The Vikings lived in North America 1000 years ago

That house looks like something out of Grand Designs.

I would have killed myself if I were alive back then. There's no way I'd have survived in those conditions - nor would I have wanted to.

Conditions? You mean smokey damp semi-underground hut with big smelly uncut viking meat?

R2 I think I would have liked 2,000 years ago before the Dark Ages. Alexandria, Egypt during the Ptolemaic Dynasty sounded lovely. Aside from the crazy wars. They had toilet paper.

How did gay men fuck without toilet paper and douching?

Life would have been ghastly, R3, R4. I'd have rather died than live like that because life would have sucked.

It doesn't count if you don't make it stick.

Yeah I’m 34 and when older people tell me about party lines and 3 channels on the TV, that sounds like hell to me. I couldn’t imagine being a Viking.

Hmmm. I think Sante Fe and Quebec are older than Jamestown.

Santa Fe

A hurricane knocked out my power for a week last year and I felt like little house on the fucking prairie.

If I had lived back then - I would have died very young…

Of boredom and misery.

Its ironic that vikings ravaged the European continent, the British Isles, the Volga, the Mediterranean, and North Africa for 200 years, but for some reason weren't able to maintain a foothold in North America. I think the indigenous peoples must have given them a run for their money, and as there were no cities, and thus no valuables or resources to plunder, they bailed out.

Bloody Vikings!

There were the same furs that Astor and others made a fortune on 700 years later. There were plenty of resources to plunder.

I watched the American episodes of the comedy GHOSTS that is set in upstate New York. Among the ghosts is a dead Viking and I was wondering how the fuck did they think they could get away with some bullshit like that when all the ghosts in the house had to have either died in the house or on the land.

TELL me about it, OP's posted article! Howdya think I felt when we had days of rain and my backyard lawn finally collapsed under the water and this huge Viking pitched-roof house suddenly poked through my azaleas garden?!

This is beautiful

Looks like Valhalla, R17.

Can I just say how PISSED off I am that white supremacist have stolen and coopted Norse mythology? I always found it so interesting and they've bastardized it.

And they set up the very first Ikea shop on the shores of Nunavut in 1121.

[quote] And they set up the very first Ikea shop on the shores of Nunavut in 1121.

J'adore Nunavut. The Vikings had good taste.

Nunavut Troll, have you seen Justin's Justin jacket? It was made in Nunavut.

[quote] Nunavut Troll, have you seen Justin's Justin jacket? It was made in Nunavut.

Squee!

Did the Pope know? If the Pope wasn’t informed, it doesn’t count.

Squee! Adorbz!

During the dark ages, Vikings invaded and colonized the British Isles. In the process, their language wiped out and replaced the indigenous languages (Gaelic, Welsh, etc) and became what we now call "Old English" (which was, for all intents and purposes, a dialect of medieval Danish). A few centuries later, they WERE "the British", having all but erased all traces of the original indigenous culture and languages of the British Isles. Fast forward through history, and their ancestors became the dominant colonizers across the globe.

Simply put, "the British Empire" was arguably a Viking empire, the same way today's "American Empire" is arguably a successor to the British Empire. And you could say almost exactly the same thing about Russia and the former Soviet Union. The Vikings colonized westward into Britain, and southeastward into Russia and Ukraine, and were equally successful in both directions. The labels changed, and the metaphorical HR Department & seat of government moved around a bit, but the continuity of actual bloodline dynasties is a remarkably straight line across time and empires, from Vikings to modernity. In a very real sense, the Vikings were the REAL colonizers of almost the entire world.

The Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Persians, and Ottomans had a good run around the Mediterranean, but ultimately, their weakness was the relative richness of their lands. They ventured far enough to reach the outer edges of the Viking empire, and decided it wasn't WORTH proceeding further, because from THEIR perspective, land just got worse and worse as you moved further from the Mediterranean. In contrast, the Vikings HAD to expand globally, because THEIR OWN land was literally the worst in the known world... cold, rocky, dark, and not particularly fertile.

The Spanish & Portuguese were Mediterranean cultures... they were interested in the New World because it had lots of gold and potential slaves, but they mostly overlooked everything ELSE it had to offer. They already had their vineyards, villas, and nice beaches. In contrast, to the descendants of the Vikings (the British), the New World was the literal garden of eden, filled with unfathomable untapped wealth of every kind that they eagerly pounced on, the same way their Viking ancestors saw the British Isles as a personal gift from Odin compared to their own cold, dark, rocky lands.

R25, wonderful post.

Thanks for the historical recap, R25. Well done.

Sven gnores Angles, Saxons and Normans. Or are they all Vikings too?

We were taught back in the 1970s that the Vikings landed in North America. The article implies that this site is the first evidence. On what was the earlier evidence based on?

the Roman invasion predated the Viking incursions.

There's an island off the coast of Martha's Vineyard called Nomans Land. No one can go there as its deemed unsafe as the military used it as a bombing range around 50-60 years ago they won't allow people on the island. Back in the 1920s someone saw a large rock with strange markings on it. There's a picture in the link of a rock with Runestone which translated Liif Iriksson, MI. The waters have risen and the rock is now under water. Expedition Unknown TV show went there but divers could not find the rock.

It was a failed attempt at a colony. The now extinct indigenous people of Newfoundland and the awful climate and soil of that truly shit part of the world were too much of an obstacle to Norse settlement. Southern Europeans at least picked a rich and desirable part of the Americas to plunder and rape.

