Information AboutVinland |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT VINLAND | |
| viking exploration of north america | |
| history of greenland | |
| history of iceland | |
| history of norway | |
| germanic paganism | |
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There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings encountered North America before Christopher Columbus , although the continent was already inhabited for over 25,000 years by what we call now the First Nations people in Canada , or Native Americans In The United States . HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS Vinland was first recorded by Adam Of Bremen , a geographer and historian, in his book ''Descriptio insularum Aquilonis'' of approximately 1075 . To write it he visited king Svend Estridson , who had knowledge of the northern lands. The main source of information about the Viking voyages to Vinland can be derived from two Icelandic Sagas , '' The Saga Of Eric The Red '' and the '' Saga Of The Greenlanders ''. These sagas were written down approximately 250 years after the settlement of Greenland and are open to significant interpretation. Combining those two, it seems that there were a few separate attempts to establish a Norse settlement in Vinland, including one led by Þorfinnr Karlsefni , none of which lasted for more than two years. The disbandment of the small Viking colony probably had several causes. Disagreements among the men about the few women that followed on the trip, and fighting with the Skrælingar ( Native American s) already living in the area, are both indicated in the written sources. The story tells that after the settlement of Greenland by the Vikings , a merchant by the name of Bjarni Herjólfsson , who was on his way to Iceland from Greenland, strayed off course due to a storm and thus accidentally discovered the east coast of America in 985 or 986 . He then afterwards told the story and sold the ships to Leifur Eiríksson , who, according to the stories, sailed back to those areas. It was late in the summer, and he did not want to stay over winter in this new land, which he noted was covered with forests, so he did not land and managed to reach Greenland before winter fell. With wood being in very short supply in Greenland, the settlers there were eager to explore the riches of this new land. Some years later Leifr Eiríksson explored this coast, and established a short-lived colony on a part of the coast that he called Vinland. The first discovery made by Leifr was according to the stories Helluland ("flatstone land"), possibly Baffin Island . Markland ("wood land"), possibly Labrador , was discovered next (there is some evidence that the tree line in northern Labrador has been diminished or eroded since circa 1000 ) and lastly Vinland (commonly interpreted as "wine land", but interpreted as "pasture land" by others, see localization discussion below), possibly Newfoundland . The expedition included both families and livestocks and the aims were to begin new settlements. Straumfjörðr was the name of the northern settlement and Hóp was the name for the southern settlement. Only two Viking leaders actually overwintered in Vinland, the second being Thorvald Eiríksson, Leifr's brother, who was killed the second summer. However, according to the stories, the idea was soon abandoned due to conflicts with the " Skrælingar " (possibly the later Beothuks , or Dorset People ). New voyages for woodcutting etc. seem to have been discussed even as late as the 1300s . Until the 19th Century , the idea of Viking settlement in North America was considered by historians to be the product of mere folk tales. The first scholarly theory for the idea was put forth in 1837 by Danish literary historian and antiquarian Carl Christian Rafn in his book ''Antiquitates Americanæ''. Rafn had made an exhaustive examination of the sagas, as well as potential settlement sites on the North American coast and concluded that Vinland was a real place in North America that had been settled by the Norse. LOCALIZATION DEBATE Historians do not agree on the location of Vinland. Rafn and Erik Wahlgren believed that Vinland was probably in New England . In the 1960s a Viking settlement was discovered and excavated at L'Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland , and many historians believe that this was Leifur's settlement, thus connecting Vinland to Newfoundland. Others have followed Rafn in sharing the belief that Vinland was farther to the south. In this view, L'Anse aux Meadows was perhaps part of an undocumented later attempt at settlement. Those who believe Newfoundland is the location of Vinland generally think that settlements farther south are unlikely, because maintaining such a distant lifestyle from the Norse homelands would have been far too difficult for the Vikings of the time. Iron and other Europe an convenient resources would have been too difficult to sustain on any workable level, as the later English settlers in New England would find. Costly fights with native populations so far from supply lines would have been another deterrent. An argument for placing Vinland farther south is Adam Of Bremen 's account. In his ''Descriptio insularum Aquilonis'' he wrote that the name Vinland comes from huge amounts of Grape s growing there (''Praeterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam occeano, quae dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes''). He received this information from king Svend Estridson . However, grapes do not grow in the sites commonly seen as possible locations of Vinland. There are a number of theories to explain this discrepancy:
While the theory that Vinland was further south is a legitimate line of inquiry, for some the motivation to search Vinland further south could have been more personal to justify or romanticize the later (post-Columbian) history of Scandinavian colonization of areas in the present-day United States. There have been several instances where evidence of pre-Columbian presence of Norse explorers in the United States has been considered to be fake by most researchers, such as for example the Kensington Runestone . So far, the only evidence of the Norse in the United States that is generally accepted is the Maine Penny . Possible Locations Including some of the possibilities mentioned above, popular locations for the possible site of Vinland generally include, in order from north to south:
Locations further south than Narragansett Bay are occasionally proposed, including as far south as New York Harbor or even Florida ; however, such conjectures stretch credulity and are generally considered Pseudohistory . Although it certainly would have been possible for the Norse to sail down the eastern seaboard of North America using the technology available to them, it is very unlikely that they would have been able to sustain a successful colony in areas so far removed from Greenland and Iceland , and such colonies would probably have been under relentless attack from the more-numerous woodland tribes that inhabited these areas. OTHER USAGES Vinland is also the symbolic name for the cultural landscape of Canada (Upper Vinland) and America (Lower Vinland) which some modern Adherents of modern Germanic Heathenry and some Neopagan groups use to distinguish themselves from other ethno-cultural groups who share the same geographical areas of North America. Some Neo-Nazis also use the name Vinland to describe all or part of North America, and the Vinland Flag has become a popular symbol among White Supremacist groups. SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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