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Discovery of 1,000-year-old Viking site in Canada could rewrite history
- skc 11y agoGood, means we can get a season five of "Vikings"
- sakri 11y agoRagnar dumps his Chinese girlfriend for Pocahontas. Rollo gets wind of these new adventures, immediately dumps his Parisian princess and swims to Tahiti for a life of Gauguin, further infuriating his inter-race-swingin bro. Floki giggles. Bjorn is even more bearded & pumped. There is still a diminishing side plot involving the British.
- dogma1138 11y agoman put a spoiler warning at least, sigh.....
- distances 11y agoThe Last Kingdom is frankly better. Though it's about the events in the British Isles, so colonisation of the New World won't likely show up there..
- douche 11y agoNot really at all what I pictured Uhtred to look like, though.
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoI was loving it until episode 6, when IMHO it jumped the shark.
- fsiefken 11y agoyes, the last kingdom is better (2nd season end this year), it's based on a book series by bernard cornwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saxon_Stories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saxon_Stories
- avip 11y agoThis comes to mind: http://philippe.ameline.net/images/ScienceNewsCycle.png http://philippe.ameline.net/images/ScienceNewsCycle.png Should have a dedicated "archaeological news" version.
- jernfrost 11y agoI am more interested in whether there is any way of find a connection between Columbus and the Vikings. I've read stories before about how Columbus went to Norway and got info there about the Viking exploration. But what I've read just seemed like wild speculation then. Something more solid would have been nice. The reason why that is relevant is that the Viking discovery of America is of no significance if it didn't help European discovery in any way. If the knowledge was completely lost then it had not influence on history. A failed settlement in Canada which nobody ever learned about makes no difference whether it happened or not. From what we know thus far it caused no technology transfer to the native americans and there is no proof it advanced european discovery in any way. I am Norwegian, so I kind of have a vested interest in seeing something that gives the Viking discovery some sort of purpose.
- parennoob 11y ago> The reason why that is relevant is that the Viking discovery of America is of no significance if it didn't help European discovery in any way. In my opinion, this is an incredibly narrow-minded view. Native Americans and pretty much the rest of humans were two branches of the human race that had almost been cut off from each other, and re-united after more than 10000 years. Showing the time and extent of this first contact is more or at least as significant as whether or not it helped "European discovery". For example, it could have been Polynesians being in extensive contact with South America – which would have zilch to do with Europe, but would still be very significant.
- wavefunction 11y agoThere's evidence as others have pointed out of African expeditions and I've read about evidence of Chinese and Polynesian contact with South America so I'm not sure it was quite as drastic a gulf as you propose.
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoNo significant gene flow, so quite a drastic gulf. The fact that populations in the Americas were decimated by disease after contact should be enough to show how significant it was.
- easytiger 11y agoHardly rewrite, but extend existing knowledge and confirm the veracity of the Sagas
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoIndeed. The sagas describe the discovered land as Vinland because they found wild grapes growing everywhere. Which does not describe Newfoundland, especially not the northern tip of it where the L'anse aux Meadows sits. (I've been there. It's cold and desolate. We watched icebergs float around 100 feet from the shore). But up the gulf of St Lawrence a bit you'll find wild populations of vitis riparia growing like crazy. Given this new site shows them as having traversed the western shore of Newfoundland and mined iron, presumably for the purpose of producing nails to build ships, I can't see why they would not have gone further up the gulf of St Lawrence, maybe as far as modern day Quebec City or Montreal. It would be interesting to know what historical levels of the river was at that time. Maybe archaeological evidence is underwater.
- alephnil 11y agoThe sagas was also mostly written down in the 11th century, long time after the event, based on the oral tradition. Although they put more pride into retelling stories accuratly back then, it is not unlikely that the details had altered during that period. There are many other sides of the sagas that have proven inaccurate. For the sea level, this is areas that was covered by ice during the last ice age, and these areas have been rising since then. Some areas, like around the Botnian Sea, is still rising even today, so archaeological sites that was on the seashore will be there or slightly inland.
- cmrdporcupine 11y agoEastern North America is the genetic centre of diversity for the Vitis genus, and the likely ancestral origin of it. So it is somewhat fitting that the Norse explorers named it Vinland and explicitly called it out as something they observed.
- lolidaisuki 11y agoSome people think that the current history we have told is full of lies anyways. There is a chronology written by Fomenko et al. that questions most of the official history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Chronology_%28Fomenko%29 E: I wonder how they came to the conclusion that it's 1000 years old...
- restalis 11y ago"The unearthing of a stone used in iron working on Newfoundland, hundreds of miles south from the only known Viking site in North America, suggests the Vikings may have traveled much further into the continent than previously thought." Newfoundland is an island! I understand that there may be an implicit assumption that they most likely had to touch the continent before getting there but this isn't neither a fact (only a speculation) nor "much further into the continent".
- dalke 11y agoThere are multiple definitions of "continent". See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Extent_of_continents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continent#Extent_of_continents . These include: > From the perspective of geology or physical geography, continent may be extended beyond the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent area (the continental shelf)[6] and the islands on the shelf (continental islands), as they are structurally part of the continent and: > As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa.
- restalis 11y ago"continent may be extended beyond the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent area (the continental shelf)" Well then, Vikings definitely discovered America because they continuously inhabited Iceland, which sits on both North American and Eurasian continental tectonic plates. EDIT: Followed the suggestion.
