Oldest European Settlement in US

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by sailingfarmer

Is there any proof? they found supposedly Viking nation of Cape Cod... Stone Mill of Viking design in Newport Rhode Island...

I haven't read that the prehistoric stone tower in Newport is a mill of Viking design. I did read a couple of years ago that archaeologists and astronomers determined that it was designed and built to predict lunar eclipses.

That would tie it in with Gavin Menzies' 1421 and the Chinese accounts of their explorations in North America. They could navigate celestially and established 'celestial navigation bases' in relation to their home base observatory in China by everybody observing the moment a lunar eclipse started (which is visible all over the earth, sort of).

Read the book.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by 2054191

The Vikings were the first to discover the North American continent in AD 1000....

Let the record show that I object strenuously to this terminology. The Vikings , Spanish, Portuguese, French and English discovered nothing. It was well known that the Americas were here, by the regular inhabitants who had been living here for 4000 and more years.

For example, years ago linguists dredged up very tenuous similarities in the basic structures between the Inuit and Magyar languages. And I think that the DNAs have been shown to be related.

But, excuse me, maybe we'd better not go there, here. Whew, talk about thread drift! OK, I'll withdraw.

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by Polux

Fact is that America's European colonization, the one that lasted, started after Columbus discovery. Probably other colonization efforts were made, for sure by Icelanders and eventually by Welsh, but they had disappeared leaving very few traces.

No argument there but if you were a reporter and had to report the results of the marathon race do you pronounce (and eventually celebrate) "the winner" the one runner who came in 3rd or 4th but made the most endorsements and/or money off of his participation or the one who actually came in first even though afterward he disappeared into oblivion? That's my point.

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by Seymore

Let the record show that I object strenuously to this terminology. The Vikings , Spanish, Portuguese, French and English discovered nothing. It was well known that the Americas were here, by the regular inhabitants who had been living here for 4000 and more years.

For example, years ago linguists dredged up very tenuous similarities in the basic structures between the Inuit and Magyar languages. And I think that the DNAs have been shown to be related.

But, excuse me, maybe we'd better not go there, here. Whew, talk about thread drift! OK, I'll withdraw.

To muddy and off top the issue even more, I once came across a claim that some (most?) Maya languages (forget which ones) are linguistically related to Japanese, and not even too remotely at that. If you think about it, the ancestors of those Maya who came through the Bering strait land bridge would have been related to the tribes who later gave rise to the Japanese, etc. The current linguistic map/model of the World is heavily Euro-centric and fights tooth and nail any attempts by the iconoclastic researchers to disturb that model. What I mean is that to the traditional linguists the accepted rules governing the evolution of Indo-European linguistic development somehow do not apply to other language families such as Amer-Indian for example. This approach IMO borders on the medieval "scientists'" refusal to accept non-religious explanations of natural events and causes.

Also as far as post-Amerindian "discoverers" of Americas - we also need to look to the Polynesians as being in that league. One uncontroverted fact is that the sweet potato acquisition by the Polynesians from South Americans predates European "discovery" by hundreds if not thousands years. And just on the face of it if the Polynesians could reach Hawaii and Easter Island there was absolutely nothing preventing them from reaching any of the American mainland.

[JPA Cate]

Originally Posted by Seymore

Let the record show that I object strenuously to this terminology. The Vikings , Spanish, Portuguese, French and English discovered nothing. It was well known that the Americas were here, by the regular inhabitants who had been living here for 4000 and more years.

For example, years ago linguists dredged up very tenuous similarities in the basic structures between the Inuit and Magyar languages. And I think that the DNAs have been shown to be related.

But, excuse me, maybe we'd better not go there, here. Whew, talk about thread drift! OK, I'll withdraw.

Actually, there's a very interesting book about the spread of the human genome, called "Black Eve", by Steve Openheimer, and you might be interested to pick it up and read it.

As to ancient evidence of Viking presence in North America, there was another book called, "14,000 B.C." --sorry don't remember the author, who suggested that the stones with runes on the eastern seaboard of the US were planted a lot longer than anyone had before that thought. Way earlier than rognvald is postulating for Anse Aux Meadows.

Ann

[arsenelupiga]

old people fairy tales

[deblen]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

No argument there but if you were a reporter and had to report the results of the marathon race do you pronounce (and eventually celebrate) "the winner" the one runner who came in 3rd or 4th but made the most endorsements and/or money off of his participation or the one who actually came in first even though afterward he disappeared into oblivion? That's my point.

Polux makes a good point when he speaks of the "settlement" that lasted.
There is a difference between "discovering" & then going home with all hands versus "settling" & surviving un-broken to the present.

The jury may still be out on that point.
In the period 1492-1500,there was a "rush" of "discoverers".

I will throw another into the wash-John Cabot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot#First_voyage

Cheers/ Len

[nicholson31]

Living here in Newfoundland I have grown up with and was taught in school all about the Viking establishment in l'anse aux meadows and our so called "rich" history of Portuguese, English and French continually fighting up and down the coast for the best piece of land to harvest the organic gold at the time (Cod).
St. John’s NL, were I was born, promotes itself as the oldest English city in North America, but what does that even mean or matter, disregard all other established villages and towns in all of the Americas, I don’t think so?
Humans have migrated for 10s of thousands of years and I guess if you want to get technical, Africans settled in North America first since that is where we all supposedly originated from, right!!
All I know is and just focusing on my general area, the Beothuk who had been living here at the time of European contact, exist no more as the last known Beothuk woman died in 1829. European migration has affected countless indigenous peoples up and down all our coast however, when a proud distinctive race ceases to exist as a result of it is beyond our comprehension.
In 1501 the Portuguese explorer Gaspar Corte-Real returned from Newfoundland with 50 Beothuk "man slaves" captured during his expedition and as quoted in his log pointed out how muscular they were and will make the best slaves yet!!
As for claiming to be the first European colony, I see no prestige in doing so.

