First American in Europe 'was native woman kidnapped by Vikings and hauled back to Iceland...'

Daily Mail Online (UK) ^ | November 17, 2010 | NIALL FIRTH

[Albion Wilde]

A native woman kidnapped by the Vikings may have been the first American to arrive in Europe around 1,000 years ago, according to a startling new study.

The discovery of a gene found in just 80 Icelanders links them with early Americans who may have been brought back to Iceland by Viking raiders.

The discovery means that the female slave was in Europe five centuries before Christopher Columbus first paraded American Indians through the streets in Spain after his epic voyage of discovery in 1492...

[allmendream]

Inuit were pretty good with their coastal canoes, yet they were decidedly bereft of any ocean worthy vessels that would take them to Iceland.

Besides the technical problems, there is simply NO HISTORY of it.

When we DO have history of Vikings traveling to Greenland and Wineland (America).

Although Snorri Sturlasson didn't record them bringing back any slaves, it seems likely, considering the Viking modus operandi in Europe, that they would have.

[a fool in paradise]

Maybe it was an Icelandic woman who got pregnant from a native American...

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Nothing new. If you had been keeping up with PRINCE VALIANT back in the 1970s he went to the New World, and one of his men took a wife from there.

[fso301]

Well your hypothesis has one big glaring flaw. There is a historic record of Vikings, an ocean going people, going from Iceland to Greenland and America (Wineland). There is no similar record of any ocean going Native Americans traveling around the North Atlantic.

There are a number of reports going back to Pleny the Elder of Native Americans (Skraelings as they were called by the Vikings) being blown off course onto the shores of Ireland and Europe.

[La Lydia]

Since they are talking about mitochondrial DNA, it would have to have been a Native American woman who had a baby with an Icelandic man.

[Albion Wilde]

Continuing the “Evil White European” stereotype that they always enslaved peace-loving, living-in-harmony-with-nature natives wherever they landed.

My first thought, too. They couldn't imagine an adventuresome woman traveling with members of her tribe or sibling group -- oh, no. Yet my great-great aunt stowed away to come to America from Ireland, about the same distance.

[Nonstatist]

Since when is Iceland considered Europe?

[allmendream]

Reports where? Got a source for these claims?

[fso301]

Reports where? Got a source for these claims?

Did you doubt me?

Here's Pliny describing either Lapp's or Inuit. Presumably, Inuit as the King of the Suevi (Germanic peoples of Europe) may have had some knowledge of Lapp's and not considered them worthy of being sent all the way to Rome.

The same Cornelius Nepos, when speaking of the northern circumnavigation, tells us that Q. Metellus Celer, the colleague of L. Afranius in the consulship, but then a proconsul in Gaul12, had a present made to him by the king of the Suevi, of certain Indians, who sailing from India for the purpose of commerce, had been driven by tempests into Germany13. Thus it appears, that the seas which flow com- pletely round the globe,

Pliny. Nat. 2.67

According to Bartolomé de las Casas, two dead bodies that looked like those of Indians were found on the Portuguese Flores Island in the Azores. He said he found that fact in Columbus' notes, and it was one reason why Columbus presumed that India was on the other side of the ocean.[66]

In Ferdinand Columbus' biography of his father Christopher, he says that in 1477 his father saw in Galway, Ireland two dead bodies which had washed ashore in their boat. The bodies and boat were of exotic appearance, and have been suggested to have been Inuit who had drifted off course.[67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact#15th_century_Europe

There are plenty of other suggestions of pre-Columbian and even pre-Norse transAtlantic contact.

[fso301]

Inuit were pretty good with their coastal canoes, yet they were decidedly bereft of any ocean worthy vessels that would take them to Iceland.

Besides the technical problems, there is simply NO HISTORY of it.

See post #49

[La Lydia]

Nicely done.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

• Ancient Site in Newfoundland Offers Clues to Vikings in America
• Did the Vikings Stay? Vatican Files May Offer Clues (THREAD II)
• Ancient Site in Newfoundland Offers Clues to Vikings in America
• Cave Skeleton Is European, 1,300 Years Old
• European DNA Found In 7-8,000 Year Old Skeleton In Florida (Windover)
• DNA Study To Settle Ancient Mystery About Mingling Of Inuit, Vikings
• Strand of Ancient Yarn Suggests Early European Presence in Canada
• Vikings/Norse in Minnesota
• Inukpasuit, Inuit and Viking contact in ancient times

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks! I’d read that (or about it) back when I was young, and hadn’t been able to lay hands on it.

[bigheadfred]

See lots of comments downplaying the kidnapped theory.

As I go a-viking the berserker in me thinks “Sure, I accidentally lopped off her legs in the slaughter, but at least I don’t have to worry about her running off, or touching me with damnably cold feet in the morning...”as I throw in her in the longboat for the long haul home...

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

She could have gone there willingly. You know, like Hocaponcas.

[SunkenCiv]

Somehow some bs character wound up on the end of the link of those last two. I literally fell asleep at the keyboard and mouse six times while trying to build that list (I guess y'all aren't the only ones bored when I do that ;'), AND YET the links in the file (saved version) itself are perfectly fine. Beats me, IOW.

• Vikings/Norse in Minnesota
• Inukpasuit, Inuit and Viking contact in ancient times

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

See lots of comments downplaying the kidnapped theory.

No, what you see is a lot of comments jeering at them saying "kidnap" as a statement of fact.

There are a lot of other scenarios that could fit. A trade bride for example. Also a foundling girl would also be possible. Saying it was a "native woman kidnapped by Vikings and hauled back to Iceland" is jumping to conclusions with no evidence to back it up.

BTW if you accidentally lopped her legs off she would have bled out very quickly. You would be hauling a half of a dead body in that longboat. And there weren't a lot of runaway slaves in Iceland. Nowhere to run.

[blam]

"Is Amerindian DNA unsimilar to Greenland eskimo or arctic circle Lapps?"

Absolutely.

The Lapps (A derogatory term for the Sa'ami people) are different haplogroups than the Eskimos. The most common DNA amongst the Sa'ami are R1b, U5a, 'V' and 'I' (very European).
I have R1b and 'V' DNA.

I look like Paul Newman.

Renee Zellweger is a Sa'ami

[blam]

The post above should read

Absolutely not. Instead of just absolutely.