First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait Land-Ice Bridge, New Research Suggests

source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080701193203.htm

First Humans To Settle Americas Came From Europe, Not From Asia Over Bering Strait Land-Ice Bridge, New Research Suggests

ScienceDaily (July 17, 2008) — Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students on the creation of Kankakee Sand Islands of Northwest Indiana is lending support to evidence that the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, a discovery that overturns decades of classroom lessons that nomadic tribes from Asia crossed a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso is a member of the Council on Undergraduate Research.

Dr. Ron Janke began studying the origins of the Kankakee Sand Islands – a series of hundreds of small, moon-shaped dunes that stretch from the southern tips of Lake and Porter counties in Northwest Indiana into northeastern Illinois – about 12 years ago. Over the past few years, approximately a dozen Valparaiso undergraduates have worked with Dr. Janke to create the first detailed maps of the Kankakee Sand Islands, study their composition and survey wildlife and plants inhabiting the islands.

Based upon the long-held belief that most of the upper Midwest was covered by a vast ice sheet up until about 10,000 years ago, Dr. Janke said he and other scientists surmised the Kankakee Sand Islands were created by sand in meltwater from the receding glacier.

That belief was challenged, however, when he and his students discovered a year and a half ago that the islands were composed of sand that had come from Lake Michigan – something that should have been impossible with the Valparaiso Moraine standing between the lake and the Kankakee Sand Islands.

“That created a lot of problems with what we had previously believed about ice covering this entire area,” Dr. Janke said. “How could it get over the Valparaiso Moraine and be deposited there?”

Figuring out that puzzle required taking core samples from some of the remaining islands and the development of a new test by one of Dr. Janke’s colleagues to determine when sunlight last shone on the sand.

The answer that came back – the Kankakee Sand Islands were born between 14,500 and 15,000 years ago from Lake Michigan sand – was startling.

“We thought the area was completely covered by ice at that time,” Dr. Janke said. “That was a really earth-shattering result for us.”

Yet it also supports research showing that North American Clovis points – a particular type of arrowhead that represents the oldest manmade object on the continent –identically match arrowheads found in Europe and made by humans at approximately the same time. And just within the last year, new research has provided strong evidence that a large meteorite struck the ice sheet covering North American and melted much of the ice shortly before the formation of the Kankakee Sand Islands.

“Our research at Valparaiso supports this other recent research because it indicates there wasn’t a massive ice sheet covering North America that would have allowed tribes to cross over from Asia via a Bering Strait land-ice bridge,” Dr. Janke said.

Dr. Janke’s research on the formation of the Kankakee Sand Islands is continuing this summer, with a focus on determining whether the islands closest to Lake Michigan are younger than the southernmost islands.

At one time, approximately 1,200 of the islands stretched out in a series of curved bands north and and south of the Kankakee River that are separated by a few miles and mirror the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Though many were destroyed by human settlement, about 700 still exist today.

Dr. Janke and his students also have been active in the Woodland Savanna Land Conservancy, an organization working to protect the Kankakee Sand Islands.

Scott Osthus, a recent graduate who worked with Dr. Janke to map the Kankakee Sand Islands and support their preservation, enjoyed being involved in the research effort.

“During my four years at Valparaiso, I saw how interesting and significant the Kankakee Sand Islands landscape is,” Osthus said. “I want to see this area preserved because it is so historically significant.”

Landowners have donated a handful of islands to the trust for preservation, and Dr. Janke is hopeful that others will follow their lead and perhaps eventually build enough support for some of the islands to be incorporated into Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore or their own state park.

“The Kankakee Sand Islands are archaeologically significant, with numerous Native American artifacts and burial grounds still present in the surviving islands, and they provide crucial habitat for native wildlife and plant species,” Dr. Janke said. “I’m hopefully the sand islands can be protected so we can continue to learn about and appreciate them.”

Related:

- North America extensively explored and settled by ancient Israelites, Phoenicians, Celts, Libyans, & Carthagians as early as 1000 B.C.

North America extensively explored and settled by ancient Israelites, Phoenicians, Celts, Libyans, & Carthagians as early as 1000 B.C.

Source Article: North America Was Inhabited By Israelites 1000 Years or More Before 1492

Absolutely fascinating information. E.g., a stone carving of the Ten Commandments in Paleo-Hebrew exists in New Mexico (known as the "Los Lunas Stone") that can be dated no later than 500 B.C., and probably to the reign of King Solomon around 1000 B.C.

