Vikings brought first native American to Europe

Interesting. I had read that some Native Americans voyaged to Europe at an early date . . . sorry, but I do not remember the details.

I am not surprised that Vikings might have brought a Native American woman to Iceland.

Iceland was inhabited by monks when the Vikings began settling there. All that is said of the monks is that they disappeared.

The Hiberno-Scottish monk theory has no archaelogical proof, and remains a theory. I'm guessing monks wouldn't leave a genetic trail ;-)

I would have thought Greenland was the most likely first place a skraeling would appeared in a Norse colony - nothing to stop the gene travelling back to Iceland though.

That explains Bjork's looks:

There has been a theory that sea-going American aboriginals traveled to Europe long before the arrival of the Norse in North America (late tenth century). There is archaeological evidence, but it is disputed. There are megalithic tombs which some people claim came from the "Red Paint People" of North America, but which others say were built by native Europeans. No proof can be adduced by either side of the controversy.

Click here to read a brief account of the Red Paint People and their megalithic tombs in North America, as well as speculation that they were a part of a culture which spanned the North Atlantic, thousands of years ago.

This is an hilariously stupid and false statement. There was regular trade between Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Ireland and to a lesser extent continental Europe for centuries after the Norse set up their colonies in Greenland in the tenth century.

I don't have a problem with people advancing a theory based on sound evidence, but i do have a problem with them just making **** up in the "shotgun" method of substantiating their claims. By shotgun method i mean when they just throw all kinds of subsidiary claims out to support the main thesis, either because they feel the basic thesis has so little support, or because the basic thesis obviously has little support. This is a prime example of that.

It didn't seem to bother you at all when it came to language. In fact, you frequently advanced a position that people should be allowed to post whatever nonsense they wished because the thread was designed specifically for that. You sure are a bundle of contradictions, Set.

One side of your gaping maw says one thing while the other says another.

Did you watch Spencer Wells' documentary, "The Journey of MAn," when it was broadcast several years ago? The show featured several pictures comparing certain features of African people with peoples from other "racial" and "ethnic" groups.

We knew a man of Czech descent who could pass for the long lost twin of my ex-brother-n-law who is essentially Irish.

Bjork's delicate features are not exactly Asian as her eyelids lack the characteristic fold. If she were a strawberry blonde, her features would fit as well as they do with her brunette coloring.

We say a person has a "map of Ireland" on his (and sometimes her) face but think of how different from each other so many Irish men are.

I would love to know what this means, please and thank-you.

Yeah, i'd be interested in that answer myself.

'He has a craggy face.' The colloquialism, "map of Ireland on his face", applies only to a man and implies that the person's face is like the geographic features of the country
.Map of Ireland: big chin, thin upper lip, nose of topographical complexity and hooded eyes whose lids seem to cross the pupils on a slow diagonal -- features almost too big for the face, heavy and quaint like a 1954 Buick Roadmaster.

I come from Scotland, a near neighbour.

There are several clearly identifiable Irish types, in face, hair, gait, colouring.

The Corrs sisters. The Nolans. Liam Brady. Mary Robinson. Brian O'Driscoll. Eamonn Dunphy. Moss Keane. Willie John McBride, are some examples.

This reminds me, goodness knows why, of a line from a Clancy Brothers song:

"On her back she had tatooed a map of Ireland...."

The expression acknowledges that, to the viewer and speaker, the viewed could only come of Ireland. It is that set of features people think all Irish people have: fair (freckled or not) skin with a broad face and a slightly potato-shaped nose.

Oh yes? If that's so, maybe Italians have a tomato-shaped nose and New Zealanders have noses shaped like Kiwi fruit.

When did Iceland become part of Europe? I thought it was by itself, similar to Australia. Now it is more like Britain; an island off of the coast of continental Europe? Is this just a political designation? Geographically, to me, they just seem too far from the Europe; culturally, to me, they just seem too far from Europe. Ethnically they can be Scandanavian, but they left Scandanavia, so is it correct to consider it more than a colony of Scandanavians?

The Norse had established colonies in both Iceland and Greenland, however, they were aware of possible lands further west*. In about AD 998, a sailor name Bjarni was blown off course, while attemping to sail for Greenland. His report intrigued Leif Ericsson who mounted an expedition to these westerlands. His first voyage was made in either 1001 or 1002 and he identified three "lands": Helluland, Markland, and Vinland.

Scholars and archeologists think that Helluland was either the south part of Baffin Island or the north part of the Labrador/Gaspe. Markland was either Labrador or Newfoundland. Vinland is a bit more a mystery because it is unclear *exactly* what the "vin" refers to. Based on the descriptions it could be anywhere from Newfoundland to Nova Scotia, Maine or even Rhode Island.

In 1960 the ruins of a Norse settlement were unearthed at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, lending new credence to the Icelandic claims. However, it is still unknown if this was the place that served as Leif's base camp for his explorations, or if it was the site of Thorfinn Karlsefni (one of the men who went with Leif on his original voyage)'s attempted permanent settlement.

According to the Icelandic records, there were at least four voyages made before the project was abandoned. Why it was abandoned it another question.

A recent Canadian documentary suggested the Tunit people [ancestors of the modern Inuit] moved into the eastern Arctic, Baffin Island and Greenland in response to the Norse. They wanted European iron and the Norse wanted walrus ivory. Much of the medieval ivory in the museums has been tested and it's walrus, not elephant. However, this trade ceased when the climate changed and the Norse abandoned Greenland.

