The Vinland Map (Vikings map) is a fake
The Vinland Map, the document that was supposed to testify "in black and white" that the Vikings arrived in America before Columbus, is a fake. This is the latest ruling on the famous find preserved at Yale University, which has been the subject of fierce disputes among specialists for more than 40 years.
The forgery was determined by the analysis conducted by a group of English scientists from University College who examined a particular substance present in the ink used to drew the map. The analyses shown that the parchment on which the map is drawn is actually from the 15th century, but the drawing depicting a stretch of Canadian coast would have been made in the 20th century and more precisely in a date after the 1920s, when it became available on the market anatase, a crystalline form of titanium dioxide, used as a white pigment.
Apparently the condemnation of the Vinland Map may seem definitive, but it is a safe bet that this will not be the case given that the document was valued at 20-25 million dollars and Yale University will certainly not give up so easily to defeat.
In reality, there are possibilities of appeal, because anatase itself has been the subject of previous analysis which have always led to conflicting conclusions. The first to take into consideration this rather rare crystalline form of titanium dioxide was Walter McCrone, an expert in the analysis of "fine dust", who in the 1970s saw the proof of falsification precisely in the presence of anatase.
In the 1980s, however, Thomas Cahill, a physicist at the University of California at Davis, overturned the verdict by claiming with very sophisticated analyzes that the minimal traces of titanium detected on the map were perfectly compatible with the hypothesis that the map had been created around 1440, that is, about half a century before the landing of Columbus.
Another open point is its presence in the yellowish halo that appears at the edges of the black lines of the drawing and of the caption that accompanies it. According to some scholars, the 20th century forger first drew this yellowish halo and then the lines of black ink that should have produced it as a result of the presence of iron in the ink itself. Interestingly, attention for the Vinland map never waned, even after indisputable evidence of Viking presence in America was found well before the arrival of Columbus. Evidently the $25 million outweighs the remains of the Viking village found in Newfoundland.
According to some scholars, it was an Austrian Jesuit, Father Joseph Fischer who died in 1944 at the age of 86, the forger of the "Vinland map" which was supposedly dated to the 15th century and considered proof of the Viking's landing in the North America.
Kirsten Seaver, an exploration expert, explained that Father Fischer drew the map about 80 years ago, on a parchment piece removed from from a 1440 codex: the handwriting on the paper corresponds to that of Father Fischer.
Vikings in South America?
A question immediately arises: the Vikings, after having reached the extreme north of America, have might had the idea of venturing into the southern lands? After all, it would have been an absolutely natural behavior.
For some authors, the coin discovered in 1955 by two amateur archaeologists at an Indian site in Maine constitutes sufficient proof of this path. Appraised in 1982, the coin actually reveals its Viking origin, minted in Norway under the reign of Olaf Kyrre (1066-1093). With a hole in the edge, it must have served as an amulet for the Indian who carried it. But is a single coin, even of little value, enough to demonstrate that the Vikings reached America? Certainly not. No Scandinavian-type sites highlighted nearby suggest that this coin was given to an Indian as part of an exchange.
In 1930, an authentic Viking sword was found in Beardmore, Ontario, only to discover soon had arrived there ten years earlier! There was also the "Kensington Runestone" in Minnesota. But, apart from Alf Mongé and Dr Landsverk, all experts believe it is a fake...
For Jacques de Mahieu, professor at the University of Buenos Aires, anthropologist, economist, sociologist, historian, the Vikings reached the Central America and even landed in Amazonia. He has made reconstructions of the expeditions to South America, writing several page.
For Mahieu there is no room for dispute:
"in the year 967, approximately 700 Vikings of both sexes landed from seven drakkars on the coasts of Mexico".
From there come the "solar mythology, a political organization, moral values, scientific and technical knowledge, countless Danish, German and Anglo-Saxon terms still used by Indians at the beginning of the last century". Archaeological trace of their passage have not yet been found... The professor considered that before Columbus "everyone went to America": including, the Templars. Furthermore, Columbus would have no merit: he had stolen the map of America.