Thousands of Roman coins have been discovered in New England, from the Phoenician-Israelite trading settlements. Celto-Iberian, Greek, Norse, and Carthagian coins found all over North America. Hebrew, Celto-Gaelic, Norse, and Libyan stone inscriptions and artifacts all over the continent. And much more evidence covered.


The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone is a huge boulder on the side of Hidden Mountain, near Los Lunas, New Mexico, approximately 35 miles south of Albuquerque. This stone shows the Ten Commandments written in ancient paleo-Hebrew script. (Source)

Ancient Israel around the time of David and Solomon (the richest king of all history) circa 1000 B.C. was a great and powerful nation and ruled a vast "empire" in the Mid-East and Mediterranean region. At that time, Israel was allied with the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and had a large fleet of ships, with which for instance they explored and transported metals such as tin and copper from mines in Britain, Spain, and probably North America back to the land of Israel. Later the Carthagians, an Israelite-Phoenician people, explored and settled the continent from around 900 - 200 B.C. And evidence demonstrates that various Celtic peoples from Europe settled North America in the centuries after the time of Christ until around around 1000 A.D. when they suddenly vanished (mostly being absorbed among the asiatic "indians").


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The Kensington Rune Stone - Norsemen Travelled to Minnesota in 1362

More Hidden History

15th century Vinland Map no forgery; New World known not only to Norsemen but also to other Europeans at least half a century before Columbus's voyage

Vinland Map of America no forgery, expert says

NewsDaily
By John Acher

COPENHAGEN, July 17, 2009 (Reuters) — The 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map to show part of America before explorer Christopher Columbus landed on the continent, is almost certainly genuine, a Danish expert said Friday.

Controversy has swirled around the map since it came to light in the 1950s, many scholars suspecting it was a hoax meant to prove that Vikings were the first Europeans to land in North America -- a claim confirmed by a 1960 archaeological find.

Doubts about the map lingered even after the use of carbon dating as a way of establishing the age of an object.

"All the tests that we have done over the past five years -- on the materials and other aspects -- do not show any signs of forgery," Rene Larsen, rector of the School of Conservation under the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, told Reuters.

He presented his team's findings at an international cartographers' conference in the Danish capital Friday.

The map shows both Greenland and a western Atlantic island "Vinilanda Insula," the Vinland of the Icelandic sagas, now linked by scholars to Newfoundland where Norsemen under Leif Eriksson settled around AD 1000.

Larsen said his team carried out studies of the ink, writing, wormholes and parchment of the map, which is housed at Yale University in the United States.

He said wormholes, caused by wood beetles, were consistent with wormholes in the books with which the map was bound.

He said claims the ink was too recent because it contained a substance called anatase titanium dioxide could be rejected because medieval maps have been found with the same substance, which probably came from sand used to dry wet ink.

American scholars have carbon dated the map to about 1440, about 50 years before Columbus "discovered" the New World in 1492. Scholars believe it was produced for a 1440 church council at Basel, Switzerland.

The Vinland Map is not a "Viking map" and does not alter the historical understanding of who first sailed to North America. But if it is genuine, it shows that the New World was known not only to Norsemen but also to other Europeans at least half a century before Columbus's voyage.

It was bought from a Swiss dealer by an American after the British Museum turned it down in 1957.

It was subsequently bought for Yale University by a wealthy Yale alumnus, Paul Mellon, and published with fanfare in 1965.

The lack of a provenance has caused much of the controversy. Where the map came from and how it came into the hands of the Swiss dealer after World War Two remain a mystery.

Vikings visited Canadian Arctic, research suggests

Artifacts suggest Norse settlement in Nunavut

By Randy Boswell
Canwest News Service
May 27, 2009

This May 26 handout photo shows a Nanook archeological site on Baffin Island. Traces of a stone-and-sod wall found at the site, if confirmed, would represent only the second location in the New World where Norse seafarers -- popularly known as Vikings -- built a dwelling.

One of Canada's top Arctic archeologists says the remnants of a stone-and-sod wall unearthed on southern Baffin Island may be traces of a shelter built more than 700 years ago by Norse seafarers, a stunning find that would be just the second location in the New World with evidence of a Viking-built structure.

