How the Vikings discovered America. Geographic discoveries of the Vikings

The real discoverer of America in the United States is not Christopher Columbus, but the Viking Leif Ericsson. Every year on October 9, this event is celebrated in the country. The material traces of Leif in the New World - a bronze pin and a steatite whorl - were unearthed in Canada in the 60s of the XX century by the Norwegian adventurer, vagabond and writer Helge Ingstad.

Over a thousand years ago, the ancient Scandinavians settled the Faroe and Orkney Islands, Iceland, and then southern Greenland. You can read more about what mysteries exist regarding the Greenlandic settlements of the ancient Vikings in this detailed article. In short, the Norman colony in Greenland existed for about 400-500 years, and then, for unknown reasons, disappeared.

Archaeological excavations in Greenland, Danish scientists began in the 20s of the last century. At the same time, the possibility of voyages of the Greenlandic Vikings to America began to be seriously discussed - fortunately, southwestern Greenland was separated from Baffin Island in the New World by the Davis Strait, about 350-450 kilometers wide. However, Europeans knew about the possible colonization of America by the Vikings much earlier - when information about the mysterious country of Vinland (Country of Grapes) appeared.

Ruins of a Norman church in Greenland

Only in 1960, the Norwegian explorer, ethnographer, adventurer and writer Helge Ingstad (1899-2001), who was no less popular in his homeland than Thor Heyerdahl, well known to Soviet citizens, managed to make a breakthrough comparable to the discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann - he discovered on the northern tip of Newfoundland, near the village of Lance-o-Meadows, the remains of a settlement, which was then recognized as Norman. In fact, Ingstad found a needle in a haystack - to find the remains of a relatively small settlement of a thousand years ago, without a clear geographic reference, as any archaeologist knows, is a completely non-trivial task.

This discovery, recognized in 1964 at the political level in the United States, and also - not without a scratch, however, in the scientific community of North America, subsequently caused a lot of skeptical questions. And, oddly enough, it convinced local historians and archaeologists even more that the problems of Vinland should be approached as carefully as possible. This is probably why, over the past half century, no other scientifically convincing evidence of Viking visits to the New World has been found in North America.

What do we know from the sagas

The most complete information about the travels of the Normans to Vinland is contained in the sagas. It was on the sagas that Helge Ingstad based himself in his search for an ancient Viking settlement in the New World.

In the middle of the 20th century, it was established that the oldest document of the two works is the "Greenlanders' Saga", while the "Saga of Eric the Red" is later. Scholars from Iceland have established that the first was written down in the middle of the 12th century (reached in a list dating from the end of the 14th century), and the second only in the 13th century (preserved in two manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries). When comparing the texts of these legends, it is clear that despite the general information about the campaigns of the Normans in Vinland, the particulars and details of these travels differ seriously. For example, according to the "Greenlanders Saga", there were five trips to Vinland (Country of Grapes): these are the voyages of the Vikings Bjarni Heruljafsson, Leif Eriksson (the son of Eric the Red, the first colonist of Greenland), the voyage of his brother Thorvald Eriksson, the voyage of Thorfinn Karlsevne and the voyage of Freydis Eriksdottir (sisters Leif) with the Icelanders Helgi and Finnbogi. According to the "Saga of Eric the Red" there were only two voyages (Leif Eriksson and Thorfinn Karslavna).

The information in the sagas about the number of participants in the voyages varies. Completely different information is contained in them and about the key message - the name of the area. The fact is that the Normans gave names to the discovered areas in America according to their external characteristics: Heluland - the country of stones, Markland - the country of forests, Vinland - the country of grapes. The Greenlanders Saga says that Leif Eriksson had a German Türkir on the ship, who discovered the grapes.

In principle, it makes no sense to list all the discrepancies between the two sources. It is only worth mentioning that neither the Greenlanders' Saga nor the Eric's Saga give clear geographical indications of the location of the country of Vines. To be completely correct, the sagas give only general characteristics of the area - glaciers, stone plains, forests, meadows. The only exception is the reference in the Greenlanders' Saga to the latitude of Vinland:

“The days here are not as varied in length as they are in Greenland or Iceland. At the darkest time of the year, the sun was in the sky at a quarter of a day after noon and a quarter of a day before it.