The hypothesis of the southern and equatorial journeys of the Vikings would certainly deserve something better than the novels imagined by geezers of this kind. If, which is possible, it were one day confirmed, certain beliefs with which the Pre-Columbians were imbued (such as the astonishing myth of Quetzalcoatl, the "bearded white god", whose "announced" return would have caused the ruin of the Mexicans) would find a rational explanation. But it is not necessary that a belief needs a positive element to arise and flourish, nor that it was what we believe it to have been. However, it must be recognized that at the current state of research, we are far from having made progress on this point.
Celts, Phoenicians and... Neanderthals
And before the Vikings? We swim in a sea of assumptions...
Like Heyerdhal or Ragnar Thorseth for the Vikings, Tim Severin demonstrated that it was possible to cross the Atlantic aboard fragile boats, such as the coracles of the Irish of the Early Middle Ages (skins sewn onto wooden armor). But sporting exploits are not a guarantee, especially since Severin knew where he was going...
Louis Kevran attempted to demonstrate that Saint Brandan, the most famous "navigator-monk" of the Middle Ages, had actually completed the voyages attributed to him by late narratives, written three centuries after his death (i.e. in the 9th sec.). He thought that the holy man had come to America in search of Paradise. Why not? A solitary adventure, even if made uncertain by the technical difficulties it generates, is always possible and can lead to Cuba or the Canary Islands. But the hagiographic and metaphorical haze that envelops the texts, the constant geographical imprecision that results (and which, unlike the Scandinavian sagas, leaves free rein to every imagination without guaranteeing any), the absence of material facts to support such expeditions are elements that for now authorize us to doubt the reality of these journeys.
As for the traces of previous expeditions (conducted by the Celts, for example) it is an understatement to say that they are tenuous. Some authors, whose spirit of adventure has nothing to envy of the navigators whose wanderings they describe, obviously had no hesitation in explaining the ease of these ancient transoceanic crossings with the appropriate presence of the Atlantis port of call, in full ocean... It is useless to answer them.
As always happens when one lands on the slippery shores of hypothetical reconstitutions, there were also some boasters. For example, the smoky Cyrus Gordon who, after having "proved" that the Jews had gone to America after their departure from Palestine, discovered the reproduction of a Phoenician text carved on a stele in Pouso Alto, Brazil... looking carefully to warn his readers that it was a monumental forgery, of which the director of the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, Dr Netto, was the victim in the last century!
Who else? The Chinese? The Oceans? The Pacific route, during the first millennium before our era, is a probable hypothesis, according to botanists (the potato is common to America and Polynesia and cotton to Asia and Central and South America).
The real discoverers of America are actually much older. They are simply the first migrants to populate the American continent. We always forget them. "Simply" is not the right expression, since we hesitate to say with certainty about the exact date of their arrival, as well as their origin. Nothing is always simple. Until the end of the 80s, the "specialists" opted for an initial population of Mongoloid origin which they dated back to around 12,000. From the discoveries made in Brazil by Niède Guidon and Georgette Delibrias, the first explorers have "aged" a lot: now it is estimated that they came from Asia, but certainly also from Polynesia, around 40,000 years ago (during the "Wurm glaciation"), crossing the Behring Strait on foot.
How long can this dating last? Some already postpone 70,000 years. Neanderthal Man, Columbus' first predecessor?
Vineyard or prairies?
To better reject the idea of an attempted early colonization of America by the Vikings, certain authors have disputed the origin of the word "Vinland" (currently translated as "Vineyard Country") which is found in at least five sagas. The wild vineyard cannot exist under such latitudes! We should prefer the wiser meaning of "Prairie Country". It's a question of "i": if it's a long "i", it's certainly about the vineyard, if it's a short "i", it must be translated as "prairie". The story of the vineyard would be "too reminiscent" of what is found in the Bible (in the land of Canaan). The linguistic "quarrels" can last forever, but one thing is certain: the presence of the vineyard in these areas is attested by the inspections carried out in July 1534 by the French explorer Jacques Cartier.
