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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...

Editor’s note: This is the second of two parts. There are many stories of “Qalunaat,” white-skinned strangers who were encountered in Inuit occupied lands in times of old. Much of the traditional life had changed by the 1840s when Hinrich Johannes Rink went to Greenland to study geology and later became the governor of Greenland. Johannes was soon drawn to a new interest in the Inuit language and folklore, which he viewed as national treasures. He published old stories collected in 1866 “Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo” in which he included some early contact stories with the Qalunaat. In...

DNA study to settle ancient mystery about mingling of Inuit, Vikings By BOB WEBER (CP) - A centuries-old Arctic mystery may be weeks away from resolution as an Icelandic anthropologist prepares to release his findings on the so-called "Blond Eskimos" of the Canadian North. "It's an old story," says Gisli Palsson of the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. "We want to try to throw new light on the history of the Inuit." Stories about Inuit with distinct European features - blue eyes, fair hair, beards - living in the central Arctic have their roots in ancient tales of Norse settlements...

It has often been cited as one of the classic examples of how changes in climate have shaped human history. Circa the year 985, Erik the Red led 25 ships from Iceland to Greenland, launching a Norse settlement there and giving the vast ice continent the name "Greenland." Within just a few decades, the Norse -- sometimes also dubbed Vikings -- would make it to Newfoundland as well. They maintained settlements of up to a few thousand people in southwest Greenland for several centuries, keeping livestock and hunting seals, building churches whose ruins still stand today, and sending back valuable...

Some 1,000 years ago, the Vikings set off on a voyage to Notre Dame Bay in modern-day Newfoundland, Canada, new evidence suggests. The journey would have taken the Vikings, also called the Norse, from L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the same island to a densely populated part of Newfoundland and may have led to the first contact between Europeans and the indigenous people of the New World.

Plain Talk on the Genetic Issue For some, a world outlook entails a vision of permanence and stability; that like the day, time commenced at some point and will continue to another; that the world is fixed, unchanging, and immutable - all that is necessary for human comfort is written for the ages as preparation for a coming Winter.Others see the universe in constant flux; that when the Lord made time, He made it in plenty - perhaps to see that not everything would happen all at once - that all things ~ all life ~ is in motion; that...

The Viking farm under the sand in Greenland By Terese Brasen In 1991, two caribou hunters stumbled over a log on a snowy Greenland riverbank, an unusual event because Greenland is above the tree line. Closer investigation uncovered rock-hard sheep droppings. The hunters had stumbled on a 500-year-old Viking farm that lay hidden beneath the sand, gift-wrapped and preserved by nature for future archaeologists. Gården under Sandet or GUS, Danish for 'the farm under the sand,' would become the first major Viking find in Greenland since the 1920s. "GUS is beautifully preserved because, once it was buried, it was frozen,"...

MAGNITUDE AND RATE OF CLIMATE CHANGESGuest post by Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Dept. of Geology, Western Washington UniversityThe GISP2 Greenland ice core has proven to be a great source of climatic data from the geologic past. Ancient temperatures can be measured using oxygen isotopes in the ice and ages can be determined from annual dust accumulation layers in the ice. The oxygen isotope ratios of thousands of ice core samples were measured by Minze Stuiver and Peter Grootes at the University of Washington (1993, 1999) and these data have become a world standard.The ratio of 18O to 16O depends on...

Cave skeleton is European, 1,300 years old, man says Archaeologist group wants a look at evidence Sunday September 29, 2002 By Rick Steelhammer STAFF WRITER MORGANTOWN — The man who first advanced the theory that markings carved on in a Wyoming County cave are actually characters from an ancient Irish alphabet has found human remains at the site, which tests indicate are European in origin and date back to A.D. 710, he maintains. Robert Pyle of Morgantown says that a DNA analysis of material from the skeleton’s teeth roots was conducted by Brigham Young University. That analysis, he says, shows...

Carbon dating of walrus bones found in Snæfellsnes peninsula indicates that the bones are at least 2000 years old. A large number of walrus skulls and walrus tusks have been found around Garðafjara beach on the south coast Snæfellsnes. The first skull was discovered 1884. All in all the bones of 50 walruses have been found, most in the past 50 years. Biologists argue this indicates Snæfellsnes was the home of a sizable walrus colony prior to the settlement of Iceland. Large pre-settlement colonies of walruses in Iceland A previous theory, explaining the concentration of bone discoveries, speculated they came...

A scientist who found deep grooves chiselled into the teeth of dozens of 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons unearthed in Sweden believes the strange custom might have been learned from aboriginal tribes during ancient Norse voyages to North America -- a finding that would represent an unprecedented case of transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange during the age of Leif Ericsson. The marks are believed to be decorations meant to enhance a man's appearance, or badges of honour for a group of great warriors or successful tradesmen. They are the first historical examples of ceremonial dental modification ever found in Europe, and although similar customs...