The tantalizing signs of a possible medieval Norse presence in Nunavut were found at the previously examined Nanook archeological site, about 200 kilometres southwest of Iqaluit, where people of the now-extinct Dorset culture once occupied a stretch of Hudson Strait shoreline.

A UNESCO World Heritage site at northern Newfoundland's L'Anse aux Meadows -- about 1,500 kilometres southeast of the Nanook dig -- is the only confirmed location of a Viking settlement in North America. There, about 1,000 years ago, it's believed a party of Norse voyagers from Greenland led by Leif Eiriksson built sod-and-wood dwellings before abandoning their colonization attempt under threat from hostile natives they called "Skraelings."

However, over the past 10 years, research teams led by the Canadian Museum of Civilization's chief of Arctic archeology, Pat Sutherland, have compiled evidence from field studies and archived collections that strongly suggests the Norse presence in northern Canada didn't end with Eiriksson's retreat from Newfoundland.

At three sites on Baffin Island, which the Norse called "Helluland" or "land of stone slabs," and another in northern Labrador, the researchers have documented dozens of suspected Norse artifacts such as Scandinavian-style spun yarn, distinctively notched and decorated wood objects and whetstones for sharpening knives and axes.

Among the new artifacts found near the sod-and-stone features at Nanook is a whalebone spade, consistent with tools found at Norse sites in Greenland, and which might have been used to cut sections of turf for the shelter.

There is also evidence at Nanook of what appears to be a rock-lined drainage system comparable to others found at proven Viking sites.

The apparent "architectural elements" found at the site still have to be confirmed, Sutherland says. "They're definitely anomalous for Dorset culture, and, when you see these things in connection with Norse artifacts, it suggests that there may have been some kind of a shore station."

Sutherland's theory is that Norse sailors continued to travel between Greenland and Arctic Canada for generations after the failed colonization bid in Newfoundland. She believes they encountered and possibly traded with the Dorset, ancient aboriginals who were later overrun, probably before 1400 AD, by the eastward-migrating Thule ancestors of modern Inuit.

The theory is controversial.

University of Waterloo archeologist Robert Park recently challenged the dating of artifacts and Sutherland's interpretations of evidence in a paper published by the journal Antiquity.

Park argues that the most plausible explanation for Norse-like traces at Nanook and other sites is that "none of these traits come from Dorset-European contact."

He suggests such items may have been developed without any Norse influence by the ancient indigenous inhabitants of northern Canada.

Sutherland insists that, while proof of Norse-Dorset interaction isn't overwhelming, there are "several lines of evidence" pointing to sustained contact. She also notes that the kind of "boulders and turf" structural feature observed at Nanook is "atypical for Dorset" and consistent with Norse culture.

Sutherland, whose research is also featured in the current edition of Canadian Geographic, says a scientific paper summarizing a decade's worth of work on the national museum's Helluland project is to be published in August.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

The Kensington Rune Stone - Norsemen Travelled to Minnesota in 1362

source: Coast to Coast

Geologist and researcher Scott Wolter discussed the discovery and significance of the Kensington Rune Stone. Found by a Minnesota farmer over a hundred years ago, the 202 lb. rock contained Runic (letters in the old Norse alphabet) inscriptions. Initially dismissed as a hoax, the authenticity of the stone has been debated over the years. It wasn't till the 1960s that it was discovered that the style of the Kensington Stone inscription matched those on stones on a remote island off Sweden, called Gotland, and this strengthened the case for authenticity, he noted.

Dated 1362, the inscription refers to a party of 30 who had traveled "far west of Vinland." [Note: "Vinland" was the name given to an area of North America by the Norseman Leif Eriksson, about the year A.D. 1001. Although still debated, "Vinland" could refer to modern-day Greenland or Newfoundland, Canada] This suggests that established history is wrong, and westerners made it to America, far before Columbus, Wolter said. He speculated that the travelers came to Minnesota possibly to take advantage of fur trade or to make land claims.

He further posited that the travelers could have been Knights Templar, who during this time frame were being persecuted and perhaps were motivated to seek out new lands. As a secret society, the Templars may have kept their voyages to the New World hushed up, he added. Wolter mentioned that other rune stones have been found in North America, and they will be the subject of his next book.


