Did the Vikings really discover America?

[Thekillervik]

Is their evidence that people have found that shows that the Vikings really discovered America?

[tartanwiz]

Yes they did. Leif Ericsson, son of Eric the Red, sailed from Greenland in 1000AD to the coast of Newfoundland, which they called 'Vinland', and spent a winter there. The remains of the settlement were discovered in 1963, confirming Norse accounts. The difference between the Vikings discovering America and Columbus is this. The Vikings came to see what they could plunder and loot, found nothing, went home. The Spanish, however, were businessmen. They found sugar, tobacco and cotton, things which could be sold wholesale and made into money. So they settled.

[dave520]

Let me amplify a bit on the Vikings in N. America. I went to L'Anse aux Meadows, the Viking village in northern Newfoundland a couple of years ago. It was very interesting. Archeologists had unearthed artifacts showing that the Vikings had tried to make a go of settling there and even did some crude iron ore "mining" in the peat bogs, but it is felt that they were overrun by the indiginous people. There is also some evidence that the Vikings may have gone as far south as the Carolina coast. Furthermore, there are signs of Viking implements far inland in the US that really can't be explained. What I really didn't know before my visit was how many support personnel it took to "launch" a Viking. People who built the ships, grew the crops, made weapons, etc. Probably something like 40 people for each man who actually went to sea. Also Vikings were often second sons (who hadn't inherited any property) or other disenfranchised types. Almost all Vikings were scandinavians, but the reverse is far from true.

[Ewood27]

I have read that the Albans inhabited Britain before the Celts, and were driven North by Celtic invaders. They retreated to Orkney, then to Iceland, then Greenland and on to North America. They were looking for safety from first Celts, then Vikings, and for walrus ivory for trading. However, they didn't leave any written records. The Vikings did leave their sagas, which of course glorified their exploits and dismissed those of others.

How do you define "discovered" anyway? It's widely accepted that the first humans on the American continent walked across the then ice bridge from Siberia to Alaska some 10,000 years ago. Over the centuries they then spread across all North and South America. There may also have been settlers who sailed across the Pacific from Asia. Quite likely the Albans or the Vikings were the first Europeans in America, but that doesn't make them the discoverers. Sooner or later they must have come across the Asian-descended earlier people.

[Canib]

Yes, but it had already been discovered by those that came to there by way of the land bridge where the Aleutian islands are now. For the record, Christopher was the *last* one to discover north america. After him, we decided to remember where we left it last.

[slimjim]

Would it not be possible to lose it again?!