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Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

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Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#101

Post by seph-reed »

kristopolous wrote: post #54
irrational wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? I've read that 90+% of the population died from diseases, the vast majority without ever knowing about the European conquerors (that is, they never saw a gun). Imagine if 90% of the people in your nearest city died. How difficult would it be for a new group, immune to whatever killed almost everyone in the city, to move in and take over?

I've always wondered why this wasn't a two-way street. Wouldn't native people also have diseases to share? I know the imperialists weaponized their diseases and intentionally tried to spread it and that may be the difference. Usually the smallpox theory is presented in a way that removes agency and culpability from the conquerers. It's always struck me as remarkably convenient and quite unbelievable; they were an idy…

CPG Grey has a great video on this exact subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYh5WACqEk

In short, you need cities to develop these types of viruses. Cities where the virus can just keep killing, without ever hitting a dead end.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#102

Post by AlotOfReading »

headcanon wrote: post #84
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #28

An interesting counter-factual that comes to mind - if the Norse Greenlanders had brought smallpox or other diseases with them, then Native Americans would have had 500 years to recover (and keep immunity?) - The conquistadors would have faced millions of not-dying-natives. A much different world would have resulted.

I do think about that idea as well, but population density (on both sides) is an important factor though. Both the Vikings and the native populations had far lower population densities than, say, 15-century Spain and Italy, which is likely why the diseases didn't spread in the first place. Mesoamerica a few centuries later did end up having the density required for disease transfer as history shows, but it was also h…

Mesoamerica had high population densities long before Spain was even a thing.

Indigenous Americans didn't carry over many of the serious diseases from the old world and the animals that were there mostly didn't contribute serious new ones. There are a few cases where we can see things like tuberculosis (from seals), but they're limited and evidence of them largely hasn't survived in extant populations. Likewise, Icelandic populations were isolated and relatively healthy. Those that survived the long trip to Greenland and the Americas would have been even more so.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#103

Post by GauntletWizard »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #67
thereddaikon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taught that Leif Erikson led an expedition to Newfoundland over 20 years ago in public school. "Transatlantic exploration took place centuries before the crossing of Columbus. Physical evidence for early European presence in the Americas can be found in Newfoundland, Canada1,2. However, it has thus far not been possible to determine when this activity took place3,4,5. Here we provide evidence that the Vikings w…

> Leif Erikson led an expedition to Newfoundland over 20 years ago I guess that's technically not wrong.

I'm just impressed that Leif Erikson was leading expeditions while still in public school.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#104

Post by golemiprague »

999900000999 wrote: post #22
ilamont wrote: post #4

The Icelandic sagas suggest that the Norse engaged in cultural exchanges with the Indigenous groups of North America34. If these encounters indeed occurred, they may have had inadvertent outcomes, such as pathogen transmission7, the introduction of foreign flora and fauna species, or even the exchange of human genetic information. Recent data from the Norse Greenlandic population, however, show no evidence of the las…

I can imagine an indigenous woman having a fling with a viking and just rasing the kid in her village. No one the wiser. It would be impossible to know if this happened. Even if you found someone with both indigenous and Viking genetics, you don't know if it's because his great grandfather came from Norway in the 1920s. The history of early American immigration is absolutely fascinating, there was a story of a Chines…

Hispanic is not a race, it is a combination of geographical and cultural denomination loosely defined by the USA perception of the lands south to their border.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#105

Post by arrosenberg »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #89
ilamont wrote: post #4

The Icelandic sagas suggest that the Norse engaged in cultural exchanges with the Indigenous groups of North America34. If these encounters indeed occurred, they may have had inadvertent outcomes, such as pathogen transmission7, the introduction of foreign flora and fauna species, or even the exchange of human genetic information. Recent data from the Norse Greenlandic population, however, show no evidence of the las…

> the exchange of human genetic information This sounds like a parody of scientific jargon. Why do people write like this?..

