Viking Horsemen

Horses were reintroduced by the Spanish, and there's no evidence for Norsemen as far in as Iowa.

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Scott Haley said:
I just saw men rowing a modern replica of a Viking ship on the British show "The Worst Jobs in History," and there's no way that they could have brought large horses on one of those.
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The Viking longship was a dedicated military vessel used for raiding. The Viking expeditions to Vinland would have used boats like the knarr which are broader and deeper.

They did bring livestock to Iceland and Greenland, so there's no reason why they couldn't also have brought them to Newfoundland. In the Greenland saga, there is a reference to Torfinn Karlsevne's expedition selling milk to the local natives. (Although we should be careful to unquestinoably accept the veracity of the details in the sagas -- they were written much later than the events they describe and they do sometimes take literary liberties.)
 
As for penetration into North America... I am no expert in any of this mind you, just intrigued, do some research on the runestones ound - maybe not in Iowa itself but in that general area. These runes have been studied dated back to the general time the Swedes and Norwegians were here. This was a pretty good documentary on the Discovery channel here. The stones and other large rocks with runes and symbols were found by farmers and others plowing fields etc. One stone records - translated - into a record of 20 some Norwegians and Swedes settling there on that site. Others marking territoies perhaps - but they are the runes used then by such peoples. And the hop to Newfoundland from Greenland is not that long of one - If they had horses and other animals in Greenland - wouldn't they desire to have them in America, and if so - weren't they good enough engineers to find a way to transport a few horses - maybe one or two at a time? Who knows? It just sense to me.
 
They've been finding rune stones in Minnesota from long times past. They've been regarded by most historians as forgeries. There is no proof the Northmen ever lived in North America except for Greenland and The northern tip of Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows, AFAIK.
 
shadron said:
They've been finding rune stones in Minnesota from long times past. They've been regarded by most historians as forgeries. There is no proof the Northmen ever lived in North America except for Greenland and The northern tip of Newfoundland at L'Anse aux Meadows, AFAIK.
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I concur, no Vikings, but lots and lots of Americans desperate to show off their celtic and northern european heritage in their own county neighbourhood as well as attempting to validate their religious beliefs.

Alpenit, I'm afraid youve been reading pseudo history websites as if they were credible and not heavily agendised. Practice will teach you that credible websites will use words such as "unlikely" and "unsupported" rather than "proven" and "definite" when discussing easily forged ooparts

Theres also just as many false claims for the lost tribes of Israel as there are for vikings in the Americas, my favourite is the Los Lunas Decalogue which is an enscribed rock with the ten commandments, most websites will proclaim this artifact totally genuine proving the bible exodus account accurate without mentioning that its the Mormon ten commandments enscribed and the site was less than 5 miles from a Mormon platoon during the civil war. You have to examine all the possibilities and evidence for something before you go with one that fits what you want to believe.
;)
 
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Major points or issues:

1. the Norse didn't have large horses, anywhere, so couldn't have brought them with them. Medieval horses were relatively small.

2. Even if they had horses they would not have fought on them. They were used as draught animals.

ETA. Also, the animals the Norse took to Greenland were animals such as cattle, which were used as food. They didn't eat horses.
 
gumboot said:
ETA. Also, the animals the Norse took to Greenland were animals such as cattle, which were used as food. They didn't eat horses.
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Actually, they did. Horse-sacrifice and horse-meat was an important part of the Vikings' religious blót rituals.

There's a fair argument that can be made that the modern aversion towards horse-meat in northern Europe can be traced at least in part to attempts by the Christian Church to stamp out the practice of blót.
 
The Vikings went to North America to make a movie about the Vikings discovering North America - I have it on the best authority :D
 
gumboot said:
Major points or issues:

1. the Norse didn't have large horses, anywhere, so couldn't have brought them with them. Medieval horses were relatively small.

2. Even if they had horses they would not have fought on them. They were used as draught animals.

ETA. Also, the animals the Norse took to Greenland were animals such as cattle, which were used as food. They didn't eat horses.
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Actually, that's not entirely exact. While the small coastal raids indeed didn't bring horses along, Norse cavalry is historically mentioned, e.g., at Montfaucon in the 9'th century, at Sulcoit in the 10'th century, and in some Danish campaigns in the 11'th. At the time of the Vinland debackle, the Norse most definitely knew how to use a horse for military purposes.

Sure, they were relatively small horses, not the brick-on-legs destriers of later eras, but that pretty much described everyone's horses at the time. Any cavalry they were likely to encounter, also didn't have any better.
 
I'd like to thank Tragic Monkey for his posts on page 1 of this thread, which made me weep with laughter into my morning coffee.

