Exodus Lost is a first-rate intellectual adventure. Its fresh perspective and new revelations make for a thoughtful and captivating journey into the roots of Mesoamerican and Western civilizations. I highly recommend this thought-provoking new book.

-Dr. Jonathan Fanton, distinguished historian, professor, retired President of the New School University, and retired President of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.


Compton cleverly draws on data across disciplines in both the humanities and natural sciences to make a compelling argument about the origins of Mesoamerica ’s great civilizations. Exodus Lost is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of this part of the world, as well as a gripping example of how inter-disciplinary research can bring a fresh, new hypothesis to solving old mysteries.

-Dr. Lisa Bradshaw, neo-tropical ecologist


S. C. Compton's ground-breaking inquiry into the origins of Mesoamerican culture... Exodus Lost is a thorough-going scholarly inquiry into the yet-unanswered questions prompted by fascinating archaeological discoveries in cities like San Lorenzo in the 'Olmec Heartland.'

-Dr. Peter Colman introducing an excerpt from Exodus Lost for The Mexican Experience, a leading website on all things Mexico.


Exodus Lost is a page-turner for anyone interested in anthropology and history. I highly recommend this fascinating, educational read by a scholar refreshingly willing to think "out of the box."

-Dr. David Kaufman, Linguistic Anthropologist


Unlike most of these authors, Compton amassed a broad spectrum of data, carefully contextualized historically, and builds a focused argument... and a suite of difficult-to-dismiss parallels.

-Dr. Alice Kehoe, renowned anthropologist, leading expert on Native American archaeology and culture, and author of numerous books including North American Indians: A Comprehensive Account, which has long been a definitive college textbook.


As a result of exhaustive research on the architecture, art, and texts of cultures on both sides of the Atlantic, Steve Compton has succeeded in amassing an array of striking similarities between the Olmec culture, on the one hand, and that of the Hyksos and Nubians, on the other hand. Whether these similarities are sufficient to establish the author's thesis of a trans-Atlantic origin of Meso-American civilization, readers will need to examine and ponder this fascinating book for themselves.

-Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, eminent historian, author, professor, and a foremost expert on Biblical archaeology.


My husband took this manuscript on our yearly vacation to Padre Island... All I can tell you is that neither of us could put the manuscript down until it was finished. Only later did the irony of the situation appear: the scholarly documentation of the Pre-Columbian civilization of Mesoamerica articulated in such an engaging spell-binding manner that neither of us could stop reading it. Guaranteed to be a real page-turner.

-Dr. Vienna Schwartz