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I had never heard of murals showing blonde men being sacrificed and the significance of boats made from planks in Maya murals would not have been apparent to me

I had never heard of murals showing blonde men being sacrificed and the significance of boats made from planks in Maya murals would not have been apparent to me. Fascinating stuff. The more you learn, the more you wish you could know. Also, for a while there was another potential Viking site in the Americas at Heavener, Oklahoma. Formerly a state park, now a city park, there is a runestone and others have been found within a few tens of miles of Heavener. Once thought to be possible evidence of Viking excursions into Oklahoma, the Heavener Runestone may in fact be a marker laid out by one of the members of the Rene Robert Cavelier De La Salle expedition's attempt to reach French settlements northeast of Texas in 1687. This website has a horrible, no good, very bad layout and is difficult to read but it weaves a very interesting historical tale that explains the Heavener Runestone and others found nearby in Oklahoma. [Heavener Runestone - Heavener Oklahoma](http://heavener-runestone.com/ http://heavener-runestone.com/) If you have a while and enjoy some archaeological and historical intrigue this is the place to get your fix today. I visited the site using Firefox with Https Everywhere and microblock Origin and other than the lack of https the site is largely free of objectionable things. It could use a serious rebuild though as the story woven is compelling when the evidence is presented and so thoroughly researched. Makes more sense than Vikings.

mumblemumble 6y ago
My understanding is that these isolated runestones deep in North America, thousands of kilometers away from any other evidence of Norse presence, have about zero value as archaeological evidence. It's hard to come up with a story for how a genuine ancient Norse artifact could get there like that that is even remotely plausible. Modern hiking ethics are a pretty modern invention. Usually, when people go on expeditions like that, they leave a trail of trash behind them. And nobody's going to make a clean hike thousands of kilometers into an unknown land without leaving any traces, then stick around somewhere long enough to carve "gnome valley" in huge letters on a rock - which must have been roughly the plan all along, too, because otherwise, why did you pack stone chisels for the trip, and if you didn't pack them, then where's the on-site smithy? - and then just fade into the mist, again leaving no trace. Carved rocks are somewhat too convenient of fodder for mysteries like this, because they're just so difficult to date. I think that the most plausible hypothesis for the Heavener inscription, though, is that it really is of Scandinavian origin. But that it dates to the 19th century, not the 11th. This is based on three things: The only thing about it that looks remotely medieval is the simple fact that it's using a runic alphabet (the vikings liked to decorate their runestones), and it is reportedly somewhat nonsensical in Old Norse but reasonably straightforward to read in a modern dialect, and we know from the historical record that there were Swedes (IIRC) living there around then.
- doodlebugging 6y ago
  I understand the doubt about the Norse origins of the Heavener runestones and others found in the area. Automatically assigning them to a 19th century origin date based only on the presence of Scandinavian immigrants in the local area totally ignores the historical evidence that the author of that site dug up and laid out in that horrible format. I suggest that you read through the entire page to the end. It will be a slog but it offers a much more believable origin story than that of Scandinavian immigrants carving a few stones and scattering them at widely spaced locations on the landscape. The French had a much friendlier relationship with Native American tribes and had explored a lot more of North America before the first settler ventured west from the colonies to see what lay past the Cumberland Gap. I am obviously more inclined to believe the author's (taking him at his word) well-researched account of events leading up to the inscribing of the stones in Oklahoma since they fit closely to historical documents and accounts taken from eyewitness records. The whole story of La Salle's attempt to reach French settlements so that he can save those left behind in Texas is well known from contemporary Spanish and French records. The accepted story that La Salle was murdered by his own men in Texas probably needs to be discarded since, as this author documents, the route they took, the terrain they encountered, the distance they travelled and the azimuth do not agree with an end point for the murder occurring anywhere in Texas. It does however closely agree with that murder having occurred in Oklahoma or far west Arkansas.
tomcam 6y ago
Listen, if it popularizes the phrase “Viking excursions into Oklahoma“, I think we’re all in a win-win situation
- doodlebugging 6y ago
  Sounds like a great opportunity for a historical novel to drive more tourism to Oklahoma. I really love eastern Oklahoma and wish I owned a piece of it. One could start with the story from the Great Lakes about the possible Viking landing that ended with them retreating back to Norway after a battle with Native Americans cost them several members of their band. (Kensington Runestone story). All you have to do is leave one guy behind who falls in with a friendlier group of Native Americans and spends the rest of his life wandering the trade routes with that group until he ends up in Oklahoma and stakes a claim to that valley. Helps to explain blondes among the Mandan tribes too if you wanted to take it that far. Maybe someone has already written this tale.
  - tomcam 6y ago
    Damn, that actually works
    - doodlebugging 6y ago
      I read all of Louis L'Amour's books when I was younger so fictional accounts woven around actual persons or events and in a geographic setting that one would likely recognize if they visited is pretty familiar to me. James Michener also did a great job with his novels. History may be my favorite subject thought that isn't the direction I took with my career. Maybe it is my time to shine.
Aardwolf 6y ago
> This website has a horrible, no good, very bad layout and is difficult to read - loads immediately - font size that's readable when zooming to fit the paragraphs width to the screen of phone - no auto playing video - no various modals popping up - no need to click extra things to expand texts I have no idea what you're talking about, this is one of the more readable websites on my phone
- doodlebugging 6y ago
  All of the features that you point out do make it quite clean and easy to load. I visited on a desktop and in that visitor mode the reader sees a wide bar of rock on each side of a compressed text field amounting to ~60% of the screen width. The story is told in the remaining ~40% of the screen between the two grey bars on the rock border. Inside that ~40%, the actual text field uses ~2/3 of the width to tell the story and deliver the photos, etc. Only ~25% of the screen width is used to tell the story and as a result the user spends a lot of time scrolling through the story unnecessarily. Making effective use of screen real estate wasn't one of the things the site is optimized for. All that noted, it is still quite worth reading the story. The author has included a long bibliography of sources at the end and the story, though repetitious in spots, ends up being believable as he has related it.