Cheers, mate! :D
 
Thanks Marduk. I respect your view as to my thoughts. I am also a individual that relies on fact and logic and can expand the reasoning of great changes that must have been made in our worlds history. I did archaeology in college - physical, not cultural but I have studied and 'intrigued' there too. And I get my curiosity from my interest in science ongoing and peoples before this continent, continents - the Americas, was raped by the Spanish and French and England. I am happy to have you reply in an open minded assistance to myself.
Don't worry - I am not the shallow type and again thanks.
We probably know about less than 1% of what was and how it truly became - given lack of documentation and destruction of any recorded history in those times and before. We speculate and use modern logic and the 'knowledge' we think we have based on the less than 1% to all of a sudden become 'experts' at what little we know. I try to use the fact of MAN and logic. We wouldn't be here if we weren't problem solvers, as the Norse to Vinland - never would have happened - thus, on the spot - make it happen attitude - not just two types of watercraft - or small horses, this is weak in the replies I get. Think. The Mongolians have been using 'small horses' - as far back as we can go in history and today... I will research the 'mustang' more - but I may be wrong - the Spaniards brought the mustang here - true - the 'larger' (were they larger horses - no they were another family altogether) - horses went extinct here long before.

Runestones - yeah there a lot of nuts out there - we're they're all Irish on St. Patty's day... etc... some of these stones were way under the ground - and most Swedish 'experts' say the runes are too modern. Given!
Correct - we have a lot of lonely nuts who want to get noticed or make money.
Tell me..... do you really know all the past and what 'must have been' given your sources are so minute? IF I were just going to Newfoundland - I would like to SEE whats on that shore only 6 miles away - Canada. I might travel down the coast to warmer climes.. I would want an animal of burden and I would find the smarts to build a craft that would transfer that animal(s) - because I know how to build a craft like that.
There are no politics here... don't 'pose' as an expert - that you know for certain any truth about any of this...
What bible do you read? Guess is - its the King James version - the original is much different - transposition and modern fantasy based on limited sources - you have to stay away from your 'facts' - the ones you believe - there is far greater lost history and knowledge and arts than you have to source from and the minds of explorers are far more intuitive and contructive than what little you can find today...
Thats all I have to say. Thanks all for sharing and God Bless.
 
Alpenit, I don't see why you make such a big deal out of it. It's pretty simple.

Could the vikings have brought horses to the Americas? Yes, they could have -- they routinely transported livestock, including horses, in their boats.

Did they bring horses to the Americas? Not as far as we know. There's no historical accounts of them doing so, and there is no archaeological evidence of them having done so. All we can say is that if they did bring horses to the Americas, it didn't have a significant impact.

In short: we don't know.
 
Three pages and four years, and nobody's pointed out that this arises from a simple typo in the first letter of "Norsemen"?
 
Ryokan said:
Why are Americans so keen on making remakes of movies? I just don't get it, the original Pathfinder is an amazing movie, certainly the best Norwegian movie ever made.

The American version seems silly and not very historically correct. Yeah, the Vikings had horses, but they were pretty small.
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The best explanation I have ever been able to come up with is that most of the people deciding what movies to invest in are scared to death of the smallest hint of originality in a movie. There seems to be a perception among studio executives that something that has been done before is safer, even if it's a bad remake of a good movie, a bad remake of a bad movie, or a bad remake of an excruciatingly horrible 1960's TV series.
 
I found it amusing how they have illustrated the horse/man scenario in the Danish movie The Prince of Jutland, it's really just Hamlet turned into a viking saga, but they have kept it real wrt. to horses, because they only have small icelandic horses, and it looks hilarious when these vikings mount and ride these small creatures.

As Hans said, they had horses, but small ones, and nothing like in Pathfinder. Also they were, according to archeology, dressed like this..

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Granted, this is from the iron age, but the viking age is just around the corner here. I.e. they looked nothing like in Pathfinder. Not the horses, nor the men.
 
Yes, the viking ships not uncommonly carried horses with them. One of the reasons had to do with making swift excursions back and forth when on hostile territory, like those when sailing along the rivers deep into unfriendly territory. They made raids on northern France and Ireland on horseback for example.
I remember, faintly from somewhere, that there was one ships which carried at least twelve horses. But no, they weren't 'big' horses, the "västgötska" horse was a bit smaller than the average horse, at least height'wise.
 
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It's plausible that they had (small) horses with them to Vinland/Newfoundland, because they were not explorers, but lost.. They navigated by the stars and was on their way to Greenland from Iceland, but it was, or became, clouded, so they had no clue of where they were going, and thus ended up in Vinland by chance. So much for the viking explorers.

This is all if I remember the Vinland Sagas correctly tho.
 
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Thomas said:
It's plausible that they had (small) horses with them to Vinland/Newfoundland, because they were not explorers, but lost.. They navigated by the stars and was on their way to Greenland from Iceland, but it was, or became, clouded, so they had no clue of where they were going, and thus ended up in Vinland by chance. So much for the viking explorers.

This is all if I remember the Vinland Sagas correctly tho.
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Well the two sagas tell the story differently, but, yes, in both Vinland was discovered accidentally; however, both relate later expeditions as well.
 
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