Or, in another, more accurate translation:

"The day was evener than in Greenland and Iceland. On the day of the winter solstice, the sun had eiktarstad and dagmolostad."

What is eiktarstad and dagmolostad is still not really clear. Attempts by researchers to interpret this information according to their ideas gave Vinland coordinates between 36 and 51 latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Such a gigantic spread made finding the settlement of the ancient Norwegians almost unrealistic. It is also worth noting that the ancient Vikings are believed to have been able to determine latitudes with one error or another, but in Europe the first tables that allow calculating latitudes with sufficient accuracy appeared only in the 15th century. These tables - "Ephemerides", were published in 1472 in Nuremberg by the mathematician Regiomontanus.

Accordingly, most researchers believed that the Vikings sailed far south along the east coast of North America:

This diagram shows that the Normans could have sailed as far as present-day Boston.

In this diagram, Vinland is also not in Newfoundland, but much to the south.

Canadian-reconstructed Norman settlement in Newfoundland

2. After some time, Leif's brother Torvald went to Vinland (apparently, the gap was small) (on Eric's ship). The composition of the expedition - 1 ship, 31 people, including Torvald. The expedition spent more than three years in America, and Leif's houses were its base. During this time, the Vikings undertook several campaigns through the local territory. During a campaign in the second year of his stay in Vinland, in a skirmish with the Skrelings - probably Indians or Eskimos, Thorvald died from their arrows. He was buried in America. There is no information about other losses, as well as about the construction of new houses by the Vikings.

3. The journey of Thorstein Eriksson. Leif's younger brother decided to find his brother's body, and on Leif's ship he went to sea. The composition of the expedition - 1 ship, 27 people (20 people according to the "Saga of Eric"), including Thorstein and his wife Gudrid. However, storms prevented the Vikings from reaching Vinland and wintered in the West Norman settlement in Greenland, where most of them died of disease.

4. The journey of Thorfinn Karslafne, a wealthy Norwegian. He married Thorstein's widow, Gudrid, and a year after her return from the Western Settlement, he undertook an expedition to Vinland. According to the Greenlanders Saga, the expedition included 67 people (60 men and 5 women), as well as Thorfinn himself and Gudrid. According to the Saga of Eric, there were over 150 Normans. They took cattle (oxen, cows) with them, as they intended to settle in Vinland. As the "Saga of the Greenlanders" says, they settled in houses built by Leif Eriksson.

Let's look at these events from the point of view of the "Eric Saga". She says that Thorfinn's expedition first wintered in some other place:

They sent ships to the fjord. At its mouth lay an island, around which there were strong currents. They named it Otok. There were so many birds on it that it was hard not to step on their eggs. They entered the fjord and named it Otochny Fjord. Here they carried their luggage ashore and settled. They had all kinds of cattle with them, and they began to explore what the country was rich in. There were mountains and the countryside was beautiful. They were only engaged in scouting the region. Tall grass grew everywhere. They hibernated there.

The winter was severe, and they did not store anything in the summer. Food became bad, and fishing and hunting failed. They moved to the island in the hope that there would be better fishing there or something would be washed ashore. The next summer they sailed south: Karlsefni sailed south along the coast, and with him Snorri, Bjarni and others. They sailed for a long time and finally came to the river, which flowed into the lake, and then into the sea.

There were large sandbanks at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his men entered the mouth and named the place Ozerko. Here they found fields of native wheat in the lowlands, and vines everywhere in the uplands. All streams teemed with fish. They dug holes where land and sea met, and when the sea receded, there was halibut in the holes. There were many animals in the forest.

Here the Vikings discovered eight boats of Skrelings (i.e., there is a retelling of Thorvald Eriksson's journey). The Normans built several houses near the lake. It makes no sense to retell the "Saga of Eric" further, we only note that two Normans who died in the battle with the Screlings are mentioned there. Subsequently, the Normans visited Markland, where they captured two natives and, after several years of living in America, left it.

