Commenting on the coins claim in the article.
From Pre-Columbian Old World Coins in America: An Examination of the Evidence : Jeremiah F. Epstein
Bar Kokhba coins were minted during a very short period, ca. A.D. 132-35, and relatively few were produced, the discovery of three within the same state calls for comment. In view of the ever-present possibility of counterfeits, I sent a photocopy of the Clay City piece to Meshorer for identification. He wrote me as follows (March 3, 1978):
The coin illustrated in the paper you sent me is a forgery from the beginning of this century.... in the 19th century—mainly during its second half—many pilgrims and other Holy Land tourists visited the holy places in Palestine, thus starting the period of tourism and raising the demand for souvenirs; and this too was the time when the first forgeries of Jewish antiquities began to supply the market's demand. Around 1900 there were already twenty principal Jewish coins which were forged and sold as original "genuine Jewish Sou¬venirs" of the Holy Land.
...
It would be satisfying to dispose of all the Bar Kokhba coins as forgeries, but this is hardly necessary. They were found either on the surface or close enough to it to be rooted out by pigs or dug up by a small boy playing in his garden. There is no context in any way suggestive of their being pre-Columbian.

Doug Weller

Director The Hall of Ma'at
Doug's Skeptical Archaeology site::
[www.ramtops.co.uk]