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The New York Times has written about study results published recently in Nature which show rather precisely when Vikings had been living in what is now Canada, specifically at L’Anse aux Meadows.
But in results published Wednesday in Nature, scientists presented what they think are new answers to this mystery. By analyzing the imprint of a rare solar storm in tree rings from wood found at the Canadian site, scientists have decisively pinned down when Norse explorers were in Newfoundland: the year A.D. 1021, or exactly 1,000 years ago.
The date was calculated from a combination of dendrochronology and astrophysics.
Journal Reference:
Margot Kuitems, Birgitta L. Wallace, Charles Lindsay, et al. Evidence for European presence in the Americas in ad 1021 [open], Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03972-8)
Previously:
(2020) Archaeologists in Norway Find Rare Viking Ship Burial Using Only Radar
(2020) Melting Ice Reveals an Ancient, Once-Thriving Trade Route
(2018) 8-Year-Old Girl Pulls Ancient Sword From Lake, is Our Ruler Now
(2016) Vikings, Crystal 'Sunstones,' and the Discovery of America
(2015) 1,200-year-old Viking Sword Discovered by Hiker
(2014) The Vikings' Navigational Mystery: Calcite
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 21 2021, @12:28PM (4 children)
What he means to say is, this is the first crossing for which we have pretty conclusive proof. Others may have made the crossing, but failed to leave any evidence behind. Bearing in mind the prevailing winds and currents it is more likely that any unintentional crossings moved from America to Europe or Africa. But there is nothing to prove that no one ever made the trip before.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Thursday October 21 2021, @01:05PM (2 children)
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:20041229-Olmec_Head_(Museo_Nacional_de_Antropolog%C3%ADa).jpg [wikipedia.org]
This traveler was obviously an African.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @06:45PM
Ahh yes, the great seafaring Niggers. Did they come from Wakanda?
Maybe the Olmecs were Polynesians, Samoans, etc. Ya know, people who cold actually build real boats and navigate the ocean.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/835558537100028906/ [pinterest.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @07:32PM
So the Mandinka people who were(are?) still growing rice by hand and couldn't produce enough to feed themselves and have to import it from Asians built seaworthy vessels and learned how to navigate the oceans? more likely slaves that "inherited" the white-engineered and built civilization then couldn't keep it going. Just like countless other examples in history and the present day. You may be intelligent, but your subspecies, on average, are among the dumbest in the world. Maybe aborigines are dumber? Has anyone compared ape intelligence to sub-saharan africans?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 21 2021, @01:19PM
However, as far as I know, the other peoples can be much more closely tied to a Baring crossing of siberian/asiatic peoples, so I think it's a reasonably firm claim once corrected. (And, of course, a "firm claim" is not a "proven fact" - definitely more "preponderance of evidence", than "beyond all reasonable doubt". But the wiggle room for more Europeans, or even more exotic routes - anyone remember the Africa to South America hypothesis? - is incredibly narrow now.)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @12:37PM (5 children)
https://www.liveabout.com/history-mystery-ancients-in-america-2593550 [liveabout.com]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday October 21 2021, @12:57PM
And in a thousand years they will find a $5 bill frozen to a rock on pavonis mons?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @02:17PM (3 children)
Almost none of the claims on that site are credible. There is a reason it is categorized as "paranormal and ghosts" on its own site.
There are far too many to debunk individually, so I'll pick one at random :
But: http://www.badarchaeology.com/out-of-place-artefacts/petroglyphs-inscriptions-and-reliefs/the-metcalf-stone/ [badarchaeology.com]
"Whether the stone is a hoax or a misidentification of meaningless scratches (natural or deliberate) is unclear, but it is certainly not a Cretan Linear A inscription." The person who "found" the stone wasn't even an expert in the writing system claimed to be on the rock, but he was a true believer in the (now widely discredited) theory that the "lost tribes of Israel" traveled to places such as Britain and America, a theory which was also used as a justification for white supremacism.
And I was able to find a totally different interpretation of the same stone which says that it's actually Finnish:
https://www.academia.edu/30700522/Metcalf_Stone_Decipherment [academia.edu]
No one seems to have considered that the writing, if it even is writing and not just scratches, could be of Native American origin.