The Greenlanders Saga tells a little differently about the life of this expedition in North America. In the second year of the Vikings' stay in Vinland, the Skrelings came to them, with whom trade was begun. However, for a number of reasons, it turned into a war:

Then the Screlings took off the luggage from their shoulders, untied the bales and began to offer their goods. In exchange, they asked for weapons, but Karlsefni forbade his men from selling weapons. This is what he came up with: he ordered the women to take out the milk ospreys, and when they saw them, the Screlings no longer wanted anything else. Thus ended the trade of the Skrelings, that they carried away their purchases in their stomachs, and their bales and furs remained with Karlsefni and his people.After that, Karlsefni ordered to build around the houses a strong fence, and they settled inside her ... But suddenly there was a terrible roar, and the woman disappeared, and at that very moment one of Karlsephia's people killed a Skreling who was trying to steal some kind of weapon. Then the Screlings rushed to run as fast as they could, leaving clothes and goods ... We need to think of something, says Karlsefni, because they will probably come to us for the third time, and this time with hostile intentions and in large numbers. Here's what we'll do: let ten men go to the cape and be seen there, and let the others go into the forest and cut a clearing there where we can keep our cattle when the skrelings come out of the forest. And we will let our bull go before us.

Where they were going to fight the skrelings one side was a lake, and on the other - the forest. They did everything as Karlsefni planned, and the skrelings came out just where he wanted to give them a fight. A battle ensued, and many Skrelings were slain. Among them, one stood out, he was tall and handsome, and Karlsefni decided that this must be their leader. A skreling picked up an ax from the ground, examined it, and then swung it at one of his own and struck. This one immediately dropped dead. Then that tall skreling took the axe, examined it, and threw it with all his might into the sea. Then the Screlings rushed as fast as they could into the forest, and the battle was over.

The Karslafni expedition spent almost three years in Vinland and returned. Norman casualties are not reported, but it is unlikely that no one died in the battle with the Skrelings (it is possible that the expedition of Thorvald and Karlsefni was the same).

Fence of a reconstructed Viking settlement in Canada

All of the above travels of the Normans to America are considered reliable. It is not difficult to see that the motivation of the Vikings, their goals in Vinland are not entirely clear to modern people. They could not and did not want to establish a common language with the natives, for some reason they refused to colonize these territories, which looked more attractive than the southwestern coast of Greenland, where even in the era of a small climatic optimum, spring lasted 3 weeks, and summer - 2 months .

The sagas acknowledge that the expeditions were based at Leif's original camp (although according to the Eric Saga they founded new settlements). There is information about the construction of new houses only in relation to the Freydis expedition, but, most likely, Thorfinn's expedition also built them. The settlement, capable of accommodating up to one and a half hundred people (the size of Thorfinn's expedition), was located, apparently, on lakeside, which had to be reached by the river. The minimum period of time for the functioning of the village is 8 years, and taking into account the intervals between expeditions - maximum 15 years. Around the settlement was fence built, perhaps, something like tyna.

It is also known that in America several dozen Normans died. If the head of the second party, Thorvald, was buried far from the village, then the Normans from Thorfinn’s detachment who died in the collision with the Skrelings, as well as the people from Iceland killed by Freydis, were probably buried near the village.

We know that in the vicinity of the village there was a battle with the Screlings. In addition, there is information that Karlsevne had cattle (cows and bulls, possibly sheep), the fate of which is not known. All these facts will be useful to us later.

Where were the grapes?

It follows from the sagas that the settlement of the ancient Vikings could not be large in area. At best, it was a settlement with an area of ​​several hundred square meters. Finding the remains of such a settlement on a coast hundreds and even thousands of kilometers long - since researchers include territories from Labrador to almost the Carolinas in the search area - is almost impossible. Yes, and traces of him over the past thousand years should not have remained.

Therefore, when the question of the location of Vinland was first raised at the beginning of the 18th century, researchers literally wandered in the dark of various versions. This was facilitated by the fact that in the sagas, along with the lack of clear geographical indications, grapes growing there are constantly mentioned.

