Norse colonization of the Americas

The Scandinavian settlement of the Americas began in the 10th century, when Norwegian - Icelandic- Greenland sailors temporarily areas discovered in the North Atlantic, including the northeastern foothills of North America and populated. The Scandinavian activities are often erroneously described as the Scandinavian colonization of North America, but there are few findings that support this view. Their settlements were small and never developed into permanent colonies, partly because of the hostile relations with the Indians, who were designated by the invaders as " Skraelings ".

Runestones

The Old Norse literature provides the first written sources in Europe to North America. Some scholars believe that South American petroglyphs similar to the runes and thus prove to the contact with the Scandinavians. This view, however, never found support from Scandinavian Runologen.

Settlements

Two Icelandic sagas ( the as Vinland Sagas designated " Eirik's saga RAUDA " and " Grænlendinga Saga " - chapters from the " Hauksbók " and the " Flateyjarbók " ) - According to the Grænlendingar began only a few years after the colonization of Greenland began, to explore countries in the West Greenland. The trader Bjarni Herjolfsson was stripped on the way from Iceland to Greenland from the course and sighted land west of Greenland. He described his discovery of Leif Eriksson, who explored the area in more detail and supposedly established a small settlement.

The sagas describe three separate areas discovered during the research: Helluland, which means " land of flat stones " means; Markland, which was covered by forest (to which the Greenland settlers were very interested because they had little forest ); and Vinland, which lay just south of Markland. The sagas tell that in a Vinland settlement was established.

Leif's settlement not prospered; the settlers had conflicts with the locals. The settlement was abandoned after a few years.

Rediscovery

Some centuries after Christopher Columbus' travels America had opened up for settlement by Europeans in a big way, it was unclear whether the stories told by Scandinavians actual travel to North America. The sagas were only taken seriously after the Danish archaeologist Carl Christian Rafn pointed out the possibility of a Scandinavian colonization of and travel to North America.

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 -. The location of the different countries that have been described in the sagas, remained unclear. Many historians identified Helluland as Baffin Island and Markland as Labrador Peninsula. The location of Vinland is a more difficult question. Some believe that the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows is the settlement, which is described in the sagas. Others rely on elements of sagas describing Vinland as warmer than Newfoundland, and believe that it must be sought further south. Many questions remain unanswered and only new archaeological discoveries may provide more information.