Goodbye, Columbus: Vikings crossed the Atlantic 1,000 years ago

[AZProgressive]

Oct 20 (Reuters) - Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, eight timber-framed buildings covered in sod stood on a terrace above a peat bog and stream at the northern tip of Canada's island of Newfoundland, evidence that the Vikings had reached the New World first.

But precisely when the Vikings journeyed to establish the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement had remained unclear - until now.

Scientists on Wednesday said a new type of dating technique using a long-ago solar storm as a reference point revealed that the settlement was occupied in 1021 AD, exactly a millennium ago and 471 years before the first voyage of Columbus. The technique was used on three pieces of wood cut for the settlement, all pointing to the same year.

The Viking voyage represents multiple milestones for humankind. The settlement offers the earliest-known evidence of a transatlantic crossing. It also marks the place where the globe was finally encircled by humans, who thousands of years earlier had trekked into North America over a land bridge that once connected Siberia to Alaska.

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/science/goodbye-columbus-vikings-crossed-atlantic-1000-years-ago-2021-10-20/

I’m sure this is already well known but this is a recent story involving science.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. Thanks! . Narrowing date to one year by dendrochronology is the news, known only as of today. nt

[Lucky Luciano]

4. ...and astronomy!

[Faux pas]

2. ...

Thank you for posting

[cojoel]

3. We could make Leif Ericson day the October holiday

Hinga Dinga Durgen!

[Iggo]

5. Probably oughta see if he's worse than Columbus first.

[comradebillyboy]

6. I hear that the Vikings were real sweethearts.

[LiberalArkie]

8. My kin folk were the nicest people any Anglo would want to meet

[The King of Prussia]

13. We are!

Not that I know for sure that I have Viking heritage.

[Iggo]

19. LOL...right?

[Marcuse]

21. One difference is that Viking women participated in the raping and pillaging.

Until relatively recently, it was thought to be mainly Viking men who sailed in longboats from their homeland in Norway, Denmark and Sweden to raid distant coastal settlements overseas.

However, the study which involved the reconstruction of 45 mitochondrial DNA sequences, showed the importance of the female Viking lineage in spreading the Norse people across the northern seas, said professor Erika Hagelberg of the University of Oslo.

“It seems to support the view that a significant number of women were involved in the settlement of the smaller isles, which overrules the idea that it just involved raping and pillaging by males going out on a rampage,” professor Hagelberg said.


[link:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/think-again-about-pillaging-viking-warriors-it-wasn-t-just-men-who-raided-britain-9910537.html|

[Wicked Blue]

25. Some Vikings were Estonians, not Norse

https://www.balticrun.com/the-vikings-of-the-baltic-sea/

[modrepub]

23. Ha!

Not too may younger folks around I guess...

[LynnTTT]

7. A hop, skip and three jumps

The Vikings took it in steps and each journey was fairly short.
They probably went from Norway to the Shetland Islands and then to the faroe Island, then to Iceland and then Greenland then the sailing to Newfoundland. Remarkable, but a much shorter journey then Columbus took from Spain to St Croix.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. It's long been known that the Vikings got to this continent

well before Columbus.

And of course, they left behind settlements and, oh wait. They hung around for a little while and never came back.

[localroger]

15. They failed to "subdue and dominate" the land

...which under common law is a prerequisite for claiming ownership. So it didn't count.

[cstanleytech]

22. Columbus never got to the continent.

What he did do was establish for Europe at that time that there were lands to the west itself and that led to further exploration by others.

[Cobalt Violet]

10. There was no "New World"

I hate these lazy lies. I hope they can do more than promote white Supremacy with this science.

[Crowman2009]

11. Luckily the indigenous people were equal technology-wise to the Vikings.

So that invasion didn't succeed.

[underpants]

17. Plus the locals were pretty fierce warriors

They ran off the Vikings. The English settlements arrived about 100 years after the Spanish. The Spanish brought germs with them that wiped out at least 70% of the population. That and that Powhatan was old and tired of fighting (and the pandemic you know) so he let Jamestown go. They had the worst spot you could imagine so he figured there was little chance they’d make it.

[The Jungle 1]

12. Columbus was a filthy pig who worked slaves to death and had preteens as sex toys.

[SergeStorms]

14. Sort of like an ancient...

Matt Gaetz.

[jpak]

16. I've been to L"Anse aux Meadows and stood in Lief Erikson's

House

Eerie

[left-of-center2012]

18. "I'm sure this is already well known ..."

Yes, my first thought.
But still an interesting read, and verification perhaps?

[Beartracks]

20. Artist's conception?

Artist's conception of actual Viking enjoying North America. Lol

========

[modrepub]

24. Not The Cream of the Scandinavian Crop

Hard to believe but the Norse were a European superpower at the time. Once their king had consolidated power he basically kicked out the excess warrior elements and other undesirables. These Norse warriors would invade England, attack Paris, take over southern Italy, control the Rus and make up elite fighting units in the Byzantine court at Constantinople.

The ones that settled Iceland and made their way to Greenland and then Labrador and Newfoundland were basically outcasts. Murders basically exiled from an island of exiles. The ones that made it to the coast of North America were few in number and probably not the sharpest knives in the set. Greenland was basically doomed because there were no trees to build or fix their boats. I can only imagine what it was like for folks in these settlements spending months of bitter cold and darkness holed up in their mud and stone houses basically living with their livestock.

Their best hope was to establish colonies to the south in what is now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Canada. This experiment was basically a failure. L'Anse aux Meadows was not occupied for long, maybe a season or so before the Vikings set fire to it and retreated back to Greenland. They really had no hope unless they could establish some form of trade with the natives.

But these Vikings were not traders by nature. They probably weren't even very good sailors since the coast of North America was basically found by accident when a ship was blown off course. Squabbles with the natives turned to full out war and the local native were at least as aggressive and far more numerous than their European counterparts.

Returning back to Greenland the colonies eventually petered out. The only real item of value produced in Greenland was ivory from Walrus hunting. This was fraught with danger not only because of the weather but because, again, the Vikings crossed the local Inuit peoples who remained hostile to the settlers. When the ivory trade between Europe and Africa opened back up the only thing of value the Greenland colonies produced was no longer in demand. Eventually the yearly ships from Scandinavia stopped and contact with the Greenland colonies was lost. The fate of the last Vikings from the Greenland colonies is not really known. When the ships eventually returned, nothing was left but some abandon structures.