Now the northern border of grape growth only barely enters Canada (Ontario region), but is mainly limited to New England in the USA. But we can assume that 1000 years ago, in the era of a small climatic optimum, grapes could spread further north. However, so far no paleobotanist will agree that grapes grew in northern Newfoundland at that time.

Graph of fluctuations in the thickness of glaciers in Greenland. It can be seen that in the Viking Age the climate was quite warm.

However, the problem of "grapes" forced scientists to attribute the possible location of the Norman settlement far to the south - in the strip from Boston to North Carolina. But there were no traces of the Vikings found.

Incredible luck

In the 50s of the last century, Helge Ingstad, who became interested in the problem of Vinland, offered a witty and not devoid of logic explanation for the eternal walking of researchers around the "grapes":

1. Information about the German Turkir in the saga of the Greenlanders, who allegedly found grapes - a later insert;
2. The name "Vinland" does not come from grapes, but from the Old Norse root vin, which means rich meadows;
3. By grapes, the Vikings understood other fruit berries from which it was possible to make mash.

Helge Ingstad and his wife, Anne Steen, 1961

In 1960, Ingstad appeared in Lance-au-Meadows. First of all, he drew attention to the fact that there are meadows around the village. The following year, he arrived there not alone, but with his friends on the Haliten yacht. As they say in his book “In the footsteps of Leif the Happy” (published in Russian in 1969 in Leningrad), local fisherman John Decker (a direct descendant of the founder of the village - William Decker) showed the Norwegian in 1960 to swollen mounds in the middle of a grassy plain by the sea. Ingstad immediately became interested in them.

In the summer of 1960, Helge Ingstad reached the northern tip of Newfoundland, where the tiny Black Duck River flowed into Epaven Bay. Despite John Decker's claim about the ancient ruins, he did not fully believe his luck. All his preliminary calculations, made on the basis of a thoughtful analysis of the sagas, seemed to testify in favor of Newfoundland. Currents, descriptions of the coast in the stories of the Vikings said that they could visit this island in any case.

It is worth saying that Ingstad found himself in Lance-au-Meadows for a reason. Prior to that, he undertook a large-scale voyage along the east coast of the United States and Canada - from Rhode Island and through Nova Scotia to Newfoundland. He traveled part of the way, swam part, somewhere he was thrown up by aircraft. But Ingstad had little time, and the coastline seemed endless. Why he drew attention to a few tiny hillocks in the north of Newfoundland, history is silent. Most likely, because such an arrangement of the Norman settlement completely fit into his theory, which he generally did not hide.

It is noteworthy that Ingstad's expedition was not the work of a lone amateur, as some journalists often imagine. From the very early stage, his expedition was financed by such serious structures as the National Geographic Society of the USA, the British Royal Society, the University of Oslo, a number of US universities, etc. organizations. Also, the Canadian Navy and Air Force provided the expedition with airplanes (on which Ingstad flew several times all over Newfoundland and Labrador), ships and building materials for free. Things got to the point that at one time the expedition even had a destroyer of the Canadian Navy at its disposal. In the Canadian Navy, Rear Admiral K.L. personally oversaw the expedition. Dyer.

Canadian Navy destroyer

“It is appropriate to say a few words about how carefully the Canadian authorities treated my expeditions, how willingly they helped us. The Newfoundland government and the Department of Northern and National Districts have done a lot for us. In particular, in one of the departments of the department, a map of the Lance-au-Meadows area was compiled for us .... The Canadian Air Force conducted aerial photography, and military sailors helped us with transport.- wrote Ingstad himself. The search and excavation of the Leif Eriksson farm in 1960-1964 was a serious, state-owned enterprise, with a corresponding scope.

It is also interesting that even before the shovel of archaeologists plunged into the ground of the mouth of the Black Duck, the Montreal newspapermen, at the suggestion of Ingstad and his financiers, trumpeted that a village of ancient Vikings had already been found in the Canadian wilderness. As the Norwegian himself admitted, this confused him a lot.

