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To: SunkenCiv

It doesn’t really matter who got here first from Europe.

The Vikings visited a lot of places, but they just did a little raping and pillaging and went home, or got killed.

What matters is who colonizes, not who visits.


11 posted on 05/29/2011 8:07:03 AM PDT by TheOldLady
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To: TheOldLady

One reason given for the failure of the Viking colonies (there were some) to stick was the lack of firearms. They weren’t any better armed than the skraelings. In fact, had the Vikings not peaked circa 1066 (Battle of Stamford Bridge), they’d have eventually been blown off the high seas by all the rest of the navies in Europe — and that’s assuming one regards the Vikings as having a navy in any true sense. They are best described as, uh, merchant marines. :’)

Despite their navigating prowess, they used their ships to get around from land to land (w Scandinavia being dominated by fjords and mountainous landscapes), and to move along rivers through the countryside (the Varangians). They were all about trade, and there wasn’t much to trade for in the Americas. The colonies dwindled. Viking burial grounds (unless they cremated everyone) must have been next to their villages, but AFAIK, none have been found.

Then the climate turned with the arrival of the Little Ice Age. The Greenland colonies (there were two, plus some probable other isolated domiciles) were abandoned, the inhabitants may have returned to Iceland, or been absorbed by the Eskimos or whatever, or just died off. Assuming they even had a ship in inventory and had the choice, that is. There is and was no trees to build ships, so if no one happened to visit, they were stranded.


15 posted on 05/29/2011 12:10:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Thanks Cincinna for this link -- http://www.friendsofitamar.org)
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