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Jeff Wallenfeldt Jeff Wallenfeldt, manager of Geography and History, has worked as an editor at Encyclopaedia since 1992.
In Tree Rings And Radioactive Carbon, Signs Of The Vikings In North America
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Did the Vikings discover America? It’s a question that requires some unpacking.To begin with, there’s the problem of the Eurocentric perspective of the word
, which looks at the encounter with the New World from the vantage point of guys on ships and ignores the fact that indigenous people had long been calling it home. In that sense, America was probably discovered by hunters from Asia, who historians believe made their way to Alaska either on foot from Siberia via a land bridge across the Bering Strait during the last ice age or came by boat and continued southward along the coastline. In either case, these people arrived 13, 000–35, 000 years ago—so long ago that their descendants are considered the continent’s indigenous peoples, Native Americans.
Years Before Christopher Columbus, Viking Leif Erickson Landed In North America
Rephrasing the question, we can ask instead whether the Vikings were the first non-Native Americans to encounterAmerica. The answer to that question, however, hinges on what we mean by America. If we are referring to America broadly—meaning North and South America—there is a possibility that Polynesians got there first. Genetic analysis of the sweet potato, which is native to America, has led scientists to conclude that Polynesian explorers had an early encounter with South America and took the sweet potato with them to Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Scholars are convinced that this exchange took place before the time of Christopher Columbus, but they do not know whether it preceded the visits to North America by the Vikings.
Asking whether the Vikings were the first Europeans to encounter America sets the stage for the Vikings-versus-Columbus debate, but first the legendary voyage of St. Brendan has to be reckoned with. According to the epic “Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot” (recorded in Latin prose sometime between the mid-8th and early 10th century as
), in the 6th century Brendan, a peripatetic Irish monk, and some of his brethren sojourned west across theAtlantic Ocean in a bowl-shaped boat known as a curragh (coracle). It has been argued that Brendan reached North America, and a modern experiment proved that it is possible to make a transatlantic crossing in a curragh, but there is no archaeological evidence of an early Irish visit to North America.
The Vikings: A Memorable Visit To America
So it still comes down to Columbus and the Vikings. History tells us that in 1492, while leading a Spanish-sponsored three-ship flotilla in search of a shorter route to Asia, Italian navigator Christopher Columbus happened upon America in the form of Guanahani (probably San Salvador Island, though maybe another Bahamian island or the Turks and Caicos Islands). Another Italian navigator, John Cabot, sailing for England, made his way to Canada about this time, but not until 1497, after Columbus. As a result, Columbus was nearly universally declared the “discoverer” of America.
Standing in opposition to that claim, however, were the accounts of Viking journeys to a place called Vinland that appeared in a pair of medieval Norse sagas (heroic prose poems). According to the
(“Saga of the Greenlanders”), Bjarni Herjólfsson became the first European to sight mainland North America when his Greenland-bound ship was blown westward off course about 985. Further, about 1000, Leif Eriksson, son of Erik the Red, is reported to have led an expedition in search of the land sighted by Bjarni and to have found an icy barren land he called Helluland (“Land of Flat Rocks”) before eventually traveling south and finding Vinland (“Land of Wine”). Later, following a pair of expeditions undertaken by Leif’s brothers, Thorfinn Karlsefni, an Icelandic trader, led another expedition to Vinland, where it stayed for three years. In
The Vikings Reached America Before Columbus, Says New Study
(“Erik the Red’s Saga”), Leif is the accidental discoverer of Vinland, and Thorfinn and his wife, Gudrid, are credited with all subsequent explorations.