When people can agree on what alphabet the stone is written in, then it's time to talk about where it's from.
Now it's true that you didn't cite this particular claim, so I'll pick one of the ones you did :
The trouble with these coin finds are that they are not usually very reliable. They find weird coins all the time in parks and tourist attractions but not in port cities and trade centers. This particular coin was doubtful from the beginning, because the archeological site was poorly excavated, and not all of the people involved were even real archeologists. Generally, archeologists want to see distinctive pottery styles, cultural or religious artifacts or (verifiable) writing, all of which are much less likely to be lost (or planted) by tourists or treasure hunters.
Some early doubt on this coin from only a few years after it was first found :
https://www.nytimes.com/1978/12/10/archives/an-expert-doubts-roman-coins-found-in-us-are-sealink-clue-vikings.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 1) by unhandyandy on Friday October 22 2021, @02:35AM (2 children)
"Almost none of the claims on that site are credible."
Does that mean at least one is?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Farmer Tim on Friday October 22 2021, @04:20AM
Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @05:28AM
There is a claim about Japanese steel artifacts being found in Alaska that is credible. The other claim in the same bullet point, that Japanese pottery was found in Ecuador, is probably not correct, the pottery style was probably a coincidence because older versions of the similar style were found that predated the emergence of the same style in Japan. Still, that claim isn't totally implausible, because there are also genetic links between Japan and Native Americans that are not yet fully explained by Clovis and earlier migration. This is an area with ongoing study.
And I confess to not knowing everything about all those claims. I'm not an archeologist. I'm not even a Starfleet captain.
(Score: 1, Funny) by looorg on Thursday October 21 2021, @12:46PM (1 child)
Does this mean Scandinavians are now considered to be a native population since we were there before all the other white people came across?
Also an apology from the skraelings might be in order. After all they were not very friendly at all. Non of those Disney Pocahontas fantasies applied where white and previous residence lived in peace and harmony.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @06:58PM
Actually there were probably Whites living here from before that were eventually "involuntarily replaced". Possibly even per-diluvean White giants. The 5 "civilized" "native" American tribes likely had mixed blood by the time modern Europeans made contact with them. Their own history alludes to a White ruling class that was eventually bred out/run out/slaughtered
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 21 2021, @01:13PM (3 children)
TFA hints that the Norse may have brought small pox to North America. Major, well-established civilizations on the continent collapsed around the same time so it would explain a lot if small pox had spread through trade routes from Newfoundland. That would have prepared the ground for later European colonization via Columbus.
The Mississippians alone could have stopped European encroachment, if they had been solid when the later wave arrived. The Caddoan tribes in Arkansas were part of that Mississippian cultural sphere and were still around when de Soto turned up with his modern armored- and armed soldiers; they handily defeated the Spaniards in open battle. The survivors had to high-tail it back to their base in Florida. If other North American tribes, which also enjoyed an agricultural base from cultivation of the Three Sisters, had been as hearty and hale as those the Europeans in their scores and low hundreds wouldn't have stood a chance.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21 2021, @05:25PM (1 child)
Mexico had a populous, well-organized empire when the Spaniards conquered them (the Aztec empire) with almost a handful of men. How did they accomplish this? The Spaniards got the oppressed non-Aztec tribes to volunteer to fight against their Aztec oppressors. Please remember that the Indians were not some united people living in harmony until Whitey showed up. They hated each other and warred against each other all the time. This was exploited by the Spaniards and could have been exploited just the same by the English if the Indian population in what is now the United States were bigger.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @07:02PM
and was exploited by the English, of course. Good for them. We don't need non-whites on this continent, at the very least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22 2021, @07:04PM
"The Mississippians alone could have stopped European encroachment, if they had been solid when the later wave arrived."
lmao! yeah, right, phoenix666. You probably believe that beady-eyed Jew that wrote Guns, Germs and Steel too?
(Score: 3, Funny) by gawdonblue on Thursday October 21 2021, @05:33PM
Bjorn is just a viking
He is very handy with a sword
He loves nothing better [youtube.com]
Than to cut and slash right through a horde