Viking settlement plan in Newfoundland

Despite this, the excavation of a tiny farm in Newfoundland, with the involvement of a good dozen venerable archaeologists (since 1962) and local labor, proceeded very slowly. In 1961, Ingstad, at the head of a small reconnaissance expedition, appears off the coast of the island on the Halten rescue schooner, which he had recently acquired. This expedition did not include professional historians or archaeologists (except for Ingstad's wife, Anna Steen). Ingstad's childhood friend Dr. Odd Martens, the sea traveler Erling Brunborg, Ingstad's daughter Benedict and the captain of the schooner Paul Sernes set off on the journey.

Of the finds in 1961, it is worth noting a rusty nail, a piece of slag and a bunch of burnt stones. In the opinion of a slightly discouraged Ingstad, “acidic soil” was to blame for the small number of artifacts, as well as vigilant Indians and Eskimos, who stole Scandinavian artifacts for souvenirs.

“How could they pass by houses or ruins? For an Indian or an Eskimo, a piece of iron was like gold for white. Undoubtedly, they have worked hard.” he concluded.

As he himself later admitted, it was important for him to make sure that Lance-au-Meadows corresponded to the information from the sagas about the location of the Norman settlement. True, it still could not have done without an unfortunate blunder. In the Scandinavian sagas, passages from which were quoted above, it was clearly and unequivocally indicated that the Vikings founded their settlement not by the sea, but by the lake. And the settlement excavated by Ingstad was located by the sea ...

Another scheme of the Norman settlement at Lance-au-Meadows. Please note that the buildings are scattered so that it is impossible to organize their defense. Although the sagas say that a fence was built around the houses.

“Karlsefni swam south along the coast, and with him Snorri, Bjarni and others. They sailed for a long time and finally came to the river, which flowed into the lake, and then into the sea. There were large sandbanks at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his people went to the mouth and called this place Ozerko ... Karlsefni and his people built a dwelling for themselves on a slope near the lake. Some houses were close to the lake, others were further away. They spent the winter there.

In a similar way, the village is mentioned in the Greenlanders' Saga, which describes the journey of Leif Eriksson:

“They headed west, skirting the cape. There was a great shoal, and at low tide the ship ran aground, so that the sea was far away. But they were so eager to land as soon as possible that they did not wait until the ship was on the water again, and ran to the shore, where the river flowed from the lake. And when their ship was back on the water, they got into the boat, swam up to him and brought him into the river, and then into the lake. There they dropped anchor, carried their sleeping bags ashore, and made themselves dugouts. But then they decided to spend the winter there and built themselves big houses. Both in the river and in the lake there was plenty of salmon, and such a large one that they had never seen before..

So, we clearly see that the houses of the Normans are on the shore or near the lake, which is connected to the bay by a river. There is nothing like it in Lance-au-Meadows.

Helge Ingstad and Anne Steen at Lance aux Meadows, 1962

The stellar team of doctors and professors is faced with an important task - to excavate the Norman settlement, to obtain evidence of the discovery of America by the Vikings. Transportation of the expedition members from Halifax to Lance-au-Meadows went generally without a hitch on the Canadian Navy's USS Histor. At the excavation, things went more cheerfully. Anne Steen was excavating a large building, which was considered a typical Old Norse longhouse (long house), archaeologist Petre discovered a bone needle. She was immediately recognized as suitable for the "Norman type", like the found piece of copper. And Icelandic scientists dug up a pit found in the previous year, which Anne Steen prophetically called a forge (slag and an anvil stone were found here). In its place was also found an oval soapstone lamp, a product of the Dorset Eskimos. Thus, on the site near the river, it was possible to find a forge and a pit for burning charcoal, but the most important element of ancient metallurgy - furnaces, Ingstad's expedition to Lance-au-Meadows did not find.

Remains of what is believed to be a "long house" at Lance-au-Meadows

Ingstad considered the results of the excavations in 1962 to be encouraging, but he did not yet have one hundred percent evidence in favor of the belonging of the farm to the Normans. He and Anne Steen, who led the archaeological part of the expedition, were well aware that such evidence could only be the discovery of clear and indisputable objects of the material culture of the ancient Scandinavians.