These narratives of exploration of a place that sounded like Maine, Rhode Island, or Atlantic Canada were thought to be just stories, like “Voyage of St. Brendan the Abbot, ” until 1960, when Helge Ingstad, a Norwegian explorer, and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, were led by a local man to a site on the northern tip of Newfoundland island. There, at L’Anse aux Meadows, they discovered the remains of a Viking encampment that they were able to date to the year 1000. These dramatic archaeological discoveries proved not only that the Vikings had indeed explored America some 500 years before Columbus’s arrival but also that they had traveled farther south to areas where grapes grew, to Vinland. The Vikings had indeed visited North America, and if they did not “discover” America in the strict sense of the word, they certainly got there before Columbus did.This article is about the Viking presce in the western Arctic. For the Swedish, see Swedish colonization of the Americas. For Danish-Norwegian, see Danish colonization of the Americas.
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th ctury, wh Norsem explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greland and creating a short term settlemt near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Anse aux Meadows where the remains of buildings were found in 1960 dating to approximately 1, 000 years ago.
Vikings Discover North America 6 By Highrisemedia On Deviantart
Was small and did not last as long. Other such Norse voyages are likely to have occurred for some time, but there is no evidce of any Norse settlemt on mainland North America lasting beyond the 11th ctury.
A map of the Eastern Settlemt on Greland, covering approximately the modern municipality of Kujalleq. Eiriksfjord (Erik's fjord) and his farm Brattahlid are shown, as is the location of the bishopric at Gardar.
According to the Sagas of Icelanders, Norsem from Iceland first settled Greland in the 980s. There is no special reason to doubt the authority of the information that the sagas supply regarding the very beginning of the settlemt, but they cannot be treated as primary evidce for the history of Norse Greland because they embody the literary preoccupations of writers and audices in medieval Iceland that are not always reliable.
Columbus Or The Vikings? Scientists Confirm Who Arrived First In America
Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eiríkr rauði), having be banished from Iceland for manslaughter, explored the uninhabited southwestern coast of Greland during the three years of his banishmt.
He made plans to tice settlers to the area, naming it Greland on the assumption that people would be more eager to go there because the land had a good name.
The inner reaches of one long fjord, named Eiriksfjord after him, was where he evtually established his estate Brattahlid. He issued tracts of land to his followers.
L'anse Aux Meadows & The Viking Discovery Of North America
Norse Greland consisted of two settlemts. The Eastern was at the southwestern tip of Greland, while the Western Settlemt was about 500 km up the west coast, inland from prest-day Nuuk. A smaller settlemt near the Eastern Settlemt is sometimes considered the Middle Settlemt. The combined population was around 2, 000–3, 000.
Norse Greland had a bishopric (at Garðar) and exported walrus ivory, furs, rope, sheep, whale and seal blubber, live animals such as polar bears, supposed unicorn horns (in reality narwhal tusks), and cattle hides. In 1126, the population requested a bishop (headquartered at Garðar), and in 1261, they accepted the overlordship of the Norwegian king. They continued to have their own law and became almost completely politically indepdt after 1349, the time of the Black Death. In 1380, the Kingdom of Norway tered into a personal union with the Kingdom of Dmark.
There is evidce of Norse trade with the natives (called the Skræling by the Norse). The Norse would have countered both Native Americans (the Beothuk, related to the Algonquin) and the Thule, the ancestors of the Inuit. The Dorset had withdrawn from Greland before the Norse settlemt of the island. Items such as comb fragmts, pieces of iron cooking utsils and chisels, chess pieces, ship rivets, carpter's planes, and oak ship fragmts used in Inuit boats have be found far beyond the traditional range of Norse colonization. A small ivory statue that appears to represt a European has also be found among the ruins of an Inuit community house.
Viking Discovery Of America
The settlemts began to decline in the 14th ctury. The Western Settlemt was abandoned around 1350, and the last bishop at Garðar died in 1377.
After a marriage was recorded in 1408, no writt records mtion the settlers. It is probable that the Eastern Settlemt was defunct by the late 15th ctury. The most rect radiocarbon date found in Norse settlemts as of 2002 was 1430 (±15 years).
The Little Ice Age of this period would have made
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