Inuit figurine: A 700-year-old Indigenous carving of a European made a century before Columbus

LiveScience ^ | 12 October 2026 | Kristina Killgrove

[Theoria]

This wooden figurine was discovered in 1977 in an early house built by the ancestors of the Inuit on Baffin Island in northern Canada. The unique carving represents a person wearing European clothing and a cross on their chest. Dated to 1350, the figurine is the earliest Indigenous representation of a European anywhere in the Western Hemisphere and probably depicts a Norseman.

The tiny driftwood carving, which is currently on display at the Canadian Museum of History, measures just 2.1 inches (5.4 centimeters) tall. According to the museum, the featureless face and stumpy arms are common in 14th-century Inuit carvings, but the depiction of a non-Inuit is unique.

The mysterious figure wears a long robe or tunic with a cross on the front ‪—‬ a garment that is similar to those worn in the 11th to 13th centuries by Norse Christians from Greenland. The Norse sagas mention a place called "Helluland," which Leif Eriksson (also spelled Erikson) visited in the early 11th century and is most likely Baffin Island.

Around A.D. 1000, Norse explorers landed in what is now Newfoundland and set up camp at a site archaeologists call l'Anse aux Meadows. Wood buildings and remains from iron production are all that is left of the earliest European settlement in the Americas.

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TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: 1000; 1350; 1977; ancientnavigation; baffinisland; canada; carving; epigraphyandlanguage; greenland; helluland; inuit; lanseauxmeadows; leiferiksson; middleages; navigation; newfoundland; norsemen; northamerica; precolumbian; thevikings

[OldHarbor]

Are they sure it isn’t a fertility goddess ? /s

[Theoria]

Yep, definitely pale face doll.

[House Atreides]

LOL - Obviously a Norwegian. 😊

[Honorary Serb]

Wow!

[norwaypinesavage]

This lends some credibility to the(Norwegian) “Kensington Runestone” found in the late 1800s in Kensington, near Alexandria Minnesota. It was found under and entwined in the roots of an old apple tree that had died, and fallen over. It also had some ancient runes inscribed on it that were not in use for centuries.

The runestone was given little credibility and was considered a fake as it was found in a Norwegian community that was only several decades old. Critics said that any early visitors would clearly never have known that Norwegians would eventually settle there and understand what the runes were.

[GenXPolymath]

“White Scots, Danes and Norwegians should start calling themselves “First Peoples” in Canada.”

You are off by at least 8000 years.

Kennewick Man was already here 9000 years ago and his DNA is closest to the north island of Japan’s indigenous people the Ainu pretty much every First Nations and most North America indigenous peoples like the Navajo or Apache all share the same Y chromosome as Kennewick Man they are the same paternal lineages.

[Red Badger]

The wood may be older than the carving...........