Not only is this theory wrong -- the large preponderance of archeological and genetic evidence points against out -- it is also born out of racism and colonialism

When Europeans first came to the places like the Americas they refused to accept that the ancestors of the indigenous people they found there were responsible for the impressive mounds and pyramids and other evidence of a sophisticated culture

It fitted better onto their world view (and justified the atrocities against the indigenous) to think that a previous white civilization had spread around the world seeding civilizations, but then had been wiped out in a catastrophe

This theory was widespread in 19th century scientists circles, but as evidence gathered, by the twentieth century, scientists had found that all those impressive moments were built by the ancestors of the indigenous peoples