In 1963, the researchers completed the excavations of the so-called. "long house" with sides of 20 and 12-16 meters. The finds in the house did not indulge in variety: a few rusty nails, pieces of slag, a quartzite touchstone, a stone lamp “reminiscent of Icelandic”. This was too little to draw any conclusions. True, Collins and Byrd have already compiled a report for the US National Geographic Society, in which they unequivocally stated that the settlement found by Ingstad is Norman.

However, Helge Ingstad and, accordingly, Leif Eriksson managed to enter American history only in the following year, 1964. In addition to Anne Steen, Junius Byrd, Brigitte Wallace of the Carnegie Museum, and Canadian archaeologist Tony Beardsley worked at Lance-o-Meadows that year.

“The dream never left us: to find such an undeniably Norman object that even non-archaeologists could immediately see that the Normans lived in Lance-au-Meadows for a thousand years”, - Helge Ingstad himself admitted.

Excavations at Lance-o-Meadows went back to 1965-1967, but no other Scandinavian artifacts were found.

Bronze pin and soapstone whorl

Notes

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Could this be?

No. Few things in the Middle Ages were valued like land. It was in her search that dozens of tribes came to Europe from Asia in the 3rd-7th centuries AD. It was for her that kings, feudal lords and commoners hunted for centuries and millennia. The Vikings were no exception. They were looking not just for land, but for land better than the one they already had. With a better climate, with better natural conditions, more fertile. If they had fertile land, there would be no raids on England, France, Germany, Italy and Byzantium. Iceland and the Faroe Islands would have remained undiscovered until the era of satellites. But it was the search for new lands that brought the Vikings to Iceland and Greenland. The latter was “opened” for settlement by Eric the Red, who, apparently, was expelled from Iceland.

The Vikings visited America, but could not gain a foothold there

His sons Leif Eriksson and Thorvald Eriksson were the first Europeans to visit America. We went to that part of it, which was closer. Leif explored modern Canada. He and his companions visited Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland. Torvald traveled south. The colony he founded was located, apparently, a little north of present-day New York. The Vikings did not stay there. The settlement founded by Torval is the only Viking colony on the new continent.

Landing of the Vikings in America

The locals were not so lucky. They were attacked by warlike Indians. Torvald died, and the topic was closed once and for all. The Vikings never returned to America despite the abundance of fertile and completely uninhabited land. They were not up to the unknown continent in the west. The Vikings realized that they had found a very large land, but they also quickly realized that this large land was too tough for them. The fact of their stay in America has been proven by various sciences, including genetics. In 2010, the remains of a woman who lived at the beginning of the second millennium AD were examined in Iceland. Geneticists came to the conclusion that this woman was an Indian. She was brought to Iceland from America, apparently by force.

Without firearms, Europeans and Indians would have an equal chance

A little later, when the study was continued, it turned out that several dozen Icelanders living today are her descendants. That is, Indian blood flows in their veins. You can't imagine clearer evidence. Apparently, the grandchildren of Eric the Red tried to get to that unknown continent, but did not find anyone willing. After all, it is much more convenient to fight in densely populated Europe than to create something of your own on the other side of the ocean. And this, remember, is a very good land. It's cold in Labrador, but New York is much further south. The climate is excellent, the land is fertile, you need to fight for it only with the Indians. But there were no resources for this war. There were few applicants, and it was difficult to compete with the warlike tribes of America with small forces. There is no incentive. The one that the Spaniards had in the 16th century. They realized that the new continent is full of resources from which you can enrich yourself. The Vikings had neither the time nor the energy to explore these resources.