The Scandinavian countries are Norway, Sweden, Denmark but as a rule not Finland.
During the Viking time and the Middle ages the Nordic countries were Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

The Nordic countries are now Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, the Faeroe Islands and Aland.
In all of these countries the Nordic language is spoken in one form or other.

Iceland has been a seperate country since 1944, so it can not be a colony of Scandinavia. Scandinavia is a peninsula. Before 1944 Iceland belonged to Denmark.

The islands in the Atlantic, which from the beginning were Norwegian and later belonged to Denmark.

The chronology and the sequence of events in your post are suspect Aunt Bee. And i suspect that you've copied it from somewhere else. The account seems to be derived from the Groenlendiga Saga (the Greenlander's Story), which while providing a useful contrast to the other (Icelandic) sagas, is suspect for a variety of reasons. One of the principle reasons is that it breaks down the single voyage of four ships to search for Leif's "Vinland the Good" into three separate voyages. This is flatly contradicted by the Eric the Red Saga and the Thorfinn Karlsefni Saga. There is sufficient agreement among those and other Icelandic saga sources to make the Groenlendiga Saga suspect.

Bjarni Herjolfsson's voyage was made in 985 CE, not 998. The sources for this are the Erik the Red Saga, the Short Saga (the oldest recension of the Erik the Red Saga, which is incomplete, and which in fact ends with the arrival of Bjarni Herjolfsson at Herjolfsness in Greenland) and the Greenlander's Story. By the way, the Wikipedia entry on Bjarni Herjolfsson is incorrect in that it identifies Leif's Vinalnd with Anse aux Meadows. There is every reason to identify l'Anse aux Meadows with the site at which the four ship expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefni, Freydis Eriksdottir and Thorvald Eriksson. (The Wikipedia entry for Thorfinn Karlsefni is unreliable, as well.) The chronology of the sagas and two important Icelandic books of history and biography--the Landnamabok and the Islendingabok--shows that Thorfinn Karlsefni would have arrived in Greenland between 1001 and 1003 CE, where he married Gudrid (also an important figure in the two main Icelandic sources just mentioned), and then made the voyage to find Leif's Vinland in the following year. That puts his voyage between 1002 and 1004 CE--by 1010 CE (the date given by Wikipedia), Thorfinn is known to have returned to Iceland. Gudrid gave birth to a son, Snorri Thorfinnsson, while at the first hop (pronounced "hope" and being a sheltered lagoon communicating with the sea) in the first year of the expedition. The following spring, Thorfinn and the Norse had a violent confrontation with the skrealings (meaning either Eskimos or Indians, depending upon the context), and returned to the original overwintering site, now identified with l'Anse aux Meadows. He then head south down the east coast (the first hop had been on the west coast of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland), and established another hop settlement, and began cutting timber for a cargo. They then encountered people they called Einfoetingers (meaning one footers--i won't go into why they called them that), and who have since been identified with the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland, who were exterminated by white boys in the mid 19th century. After this second bloody confrontation, they sailed back to the original settlement at l'Anse aux Meadows, and then returned to Greenland.

Thorvald Eriksson had sailed off to the North, had entered what is now called the English River in Labrador, and then conspired in the murder of some Skraelings they found sleeping on the shore of Lake Melville. Then, with an incredible idiocy all too common among the Norse, they sailed further along the lake shore, and camped for the night. The next morning, a lookout spotted a flotilla of Skraelings (these were probably Thule culture Eskimos, and those Thorfinn had met ealier in the year were probably Dorset culture Eskimos) approaching, and after an intense attack--they used missle weapons such as bows and slings, and the Norse did not--the Norse managed to launch their ship and put out onto the lake, escaping their tormentors. Once free of the attack, Thorvald announced that he had been hit by an arrow, and had gotten his death wound. He asked to be buried on the point of land where they had murdered the Eskimos--he had spoken highly of the landscape there.

Freydis stayed behind with the remaining Greenlanders, and the Icelanders who were now outnumbered due to the departure of Thorfinn and his people. Freydis instigated the murder of the Icelanders, and then when her menfolk demurred, she personally murdered all of the Icelandic women with an ax. They returned to Greenland, and eventually the story of the murders got out--although i don't know that Erik did anything to punish Freydis.

The story of Norse attempts to settle on the North American mainland is a tale of cupdity, stupidity and murder. It's not either a pretty tale, nor one very flattering to the intelligence of the Norse. Earlier, i said that it was not true that Iceland was virtually isolated from the tenth century onward, as one of the people in Hinge's source claimed. The evidence for this is all over the saga sources, and the Landnamabok and the Islendingabok. Gudrid bore several children for Thorfinn, and became a famously devout christian in Iceland. After the death of Thorfinn, Gudrid made a pilgrimage to Rome, and returned to found a religious order which survived her by centuries. It's hardly credible that Iceland could have been "virtually isolated" from the tenth century onward, but that an Icelandic woman born in the late tenth century would have become famous throughout Europe as a devout christian, have made a pilgrimage to Rome and have returned to found a religious order.

There is a very entertaining novel about Gudrid called The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone, published in 2000. Sadly, although she uses reliable sources for most of the tale, she quixoticly relies on the Greenlander's Story for the account of the voyage in search of Leif's Vinland, which is even more mystifying in that it is flatly contradicted by the Thorfinn Karlsefni Saga. I highly recommend Westviking by Farley Mowat (1965) for the most rational reconciliation of all the saga sources on the Norse in North America.

I can always count on you to gently correct my incorrect information. I always learn so much from you.

BBB