[reed1v]

Originally Posted by deblen

Polux makes a good point when he speaks of the "settlement" that lasted.
There is a difference between "discovering" & then going home with all hands versus "settling" & surviving un-broken to the present.

The jury may still be out on that point.
In the period 1492-1500,there was a "rush" of "discoverers".

I will throw another into the wash-John Cabot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cabot#First_voyage

Cheers/ Len

The vikings did create permanent settlements throughout the maritime provinces. Google as to some of these still existing stone "towns". Similar structures(smaller) exist in New Hampshire. Problem is the vikings dug down into the earth so only the upper third of their stone structures show. Probably a lot still exist in New England, yet to be discovered. J.S.Cabot was quite a sailor.

[ArmyDaveNY]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

As to ancient evidence of Viking presence in North America, there was another book called, "14,000 B.C." --sorry don't remember the author, who suggested that the stones with runes on the eastern seaboard of the US were planted a lot longer than anyone had before that thought.
Ann

I have read a number of discussions by researchers in various fields about migration from Europe to North America. These theories are controversial but the crux of the argument is that the migration came from across both oceans well before the Clovis era. It is interesting reading.

This in combination with a lot of other small groups exploring explains a lot of very early history. It doesn't negate the accomplishments of Columbus and those who came afterwards but it does provide a more complete picture of what was going on.

[Tetepare]

I read a paper last year that for some reason hasn't hit big. The author compared current place names in NA that were long assumed to be based on indian names, yet had no correspondence with the local language and in fact were very close to the Norse in use 1000 years ago. If it's coincidence it's a big one.

A Viking spearhead was found near Sodus Bay off Lake Ontario. It resides in the local museum. Experts claim it was probably trade goods and worked its way west. I think poppycock.

The more we learn about ancient man the more we realize the were far more maritime and mobile than we'd given them credit. Case in point, the Polynesian on the west coast that the Indians and US govt long sought to keep under wraps.

[nicholson31]

Originally Posted by reed1v

The vikings did create permanent settlements throughout the maritime provinces. Google as to some of these still existing stone "towns". Similar structures(smaller) exist in New Hampshire. Problem is the vikings dug down into the earth so only the upper third of their stone structures show. Probably a lot still exist in New England, yet to be discovered. J.S.Cabot was quite a sailor.

Here is the replica of John Cabots ship the Matthew
To commemorate the 500th anniversary of Cabot's 1497 voyage, a full-size replica of the Matthew was reconstructed at Bristol by the naval architect Colin Mudie and the boat-building company Storms'l Services (later renamed the Bristol Classic Boat Company). Mudie based his design on archaeological data and on late-medieval illustrations of caravels.
Shipwrights began work in February 1994 and it took them two years to complete the $3.8-million project. In 1997, the replica Matthew sailed across the Atlantic to Newfoundland as part of the quincentenial celebrations. After 54 days at sea, it arrived at Bonavista on 24 June 1997, where it was welcomed by Queen Elizabeth II and 30,000 spectators. The Matthew then toured Newfoundland and the eastern seaboard before wintering in Toronto. It returned to Bristol in 1998.

[RainDog]

For anyone intested in this topic, the book Cod is a fun read.

http://www.amazon.com/Cod-Biography-.../dp/0140275010

[Polux]

Originally Posted by Seymore

Let the record show that I object strenuously to this terminology. The Vikings , Spanish, Portuguese, French and English discovered nothing. It was well known that the Americas were here, by the regular inhabitants who had been living here for 4000 and more years.
....

If they were living there then certainly the America natives they did discover nothing. From discovery it is assumed that somebody from a far away place discovered another piece of land inhabited or not, whose existence was unknown on the part of the globe they were coming for.

In that sense it can be sad that America was discovered several times since the knowledge, or maps about the American continent were only mythological and legendary.

If it is known today that some of those legends were based on reality (there is still some controversy about that), that knowledge was not available at the time were the several discoveries were made.

Anyway the Spanish, followed by the Portuguese on Brazil were the first Europeans to colonize the continent in a way that reached our days without being discontinued. Many other Europeans followed in the next centuries and today the descendants of all those Europeans are the vast majority of the American continent population. Probably in 2th place come the descendants of African slaves and only then the descendants of the native populations.

Off course, miscegenation is a reality mainly on Brazil. A Brazilian poet says that the best thing Portuguese gave to the world was the half bread ( mulatos) and in fact regarding earlier stages of colonization Portuguese were the only ones that miscegenate themselves with the natives.

[tropicalescape]

Originally Posted by hpeer

Lots to chew on here.

Perhaps the oldest by far were the Solutreans. Pre dating Clovis.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solu...thesis#/search

Rognvald,
did anything come of the dig further down (Baie Vert?) the coast?

Also Farley Mowat wrote a book where he hypothesized an earlier settlement than Viking. Openly speculative in nature.

Farfarers.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?inde...=9781616082376

" pre-dating Clovis" this is hitting the nail on the head ..Clovis first is like saying "Chevy Corvette first"...I just dont see people waking up one mourning and all around the globe at one moment they start knapping some of the most beautiful and efficent stone artifacts known to man ...Dr. Al Goodyear (Go Gamecocks) has put forth what he thinks is proof that it didnt start with Clovis first..He has been working at the Topper(SC) site and has gone below the Clovis strata and has found crude stone artifacts that pre-date clovis by 1000s of years...This to me makes more sense than "Clovis First" or are there folks that really believe that the first car ever made was a "Chevy Corvette"?