[Verginius Rufus]

The Norse who settled Iceland had been living in the Hebrides and Ireland before that, at least some of them, and brought along Celtic slave-women to Iceland.

So the Algonquian word "tomahawk" may actually honor its inventor,one Irish-Norseman, Tom O'Hawk.

Seriously, there is no reason that the surviving Norse accounts of the trips to North America must be the whole story--there could have been other voyages and other settlements that were forgotten. But it is a long way from the confirmed Norse settlement at the northern end of Newfoundland to the Great Lakes or other Algonquian areas. (A medieval Norwegian coin turned up in an archaeological dig in Maine--but I don't know if that means some Norse got to Maine, or whether the Indians in Maine got the coin through trade with other tribes.)

[blam]

You reminded me of this article:

American Indian Sailed To Europe With Vikings?

Five hundred years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, a Native American woman may have voyaged to Europe with Vikings, according to a provocative new DNA study.