Vikings brought Amerindian to Iceland 1,000 years ago: study

Vikings brought Amerindian to Iceland 1,000 years ago: study - physorg.com.

The first Native American to arrive in Europe may have been a woman brought to Iceland by the Vikings more than 1,000 years ago, a study by Spanish and Icelandic researchers suggests.

The findings boost widely-accepted theories, based on Icelandic medieval texts and a reputed Viking settlement in Newfoundland in Canada, that the Vikings reached the American continent several centuries before Christopher Columbus travelled to the "New World."

Spain's CSIC scientific research institute said genetic analysis of around 80 people from a total of four families in Iceland showed they possess a type of DNA normally only found in Native Americans or East Asians.

Additional evidence to the theory Vikings landed in America and now we know why they came - hot native babes!

Interesting read. I always find it strange that the 'Columbus discovered America' line is still spouted so many time, when there's plenty of evidence to suggest much earlier contact with Native Americans, even going back to ancient Egypt. I wonder if they still teach this in High School or has it moved on yet?

I am a Newfoundland Native. Don't ask about my ancestors, because nobody knows. All of that was lost long ago apparently.

Great island, and its funny because if my dad looks like anything, its a viking.

People make a great big deal about how Columus supposedly discovered America, but what he actually discovered was the Caribbean islands. Hell, for decades, the Spaniards thought Florida was an island!

Imagine an alternate history where Europe was more primitive and not had the sea-faring technology to discover North America and it was the Inuit who would have closed the circle with their gradual advance of the Arctic. Records had dead Inuit in their kayaks washing up on Scotland's shores in the past.

Well actually, mainstream history no longer considers 1492 to be the end of Middle Age, but 1453 : fall of Constantinople (end of the eastern roman empire), end of the hundred years war between France and England (the last medieval type conflict), and Gutenberg starting to print his first version of the Bible.

The dating of the mitochondrial DNA input coincides nicely with the "Book of Settlements" and other medieval Icelandic sagas, which mention travel to "wineland".

Another mention is from "Book of the Icelanders";

"The country which is called Greenland was discovered and settled from Iceland. Eiríkur the Red was the name of a man from Breiðafjörður who went there from here and took possession of land in the place which has since been called Eiríksfjörður. He named the country Greenland, and said it would make people want to go there if the country had a good name. There, both in the East and the West, they found human habitations and fragments of skin boats and stone implements, from which it was evident that the same kind of people had been there as lived in Wineland and whom the Greenlanders call Skraelingjar. He began settlement in the country 14 or 15 years before Christianity came to Iceland, according to what a man who himself had gone there with Eiríkur the Red told Thorkell Gellisson [Ari's uncle] in Greenland." - source

The sagas record several such voyages to the west of Greenland around 1000 AD. Skrælings ( possibly Dorset, Thule, Point Revenge culture but not known exactly which) were also shown to have artifacts mixed with those of Nordic origin (Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland).

It's possible a Skræling was taken back from a raid as a slave, since the Viking did have Irish slaves in Iceland (past DNA studies show an interesting if not contradictory mix of Nordic and Celtic blood). Then again maybe she was a daughter of a tribal chieftain, married to a Viking prince...

Originally posted by gandhi
I am a Newfoundland Native. Don't ask about my ancestors, because nobody knows. All of that was lost long ago apparently.

Great island, and its funny because if my dad looks like anything, its a viking.

This is fascinating. Could you expand on it a little? Like, what kinds of cultural stories do you guys share? When was it lost? How far back does your heritage go?

On a side note, your avatar....are you the user that had your avatar put on everyone's avatar by mistake during an ATS system glitch a few months ago? That is the same image....

....good times.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


Sure! sorry it took so long, just looked back on this thread now.

Well, my dad's dad is the native. His dad (great grand father) met my great grand mother in Britain during World War One. She decided to move back to Newfoundland with him after the war, mainly because it was a very easy way of life. (Easy to live off the land and hunt).

I asked my grandfather before he died about it. He said his family had lived on the Island for as far as the tree went back. I am pretty sure from all the fathers and mothers he went through, probably a good 8 generations.

I have a book of the family tree thats a couple hundred years old, although I don't have access right now due to I am in Ontario.

I can get one of my cousins to take pictures of each relevant page (only about 90 pages long) and get them to send me it. It only goes back to the 1700s, but theres some neat things in there.

Newfoundland is full of random things. Old abandoned mills, towns, everything! Its amazing to go treasure hunting, everyone I know who has attempted treasure hunting in Newfoundland has come out with something.

I remember one time, when I was about 8 and live in Gander (on 9/11 all the planes went there, I was there, it was crazy! I was actually 8 at the time as well lol) my friend and I were ski doing through a forest when we came across the most amazing looking old shack. We went in to find paintings of Newfoundland Natives on Canvases that was framed with moose bone. He still has it to this day.

All in all, anything past the 1700s is gone, but could be found if attempted to put the pieces together. Newfoundland was a colony of Britain, considered its own little country basically, until 1949. Ever since its been raped of its resources. And it kills me.