- dalke 11y agoIf you're so interested in details like that, then you surely know that humans were on North America thousands of years before the Norse, so the Norse didn't "discover" America any more than John Cabot or Christopher Columbus did. (Of course, you are using a different definition of discover; more like how I discovered a great hamburger restaurant in town, even though many others knew of it. I am highlighting how one must be aware of multiple shades of meaning, and not assume there is only one.) In any case, I gave two additional definitions, to show that yours was not the only, nor even the most common, definition. Your response now concerns only the geological one. However, that is not the definition in use here. The third, cultural definition places Iceland as part of Europe. This article appears to concern that modern, cultural definition, not a geographical or geological one. For similar cultural reasons we say that people from Hawaii are Americans despite Hawaii not being on a continental plate, or that Los Angeles and Catalina Island are part of North America. We also say that Columbus came to America in 1492 even though he didn't get to a continental mainland until his third voyage in 1498, when he reached what is now Venezuela. As you are someone who cares about correct names, may I suggest you use the terms "North American Plate" and "Eurasian Plate" for the two plates which meet at Iceland, not "American" and "European"?
- yoavm 11y agoso it's a git rebase history!
- staticelf 11y agoAs a Swede currently listening on the newly released album of Amon Amarth, this is cool news. I'm proud of you, long dead ancestors!
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hutzlibu 11y agoDoes anyone know if there have been research about a possible genetic mixture with vikings and american native tribes?
- douche 11y agoSeems doubtful, simply because of the really, really small numbers of Norse that ever would have been in North America. Between the stories in the Sagas and the size of L'Anse aux Meadows, I would bet that you could put the ceiling on the number of Scandinavians who set foot in Vinland before 1500 at about a thousand, being generous.
- rpledge 11y agoIt would be diffuclt to test as the Beothuk (the native people who lived on Newfoundland) sadly have been extinct for a while. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beothuk
- hutzlibu 11y agoAh... thanks for the link, because ... >In 2010, a team of European researchers announced the discovery of a previously unknown mitochondrial DNA sequence in Iceland, which they further suggest may have New World origins. If the latter is true, one possible explanation for its appearance in modern Iceland would be from the capture and removal of a Native American woman, possibly a Beothuk
- gshubert17 11y agoAuthor Farley Mowat writes that even before the Vikings, North America was discovered and settled by Europeans originating from Orkney who reached Canada after a generation-spanning migration that used Iceland and Greenland as 'stepping stones'. Mowat's ideas are controversial and have been accused of being over-speculative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farfarers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farfarers
- jbattle 11y agoAnother good one - speculation that proto-norse were involved in a copper trade network spanning from Michigan to North Africa, and left some runes (in a Moroccan script no less) in Ontario. http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/bronze5.htm http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/bronze5.htm
- mentatghola 11y agoPBS is airing a program about the discovery tonight, called "Vikings Unearthed". http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/vikings-unearthed.html http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/vikings-unearthed.html
- pbhjpbhj 11y agoThere's a similar sounding piece on BBC iPlayer at the moment, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b076r0sr/the-vikings-uncovered http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b076r0sr/the-vikings-un.... Haven't seen it yet though.
- Ivoah 11y agoIs it bad that the first thing I thought when I saw the title was "How can a website be 1,000 years old?"
- Jonathanks 11y agoI'm not very knowledgeable in history but I find this interesting: In his book, "We Are Not The First (Riddles of Ancient Science)", Andrew Tomas argued for a possible knowledge of the existence of other continents, particularly North America, by the ancients. He writes: "Plato must have been cognizant of the great size of our globe, and of other continents, because he said in Phaedo that the Mediterranean people occupied 'only a small portion of the earth'. 'Besides the world we inhabit, there may be one or more other worlds peopled by beings different from ourselves,' wrote Strabo (1st century BC). He even mentioned that if the parallel of Athens were extended westward---across the Atlantic, these other races might live there in the temperate zone, clearly alluding to North America. ... Did the scholars of antiquity know about America? Seneca (1st century), the tragedian, confirms this supposition by his famous verse in the Medea: There shall come a time When the bands of Ocean Shall be loosened, And the vast Earth shall be laid open, Another Tiphys shall disclose new worlds, And lands shall be seen beyond Thules. New lands 'beyond Thules', or Iceland, could be nothing but Greenland and North America." That's inspiring. So, before the Vikings, the New World wasn't an impossibility. It was in fact as old as any other point on Earth.
- douche 11y agoWell, in the 3rd century BCE, Eratothenes calculated a fairly accurate circumference of the earth. I don't know how widely accepted this measurement was, but, given that measurement, and the general distribution of land vs ocean observed by the ancients, it's not a huge stretch to assume that there must be something out there on the other side of the world. Some of the early world maps were remarkably accurate, at least for the areas that were well-known to the geographers, even given the very limited tools at their disposal[1]. There's also the curious case of the apparent Roman-era shipwreck that was discovered off the coast of Brazil[2]. It's a little tinfoil-hatty, and possibly a hoax, but it is interesting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_world_maps [2] http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1042040/pg1 http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1042040/pg1
- Jonathanks 11y agoThere are similar accounts in that book and it all seemed not-so-extraordinary until I got to the accounts of maps that described features of Antarctica. Whether it's true or a hoax, the human mind is amazing. The book contains accounts of evidence of tides of human civilization: planned cities in Pakistan, well-developed waste management systems, advanced ship building and navigation (for the time they lived), possible advances in weapons and warfare, including nuclear weapons (evidence in an Indian desert and writings describing a nuclear explosion), writings describing space travel and some other marvels of the ancient world.
- gooserock 11y agoIf you want to know more about the Norse accounts of America and how their presence in Newfoundland was originally discovered, I recommend listening to my podcast - the Born Yesterday podcast - about it. It's one of my best episodes, I think: http://bornyesterdaypodcast.com/#episode5 http://bornyesterdaypodcast.com/#episode5
- WhoBeI 11y agoVery nice. Well done and lots of information. I'll be back. Particularly interested in the stuff about South American history because, well, I don't know much about it beyond the genocides and events connected to them.