Reminds me of the all time great line from the Simpson's House of Horrors episode where Kang and Kodos impersonate Bill Clinton and Bob Dole - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgBFiCmYedc

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#106

Post by danjac »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #102
headcanon wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think about that idea as well, but population density (on both sides) is an important factor though. Both the Vikings and the native populations had far lower population densities than, say, 15-century Spain and Italy, which is likely why the diseases didn't spread in the first place. Mesoamerica a few centuries later did end up having the density required for disease transfer as history shows, but it was also h…

Mesoamerica had high population densities long before Spain was even a thing. Indigenous Americans didn't carry over many of the serious diseases from the old world and the animals that were there mostly didn't contribute serious new ones. There are a few cases where we can see things like tuberculosis (from seals), but they're limited and evidence of them largely hasn't survived in extant populations. Likewise, Icel…

> the animals that were there mostly didn't contribute serious new ones

Aren't syphilis and Lyme disease of New World origin?

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#107

Post by datameta »

philwelch wrote: post #17
hprotagonist wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the consensus has been for some time that they showed up, caught some fish, logged a few trees, decided it sucked, and left, all in probably less than a decade.

According to some sources, one factor is that Newfoundland was so heavily populated with indigenous people that there wasn’t enough room for a Norse colony to grow. By the time the English made it back to Newfoundland, smallpox and other epidemics had devastated the indigenous population.

There is a Norse description in the Saga of Icelanders of what the indigenous skraelings looked like, as the norse called them, as well as accounts of repelling assaults from the native populations.

> They were short in height with threatening features and tangled hair on their heads. Their eyes were large and their cheeks broad.

> despite everything the land had to offer there, they would be under constant threat of attack from its prior inhabitants.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skr%C3%A6ling

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#108

Post by munk-a »

BurningFrog wrote: post #82
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #28

An interesting counter-factual that comes to mind - if the Norse Greenlanders had brought smallpox or other diseases with them, then Native Americans would have had 500 years to recover (and keep immunity?) - The conquistadors would have faced millions of not-dying-natives. A much different world would have resulted.

That's really interesting! Of course, if the native population died off around them, the Vikings would probably have expanded their settlements and perhaps ruled North America instead.

It depends if they kept coming back. Smallpox worked to the settlers' advantage because colonizers were establishing themselves in the carribean and south america before any serious ventures into north america got going - so there was time for a pandemic to actually spread before folks really started getting serious about settling. I think with statistics and spread rates and all that it's likely that viking settlers would need to stick around for a decade or two to really see the effects in terms of population thinning.

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#109

Post by space_fountain »

kristopolous wrote: post #54
irrational wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? I've read that 90+% of the population died from diseases, the vast majority without ever knowing about the European conquerors (that is, they never saw a gun). Imagine if 90% of the people in your nearest city died. How difficult would it be for a new group, immune to whatever killed almost everyone in the city, to move in and take over?

I've always wondered why this wasn't a two-way street. Wouldn't native people also have diseases to share? I know the imperialists weaponized their diseases and intentionally tried to spread it and that may be the difference. Usually the smallpox theory is presented in a way that removes agency and culpability from the conquerers. It's always struck me as remarkably convenient and quite unbelievable; they were an idy…

I think parts of it are deeply controversial, but Guns, Germs, and Steel argues this was because Europe had higher population densities for longer + more domesticated livestocks providing a more potent breading ground for deadly diseases. I also think that disease being a factor hardly removes culpability from the conquers, there are plenty of quotes of some of them saying things about how the plagues were a gift from god and similarly terrible things. I also am not an export, but I believe there was some transfer in the other direction, particularly syphilis.

If we're just speculating though, I wonder if the fact that one group was traveling by boat could have insulated the disease transfer a bit. Most really bad diseases would run their course by the time a sailing ship made it back across the ocean and certainly people knew to quarantine ships with sick people on them in Europe. For a disease the ship crews were resistant to reach the Americas they just had to visit a village, where to go the other way it had to survive an in built month plus quarantine which is plenty of time for most diseases to show up

Re: Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021

#110

Post by elwell »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #67
thereddaikon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taught that Leif Erikson led an expedition to Newfoundland over 20 years ago in public school. "Transatlantic exploration took place centuries before the crossing of Columbus. Physical evidence for early European presence in the Americas can be found in Newfoundland, Canada1,2. However, it has thus far not been possible to determine when this activity took place3,4,5. Here we provide evidence that the Vikings w…

> Leif Erikson led an expedition to Newfoundland over 20 years ago I guess that's technically not wrong.

> guess that's technically not wrong

Hey, don't command me to guess things.

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