Light decline

Now imagine, after all, that the Vikings managed to settle in America, and their settlements established regular ties with Europe. There are sea connections, and new settlers are in the colony. To gain a foothold in America would need a lot of people. The question is where to get them? But, let's assume that these people would stay in these settlements from other European states. It would be such a loophole. Your business is bad at home, run across the ocean. Actually, that's exactly what it was, only already in the XVI-XVII centuries. Europeans fled to the New World not from a good life. But here one could feel relatively free. We could observe a similar picture provided that the Vikings would gain a foothold in America. Many Europeans from France, Germany, England, Scotland would be looking for a way to get there in order to become free. With regular maritime connections, this is not so difficult. After all, many serfs fled to cities where the rule of the year and day was in effect. If you lived outside the city walls for a day for more than a year, then the feudal lord to whom you belonged lost his rights to you. Escape across the ocean could be an alternative.

America could have feudal kingdoms

Only American settlements would become part of European life, with all its rules. So, you see, sooner or later the kingdom of America would arise. And this is a completely different paradigm of development. America with feudalism, knights, castles and, of course, bloody wars with the Indians. Wars would be more equal. Without firearms, you can't easily deal with the Indians. You can, of course, scare them with cavalry, but technically the forces would be approximately equal. And who would win in such a war, we do not know. And the development of European cities, for sure, would have slowed down. And not only cities. There would be fewer people. They expelled some lord from England, and he waved to America.

L'Anse o Meadows - this is where the first Viking settlement in America was supposedly located. Newfoundland, Canada

So, perhaps, the center of life would be transferred there. Much earlier than it actually happened. If you let your imagination run wild, you can even imagine a desolated Europe that fled to America. Just remember that in America it would be the same. Not a different life, as in the 17th century, but feudalism by all the rules, as in the 12th century. Yes, and the church would have settled here very thoroughly, which, undoubtedly, would have led to crusades against the pagan Indians. Which is interesting, albeit completely speculative.

conquest

Now imagine the Vikings conquering what the Spaniards conquered in the 16th century. It couldn't have happened all at once. It would take time. And a lot of time. The Vikings would have reached the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas only after centuries. Those inhabited places too remote from the original colonies of the Scandinavians. But let's go further. Suppose the Vikings were able to conquer North, Central America and South America, establishing their power here. All the gold and silver from the mines of Mexico, Bolivia and Peru would be at their disposal. And this is a colossal strengthening of the power that would receive them. Another question is that all this must be protected somehow. Spain failed to do so. But the Vikings, if they came to this economy 200-300 years earlier, it would be easier.

Conquest of Tenochtitlan by Cortes

First, not strong competitors, such as England and Holland. Secondly, their fleet is first-class and fast. On the other hand, there is no centralized state, and therefore the question of who would get the cream is the most intriguing in this story. Norway or Denmark? Or maybe the newly independent Viking states in America. But one of them would have received serious trump cards in the face of gold and silver in unlimited quantities. Given the fact that the Vikings, like the Spaniards, would not deport the most economically productive part of their population, the rapid flowering of this state would begin. Who knows, perhaps Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo would have left to create there.

Passion for distant wanderings was inherited from Eirik the Red and his son Leif. He set off to the West about 1000 and after a long voyage reached an unknown shore, where it was warm, salmon splashed in crystal rivers, and wild grapes grew in bright tender forests. Leif liked this region very much, and he called it Vinland (that is, "country of grapes").

Now all historians have agreed that Vinland is the coast of North America. Archaeologists even managed to unearth a Viking settlement on the island of Newfoundland. True, it is not clear exactly where Leif landed on the coast. Some argue that they are in Newfoundland, others point to the Labrador Blue Island, others are looking for Vinland in the vicinity of the present city of Boston. Be that as it may, Leif turned out to be the first European who was able to get to the New World, return from there and tell about his discovery. This happened 500 years before Columbus! Leif was generally lucky in life, he was even nicknamed Leif the Happy. But the discovery of Vinland was his greatest success.

Remains of a Norman helmet

Traveling to Vinland was also a difficult task for the magnificent sailors of the Scandinavians. A few more times they got to America, brought women, all kinds of belongings and cattle with them, wintered there and tried to gain a foothold in earnest. But too much effort was required for this, too many dangers lay in wait for the daredevils. Sailing to Vinland gradually ceased, and only stories about this country were passed down from generation to generation. Outside of Scandinavia, the "discovery" of America by Europeans remained generally unknown.

