[KrisKrinkle]

I have to wonder:

If the Norse movement into North America was significant enough to have the effect on language the article indicates it had, why did it not have a more visible effect in other areas, for instance metal working.

The Norse of the time knew how to work metal, so why were the Amerinds still using flint hundreds of years later?

[muawiyah]

Working metal is a neat trick. You don't find iron everywhere. You'd need to get all the way to Otsego NY for mineable rock which was arguably accessible from the surface ~ they mined it in tunnels.

Manassas Virginia is the next site South where it would have been easy to get at.

The mineable iron in Pittsburgh was found by folks who knew what to look for ~

Copper is another story ~ go to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ~ it's just laying around, as it was in SE Indiana, and a couple of other spots. However, you need zinc or tin to make it really useful.

Another item ~ the East Coast of North America is highly acidic. These guys could have been turning out all sorts of iron implements, but they'd been dissolved into the soil by the time other Europeans got here.

If there were just 20 years of delay between their arrival in America and their ability to settle in one spot (rather than wander around fighting Iroquois, Mohicans and others, the old timers with the knowledge would have been gone!

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

The Norse of the time knew how to work metal, so why were the Amerinds still using flint hundreds of years later?

Because the Indians used the same word for both "firestarter" and "troublemaker."

[curmudgeonII]

Perhaps more telling than the lack of metal working is why the “native” Americans did not swipe the concept of a usable wheel from the Europeans.