28.8 America: a.d. 1301 to 1400

America

Back to America: A.D. 1201 to 1300

North america

The far north and canada

The Thule Inuit were exceptional arctic hunters, using a variety of harpoon heads of different shapes and sizes, depending upon the immediate game available. The harpoon heads were very similar to those found in the Bering Strait area, suggesting a direct connection. (Please also see adjacent modules).

By this time the Norsemen on the southwest coast of Greenland had founded some 280 farms, 2 Episcopal residences, some monasteries and 17 churches, maintaining contacts with Iceland by open boats and being taxed by the Vatican in Rome. It is of interest that the route from Norway or Great Britain, via the Shetlands, Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland and Baffin Island to Labrador and continental America has no ocean gap wider than the length of Lake Michigan. (Ref. 189 , 95 ) In 1362 the Norwegian king, Magnus Ericson, sent an expedition west to look for some of his people of a previous voyage who had failed to reach their Greenland destination. It is possible that the would-be rescuers entered what would later be Hudson's Bay

Regarding the Canadian Indians, please see previous modules.

The united states

There is an ancient church at Newport, Rhode Island, which Professor Fell (Ref. 66 ) says was built in this 14th century by Norsemen. He quotes the writings of an Italian explorer, Giovanni de Verrazana, who sailed in 1524 northward from Florida to Labrador to the effect that while sailing along the Narragansett coast he was astonished to see a tall, stone-built "Norman villa". On going ashore he found friendly, civilized Indians, some with fair skins , but they could remember nothing of how the stone structure had been built. This "Norma villa" was undoubtedly the Round Tower of Newport, in which some claim that Norse runes have been inscribed. Others deny entirely the antiquity of this building.

There is little accurate history of the North American Indians at this time but probably the tribal differentiation had about reached the point which was to be glimpsed by the Europeans in the last of the next century. Recent excavations at the ancient village of Crow Creek in South Dakota have revealed some 500 skeletons of men, women and children of the Coalescent Culture, apparently massacred by other Indians. The lack of females in the 12 to 19 year old bracket and the absence of very young children probably indicates that this group was taken captive. The skeletons showed evidence of multiple diseases and injuries, with a total of some 1137 incidents of abnormality identified. Bone cancer was virtually non-existent and arthritis was rare, but the bones did show evidence of infection, vitamin and protein deficiencies. No one knows why this massacre occurred among these usually placid, farmer peoples nor why their culture seemed to disappear entirely about A.D. 1400. Perhaps occasional or chronic malnutrition was a factor; perhaps the Missouri flood plain and terraces became over-populated; or perhaps an extended drought could have tipped the balance. (Ref. 79 )