mumblemumble 6y ago

My understanding is that these isolated runestones deep in North America, thousands of kilometers away from any other evidence of Norse presence, have about zero value as archaeological evidence. It's hard to come up with a story for how a genuine ancient Norse artifact could get there like that that is even remotely plausible. Modern hiking ethics are a pretty modern invention. Usually, when people go on expeditions like that, they leave a trail of trash behind them. And nobody's going to make a clean hike thousands of kilometers into an unknown land without leaving any traces, then stick around somewhere long enough to carve "gnome valley" in huge letters on a rock - which must have been roughly the plan all along, too, because otherwise, why did you pack stone chisels for the trip, and if you didn't pack them, then where's the on-site smithy? - and then just fade into the mist, again leaving no trace. Carved rocks are somewhat too convenient of fodder for mysteries like this, because they're just so difficult to date. I think that the most plausible hypothesis for the Heavener inscription, though, is that it really is of Scandinavian origin. But that it dates to the 19th century, not the 11th. This is based on three things: The only thing about it that looks remotely medieval is the simple fact that it's using a runic alphabet (the vikings liked to decorate their runestones), and it is reportedly somewhat nonsensical in Old Norse but reasonably straightforward to read in a modern dialect, and we know from the historical record that there were Swedes (IIRC) living there around then.

doodlebugging 6y ago
I understand the doubt about the Norse origins of the Heavener runestones and others found in the area. Automatically assigning them to a 19th century origin date based only on the presence of Scandinavian immigrants in the local area totally ignores the historical evidence that the author of that site dug up and laid out in that horrible format. I suggest that you read through the entire page to the end. It will be a slog but it offers a much more believable origin story than that of Scandinavian immigrants carving a few stones and scattering them at widely spaced locations on the landscape. The French had a much friendlier relationship with Native American tribes and had explored a lot more of North America before the first settler ventured west from the colonies to see what lay past the Cumberland Gap. I am obviously more inclined to believe the author's (taking him at his word) well-researched account of events leading up to the inscribing of the stones in Oklahoma since they fit closely to historical documents and accounts taken from eyewitness records. The whole story of La Salle's attempt to reach French settlements so that he can save those left behind in Texas is well known from contemporary Spanish and French records. The accepted story that La Salle was murdered by his own men in Texas probably needs to be discarded since, as this author documents, the route they took, the terrain they encountered, the distance they travelled and the azimuth do not agree with an end point for the murder occurring anywhere in Texas. It does however closely agree with that murder having occurred in Oklahoma or far west Arkansas.

tomcam 6y ago

Listen, if it popularizes the phrase “Viking excursions into Oklahoma“, I think we’re all in a win-win situation

doodlebugging 6y ago
Sounds like a great opportunity for a historical novel to drive more tourism to Oklahoma. I really love eastern Oklahoma and wish I owned a piece of it. One could start with the story from the Great Lakes about the possible Viking landing that ended with them retreating back to Norway after a battle with Native Americans cost them several members of their band. (Kensington Runestone story). All you have to do is leave one guy behind who falls in with a friendlier group of Native Americans and spends the rest of his life wandering the trade routes with that group until he ends up in Oklahoma and stakes a claim to that valley. Helps to explain blondes among the Mandan tribes too if you wanted to take it that far. Maybe someone has already written this tale.
- tomcam 6y ago
  Damn, that actually works
  - doodlebugging 6y ago
    I read all of Louis L'Amour's books when I was younger so fictional accounts woven around actual persons or events and in a geographic setting that one would likely recognize if they visited is pretty familiar to me. James Michener also did a great job with his novels. History may be my favorite subject thought that isn't the direction I took with my career. Maybe it is my time to shine.

Aardwolf 6y ago

> This website has a horrible, no good, very bad layout and is difficult to read - loads immediately - font size that's readable when zooming to fit the paragraphs width to the screen of phone - no auto playing video - no various modals popping up - no need to click extra things to expand texts I have no idea what you're talking about, this is one of the more readable websites on my phone

doodlebugging 6y ago
All of the features that you point out do make it quite clean and easy to load. I visited on a desktop and in that visitor mode the reader sees a wide bar of rock on each side of a compressed text field amounting to ~60% of the screen width. The story is told in the remaining ~40% of the screen between the two grey bars on the rock border. Inside that ~40%, the actual text field uses ~2/3 of the width to tell the story and deliver the photos, etc. Only ~25% of the screen width is used to tell the story and as a result the user spends a lot of time scrolling through the story unnecessarily. Making effective use of screen real estate wasn't one of the things the site is optimized for. All that noted, it is still quite worth reading the story. The author has included a long bibliography of sources at the end and the story, though repetitious in spots, ends up being believable as he has related it.