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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

#111

Post by sillyquiet »

29athrowaway wrote: post #94
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.

Most of the time, Europeans fought one tribe at a time, rather than a large alliance of Native Americans. Then, in many cases, they made natives fight each other, and they recruited "auxiliary indians". The siege of Tenochtitlan involved 200,000 Tlaxcalans fighting on the European side. In other cases, such as the Battle of Cajamarca, they used their horse + armor advantage to kidnap the leader and ask everyone else…

"They made" natives fight each other is a weird way of putting it. Warring tribes were more than happy to use the Europeans against their enemies. And many of those enmities long predated the arrival of Europeans.

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

#112

Post by datameta »

sb057 wrote: post #34
bcaulfield wrote: post #3

Strange to think this discovery was made at the apex of the Byzantime Empire under Basil II. The Roman Empire was still somewhat of a thing.

Even more interesting to consider is the imperial Varangian Guard, comprised of Norse recruits. It's entirely possible that one of these Viking explorers in North America (or their descendants) later resided at court in Constantinople.

And it is also possible that a Varangian that visited North America ended up as a chief or advisor of a slavic tribe.

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

#113

Post by kypro »

capableweb wrote: post #48
broof wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still would say that Columbus was the first to "discover" America, in the sense that Leif Erikson showed up, left, and didn't really make a big deal out of it. which to be fair, makes sense if you look on google earth and zoom in and follow from Iceland up to northern Canada. It just all feels more or less the same, so eventually they turned around and left.

Is "making noise about it" what we consider discovery now? I'd say the first person finding and visiting the place is indeed the discoverer of that place. Maybe Columbus popularised it rather.

When I was a kid I remember seeing weird bugs in the garden and wondering if I was the first person to find that bug. I’m sure I wasn’t, but in theory I could have “discovered” loads of new species - but would it even matter if I wasn’t aware enough of my own discovery to share it?

Did the Vikings even realise they were on a new continent? My understanding is that they “settled” a tiny area and may have thought it was just an island off of Greenland or something.

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

#114

Post by Robotbeat »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #81
Swizec wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm remembering Guns, Germs, and Steel correctly, a popular/pluasible theory is that even without the disease conquistador swords and armor were so much better than the natives, they'd eventually win regardless. Something about more advanced metallurgy. Having horses may also have helped. There were no beasts of burden (iirc) in North America until the Spanish arrived.

Well, there were around 3000 Spanish conquistadors. Could they really conquer the whole Aztec empire (5 mln people) without alliances with local tribes?

Without local tribes? Probably not, but that’s almost always how conquering actually happens (by exploiting existing fault lines). The situation with Alexander the Great is kind of representative. Alexander the Great had an army of about 30,000 people and conquered the Persian Empire which had a population of about 50 million. The Conquistadors had 3000 and conquered the Aztec Empire which had a population of 5 million, although the Conquistadors also had the benefit of disease traveling before them and not just better tactics but also far superior metallurgy. It doesn’t necessarily take an enormous advantage to conquer large territories, and the Conquistadors had numerous advantages.

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

#115

Post by irrational »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #80
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?

This is not accurate. Individual epidemics did not have mortalities even approaching the 90% range. What actually happened were dozens of epidemics over decades or centuries. Moreover, outside the Northeast, Columbian epidemics are closely associated with persistent European contact and colonization. It should also be noted that human populations are incredibly resilient to epidemics. In the absence of "other things"…

Isn't that because Europe was able to bounce back while in the Americas, the diseases were immediately followed up by the European colonizers who didn't give them time or space to repopulate?

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

#116

Post by broof »

capableweb wrote: post #48
broof wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still would say that Columbus was the first to "discover" America, in the sense that Leif Erikson showed up, left, and didn't really make a big deal out of it. which to be fair, makes sense if you look on google earth and zoom in and follow from Iceland up to northern Canada. It just all feels more or less the same, so eventually they turned around and left.

Is "making noise about it" what we consider discovery now? I'd say the first person finding and visiting the place is indeed the discoverer of that place. Maybe Columbus popularised it rather.

I would say yes, "making noise about it" would be a relatively important part of discovery. Did Erikson know that there was an entire continent with advanced societies completely seperated from the "old world"? Because that is what Columbus discovered. I'm making the distinction between Leif Erikson discovering a tundra-like landmass beyond Greenland that they didn't think was significant, and Columbus's actions which ended up connecting the old world to the new. Those two things are very different from each other. If I google "who discovered america" and got Leif Erikson, I think that would be more confusing than Columbus.

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

#117

Post by AlotOfReading »

danjac wrote: post #106
AlotOfReading wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There's quite a lot of debate over the precise origins of syphilis. I'm only peripherally familiar with the literature, but my understanding is that recent work suggests (but not concludes) that it might have been endemic to afroeurasia rather than or as well as the Americas. Lyme disease is indeed wholly American, but it's not epidemic or even particularly mortal.

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

#118

Post by pvaldes »

not2b wrote: post #73
efa wrote: post #10

I thought this has been known for awhile. I visited the site in Newfoundland like 15 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'Anse_aux_Meadows

The news is the accurate dating, not the existence of the site (which is so well known that it is a UNESCO World Heritage site).

That depends entirely on the species of tree. Absolutely crucial in this case. Do they mention this data in the article?

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

#119

Post by kens »

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.

The book "1491" describes the Americas before Columbus, and is very interesting. In particular, the population density was much higher than generally realized.

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

#120

Post by mig39 »

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.

Can you cite one of these sources? The archeological record doesn't seem to show a large aboriginal population in Newfoundland around 1000 C.E.

I don't think the Beothuk, for example, were ever very numerous, certainly not as numerous as other aboriginal people in Labrador and Greenland at the time.

It wasn't just the Norse that had a hard time living in Newfoundland at the time. It wasn't very hospitable to any humans.

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