"From the Varangians to the Greeks"

The Vikings sailed not only to the west, but also to the east. Along the Baltic Sea and the Western Dvina, they penetrated the lands of the Eastern Slavs, who called the Normans Varangians. The Scandinavians traveled along the Volga to the Caspian, and along the rapids of the Dnieper they sailed to the Black Sea, from where they got to Constantinople and even to Jerusalem. Hired squads of the Varangians served at the imperial court in Constantinople. The Byzantine emperors valued the Normans for their power and martial prowess. The leaders of the Varangian squads also played a very important role in Russia.

Norman victories

Relations between the Normans and the inhabitants of Europe in the VIII - XI centuries. formed, as a rule, not at all peacefully. Every summer, dozens or even hundreds of Scandinavian ships, hungry for prey, hit the coasts of England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Spain. The Vikings sometimes penetrated through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, inflicted defeats on the soldiers of the Arab emirs. At the end of the ninth century the French king Charles the Simple had to cede to one of the leaders of the Normans Rollon very large possessions in the north of the country. Thus the Duchy of Normandy was born.

"Northern people" from Normandy (in contrast to the "real" Scandinavians they were usually called Normans) began to disturb the coast of Italy every now and then. They tried to recruit militant Normans into the service in order to protect the country from Arabs and other enemies with their hands. Norman settlements soon appeared in Italy, and every year there were more and more of them. The "defenders" were not averse to dominating those who needed their protection themselves. In the XI century. the Norman leader Robert, nicknamed Guiscard (that is, the Evil one), subjugated all of southern Italy with an iron fist, driving the Byzantines out of there. Moreover, he invaded Byzantium itself, where he defeated the troops of Basil. Soon the fate of the Romans also befell the Arabs - the Normans took Sicily from them. Now the Italian possessions of newcomers from the north stretched from Sicily to Naples. The Norman state was called the Kingdom of Naples or the Kingdom of Sicily. In later times, it was also called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, as if considering the south of Italy as the “second Sicily”.

Church of San Cataldo in Palermo, built after the conquest of Sicily by the Normans

The Sicilian (or Neapolitan) kingdom became a powerful force in the south of Europe. He was reckoned with and often feared both in Rome and in Constantinople. However, the Sicilian kingdom was not only feared - they marveled at it. The descendants of the ancient Romans, Goths, Lombards, Byzantines, Arabs and Normans created a completely unusual culture in which the traditions of peoples so different and far from each other were intertwined.

In 2010, the remains of a woman were examined in Iceland and it was found that she was an Indian, arrived in Iceland around the year 1000 and remained there to live.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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Viking travels. dragon wings

Viking Travels (2006)

The American War of Independence (narrated by historian Andrey Iserov, continued)

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Literature

• Anokhin G.I. To the ethnic history of the Greenlandic Normans // Romania and Barbaria. To the ethnic history of the peoples of foreign Europe: Sat. / Ed. S. A. Arutyunova and others - M. Nauka 1989. - S. 131-163.
• Bakless D. America through the eyes of the discoverers / Per. from English. 3. M. Kanevsky. - M.: Thought, 1969. - 408 p.: ill.
• Boyer Regis. Vikings: History and Civilization / Per. from fr. M. Yu. Nekrasov. - St. Petersburg. : Eurasia, 2012. - 416 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-91852-028-4.
• Vikings. Raids from the north / Per. from English. L. Florentyeva. - M. : Terra, 1996. - 168 p.: ill. With. - (Encyclopedia "Disappeared Civilizations"). - ISBN 5-300-00824-3.
• Vozgrin V. E. Greenland Normans // Questions of history. - 1987. - No. 2. - S. 186-187.
• Jones Gwyn. Normans. Conquerors of the North Atlantic. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2003. - 301 p.
• Dougherty Martin J. Viking world. Daily Life of the Children of Odin / Per. from English. V. L. Silaeva. - M.: Publishing house "E", 2015. - 224 p.: ill. - The Dark Side of History series. -