivan Van Sertima was born in Kitty Village, near Georgetown, Guyana. 3.1 They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America (1976).

Ivan van sertima