R25 How do you square Old English being brought here by the Vikings when it was here hundreds of years BEFORE the Vikings?

The Viking age was from about AD700 to 1100. Old English was here from about AD410.

R25 is full of shit. Old Norse/ Old English never had a solid foothold in Ireland or Scotland. Gaelic was still the overwhelmingly predominate language in those places until the late 18th century when MODERN English began to establish itself. Thanks to Scotland's union with England and its upper classes taking on that language and cascading down to everyone else.

Yeah, R25 is so full of shit it's funny. I don't know why people are applauding his post - is it because he sounds like he knows what he's talking about? When he can't even get basic facts right.

[quote] Gaelic was still the overwhelmingly predominate language

Oh, dear.

i wish there would be a historical show on one of the networks that showed the actual spread of populations and how it all ensued. Being serious here, all in one place. it would go for at least 4 or 5 seasons. i would watch the shit out of that. Yeah, i could read, but seeing it dramatized makes mes look up all kind of kind of history and obscure facts/people. i think it might be very successful.

The Angles, Saxons, and Jutes (originating in northern Germany, Holland, Denmark regions) took advantage of the Romans’ departure and invaded eastern England in waves beginning in the 5th century. They were more influential in that they established settlements and kingdoms, actually conquering the native Celtic britons/remaining Romano-British. They were definitely as violent in their invasions as Vikings are depicted, as in many other invasions in world history. Their Germanic languages mixed with native britons to form the pidgin Old English. Vikings did not come until a few centuries later. Their Norse language was Germanic also but that’s where the comparison stopped. Angles, Jutes, Saxons adopted Christianity earlier, and were mostly Christian by the time they had a foothold of England, while Vikings were pagan during their height. The angles, Jutes, Saxons also exclusively settled in England, having a big cultural and social influence rather than the Vikings who just raided and terrorized, but also moved on to other parts of Europe. Then in 1066 the Norman conquest began the French influence that evolved Old English into Middle English

I don't see the Vikings as particularly influential on Britain either. Modern genetic studies have found little trace of them in Britain too.

For example, here's what the Romans brought Britain (I challenge you to find a similar list for the Vikings):

The calendar we still use today.

The census – the practice of counting a population.

High-quality straight roads and paved streets

Central heating

Aqueducts (water bridges)

Indoor plumbing

Towns

Cabbages, peas, grapes, pears, turnips, carrots

Public libraries

Public noticeboards

Firemen, police

Cats

Cement

Bricks

Heated baths

Language (Latin)

UM, 39...it was their DNA...they fucked their way through their conquests. They also became the modern day Scottish/Irish. So a bit more significant than you give credit for. They struck out from a very cold and inhospitable land and took root in several places in the Northern European countries.

They were also very ruthless in punishment with very violent means of punishment, which i feel was borne out in very violent punishments over the next few centuries in the UK.

R40 The only appreciable genetic input from the Vikings is in the Orkney Islands, which were part of Norway for 600 years. Viking DNA accounts for 25 per cent of today’s Orcadian DNA. (Look up the Orkney islands on a map.) There is no appreciable genetic input from the Vikings in the rest of the UK and this is based on a study by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford, UK.

r41 I don't believe you without any links. The Vikings spread their seed all OVER the UK and France as well. Please link citations.

R42 Here you go, citation.

skrælings

[quote] They also became the modern day Scottish/Irish.

No, they didn’t. Not even close. The Celts - having originally migrated from Central Europe - had an overwhelming influence on the genetic make-up of modern day Ireland and Scotland. To the extent that the people of those countries have far more in common with the people of Galicia (literally from “Gael”) than they do with Scandinavians.

Since r42 can give us map, maybe he/she can break it down for us how it actually panned out without us buying a stupid map. or maybe just answer the questions.

So, again, history expert...give us a timeline how it all came to pass and how Vikings have very little to NONE DNA in the UK population? Seriously? With all the invasions/incursions/takeover of villages/kingdoms? So, do you think the Viking population is like 2--10% of the world population when they were the most sea-faring and far-reaching folk/pillagers in the world during their time? Makes no sense, really.

R46 did you actually mean to write R43? If so, I told you in post R41. The only appreciable Viking DNA in the UK is in the Orkney Islands. 25% there but the Orkney Islands are geographically close to Scandinavia and were part of Norway for 600 years.

For some reason you just don't want to believe it. You'll just keep asking me for proof or explanations.

R47 Cuz there were a lot more people here from other places (before, during, and after the Vikings) and who also had a lot more influence on the UK. All the evidence points that way.

They apparently invented the KOA Kampground.

Rape, pillage and plunder, rape pillage and plunder, that's all you Vikings ever do. So boring

I somehow recall that there was found some kind of really old Viking text which indicated that the Vikings in Newfoundland had been doing just fine there, but had then given cows' milk to the natives who, not having ever had it before, were lactose intolerant, and it made them all sick, enraging them, and so they turned against the Vikings, and thereafter attacked them relentlessly and so drove them off the continent. I also remember that long iron nails have been found in the ground up there, which have been positively identified as to age, and they are ancient.

Whats the genetic history of the "big cock belt" that my active field work revealed on the eastern coasts of Great Britain, and Benelux and Northern Hanseatic League cities. The big ones share similar qualities of dongfulness, too, a white and pink coloration and fleshy straight, torpedo/tubesteak impact.