Scandinavian colonization of America
The Scandinavian settlement of America began in the 10th century when Norwegian-Icelandic-Greenlandic navigators temporarily discovered and settled areas in the North Atlantic, including the northeastern foothills of North America . The Scandinavian activities are often mistakenly described as the Scandinavian colonization of North America, but there is little evidence to support this view. Their settlements were small and never developed into permanent colonies, in part because of hostile relations with the Indians, who the invaders referred to as " Skraelingers ".
Rune stones
The Old Norse literature provides the first written sources in Europe on North America. Some scholars believe that South American petroglyphs resemble the runes , thus proving contact with the Scandinavians. However, this view was never supported by Scandinavian runologists.
Runestones have also been found in North America ( see Kensington Runestone , Heavener Runestone ) that have been claimed to date from the Viking Age. Runological experts generally believe that they are fakes. There is a map that describes North America, the " Vinland Map ", but its age is a matter of dispute. It seems to be based at least on a real historical map showing parts of the Greenland coast that were covered with ice in the 11th to 13th centuries.
Settlements
According to two Icelandic sagas (the " Eiríks saga rauða " and " Grænlendinga saga " - chapters from the " Hauksbók " and the " Flateyjarbók ") called the Vinland sagas , the Grænlendingar began only a few years after the colonization of Greenland had begun Explore west Greenland. The trader Bjarni Herjólfsson was driven off course on the way from Iceland to Greenland and sighted land west of Greenland. He described his discovery to Leif Eriksson , who explored the area more closely and allegedly founded a small settlement.
The sagas describe three separate areas discovered during the exploration: Helluland , which means "land of flat stones"; Markland , which was covered by forest (which the Greenland settlers were very interested in as they had little forest); and Vinland , which was a little south of Markland. The sagas tell that a settlement was established in Vinland.
Leif's settlement did not flourish; the settlers had conflicts with the locals. The settlement was abandoned after a few years.
Rediscovery
Centuries after Christopher Columbus ' travels opened up America for European colonization on a grand scale, it was unclear whether the stories told actual trips by Scandinavians to North America. The sagas were only taken seriously after the Danish archaeologist Carl Christian Rafn pointed out the possibility of Scandinavian colonization and travel to North America. William Munn from Newfoundland published his thoughts on the respective locations of Helluland , Markland and Vinland in 1914 , assuming the latter to be in northern Newfoundland.
The question was finally answered in the 1960s, when a Scandinavian settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows on Newfoundland was excavated by the couple Anne-Stine Ingstad and Helge Ingstad , roughly in the area of the place assumed by Munn. The location of the various countries described in the sagas remained unclear. Many historians identified Helluland as Baffin Island and Markland as the Labrador Peninsula . The location of Vinland is a more difficult question. Some believe that the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is the settlement described in the sagas. Others cite elements of the sagas that describe Vinland as warmer than Newfoundland and believe that it must be sought further south. Many questions remain open and only new archaeological finds can provide more information.
literature
- Helge Ingstad : Vesterveg til Vinland: Oppdagelsen av norrøne boplasser in North America. Gylendal, Oslo 1965, (about the excavations in L'Anse aux Meadows), German: The first discovery of America: In the footsteps of the Vikings. Ullstein, Berlin / Frankfurt am Main / Vienna 1966.
- Anne Stine Ingstad , Helge Ingstad: The Norse Discovery of America. Norwegian University Press, Oslo 1985 / Oxford University Press, Oxford [Oxfordshire] / New York 1985, ISBN 82-00-07562-1 .
- Anne Stine Ingstad, Helge Ingstad: The Viking discovery of America: the excavation of a Norse settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Checkmark Books, New York 2001, ISBN 0-8160-4716-2 .
Individual proof
- ↑ Conception Bay Museum , article from December 4, 2018 by Matthew Gerard McCarthy, accessed September 17, 2019.
