“They did not leave many records.” If that is what you think, then you really need to see Gloria Farley’s book.
Anything short of a million pages is simply not a 'record" worth worrying about.
Anything short of a million pages is simply not a 'record" worth worrying about.
“Heavener Runestone” ~ thanks for the Gloria reference. She seems to be interested in that particular Runestone in Oklahoma. It has the same general shape as your typical Spanish boundary marker ~ so I’ll look up more on it and see if it’s on or near any of the baselines and meridians established by the Spanish in the early 1600 period.
The top part of the Heavener stone is very typical of the shape the Spanish liked to give their boundary markers ~ and this one, again, just like the one in Kensington, is UNIQUE ~ it's huge and it has Rune letters on it. It also has its distance in leagues from some baseline maybe to the South ~ 1012 ~ encrypted. The two other stones found in the area may be better understood in the context of this stone as being some sort of adjustment that would need to be made by future surveyors in this area.
The Kensington stone also has shows its distance in leagues from a baseline probably through New Orleans.
It's possible that many other boundary stones or benchmarks exist East and West of that point at intervals of about 1 degree (to the best of what they could do in 1600 or so).
Not to take the mystery out of these stones, but the Spanish got busy and started surveying North America shortly after King Philippe II of Spain died in 1598 ~ preparatory to imposing a settlement on France and England ~ they'd both get certain areas to settle or use, but there was a large area left to the discretion of Spain. There was no way Spain could enforce it's rights without benchmarks, boundary markers, maps, etc. and that took surveying.
We know they laid out a boundary between the English in the East along the Appalachians. They also drew a boundary between their privileges in the Far North and that of the French to the South (Yes, Spain used to own the Canadian Arctic), and they agreed to a boundary between themselves and the Russians in the far Northwest ~
I think all these ancient (1600s is ancient BTW) surveys link up in at least their design, and appear to have been done mostly by an independent party of Scandinavian entrepreneurs ~ not the far older Vikings.