LONDON - Christopher Columbus may not have been the first European to reach the New World - the Romans may have gotten there first, New Scientist magazine said yesterday. Anthropologist Roman Hristov, formerly of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, believes a small black terra-cotta head that was unearthed near Mexico City in 1933 is a Roman artifact and represents proof that the Romans arrived before Columbus, the magazine reported. ''Hristov believes the head is the first hard evidence of pre-Hispanic transocean contacts between the Old and New World,'' the weekly magazine said. Hristov drilled material from the neck of the head that scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, tested and estimated was fired 1,800 years ago. Art experts agree it is Roman and date it to AD 200. Archeologists verified its authenticity because it was excavated from a site by professionals. ''This was sealed under three floors. It's as close to archeological certainty as you can get,'' David Kelley, an archeologist at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada, told the magazine.

This story ran on page A02 of the Boston Globe on 2/10/2000. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company.