Report on the Kensington Rune Stone and Scott Wolter's research from KBJR-TV Duluth MN



More:

North American Rune Stones

Several rune stones have been found in the United States, most notably the Kensington Runestone in Minnesota and the Heavener Stone in Oklahoma. There is considerable debate over their age and validity. The "Kensington Runestone" is a slab of gray stone, measuring 36 inches long, 16 inches wide, and 6 inches thick. It contains runic writing along the face of the stone and along one edge. The stone was found by a Minnesota farmer named Olaf Ohman in November of 1898 while a digging up a poplar tree stump on the southern slope of a 50-foot high knoll. The stone was buried face down about six inches below the surface, with the tree roots wrapped around it. Mr. Ohman and his sons saw the runic letters but did not know what they were.

Unfortunately, the stone was not left in place, so they were unable to demonstrate its obvious age from the growth pattern of the tree. The stone was sent to the University of Minnesota and then to Chicago. It was was studied by runic scholars, who interpreted the inscription to be an account of Norse explorers in the 14th Century. Many authorities who have since examined the stone have claimed it a forgery, but others are equally certain of its authenticity.

It is known King Magnus of Sweden sent that a party to Greenland in 1355. They never returned. It is very possible that these men were from that party. The stone bears the date of 1362. The transliteration of the text is generally accepted as:

"Eight Goths and 22 Norwegians on a journey of exploration from Vinland very far west. We had camp by 2 rocky islands one day's journey north from this stone. We were out fishing one day. After we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. AVM [Ave Maria] save us from evil."

The inscription along the edge of the stone says:

"Have 10 men by the sea to look after our ships 14 days' journey from this island. Year 1362."

The stone is now in the Runestone Museum in Alexandria, Minnesota, near where the stone was found.

Update: At a 2000 conference in St. Paul, attended by archaeologists from about 20 states and three Canadian provinces, a Minnesota geologist and a Wisconsin chemist presented what they say is indisputable evidence that the runestone inscription is "real" and old, probably from the 1300s. Scott Wolter, president of American Petrographic services, is a licensed Minnesota geologist. He was instrumental in analyzing the stone's surfaces with Barry Hanson, a chemist and project manager for nonprofit archeology group, Archeology ITM, and Paul Weiblen, professor emeritus in geophysics at the University of Minnesota. Weiblen published a 45-page report on the mineralogy of the stone, and concludes that the carvings are significantly older than 1898, when it was discovered.


Related:

The History Channel special"Holy Grail in America" references the Kensington Rune Stone (and other Norse artifacts in North America, including the "Newport Tower" in Rhode Island), making the argument that the Knights Templar (travelling with the Norse) explored the Americas over 100 years prior to Columbus.

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North America extensively explored and settled by ancient Israelites, Phoenicians, Celts, Libyans, & Carthagians as early as 1000 B.C.

More Hidden History

Oldest known skull on the American continent supports theory that 'Caucasians', not Asiatics, were the first humans on the North American continent

Does skull prove that the first Americans came from Europe?

By Steve Connor Science Editor
Tuesday, 3 December 2002

Scientists in Britain have identified the oldest skeleton ever found on the American continent in a discovery that raises fresh questions about the accepted theory of how the first people arrived in the New World.

The skeleton's perfectly preserved skull belonged to a 26-year-old woman who died during the last ice age on the edge of a giant prehistoric lake which once formed around an area now occupied by the sprawling suburbs of Mexico City.

Scientists from Liverpool's John Moores University and Oxford's Research Laboratory of Archaeology have dated the skull to about 13,000 years old, making it 2,000 years older than the previous record for the continent's oldest human remains.

However, the most intriguing aspect of the skull is that it is long and narrow and typically Caucasian in appearance, like the heads of white, western Europeans today.

Modern-day native Americans, however, have short, wide skulls that are typical of their Mongoloid ancestors who are known to have crossed into America from Asia on an ice-age land bridge that had formed across the Bering Strait.

The extreme age of Peñon woman suggests two scenarios. Either there was a much earlier migration of Caucasian-like people with long, narrow skulls across the Bering Strait and that these people were later replaced by a subsequent migration of Mongoloid people.

Alternatively, and more controversially, a group of Stone Age people from Europe made the perilous sea journey across the Atlantic Ocean many thousands of years before Columbus or the Vikings.

Silvia Gonzalez, a Mexican-born archaeologist working at John Moores University and the leader of the research team, accepted yesterday that her discovery lends weight to the highly contentious idea that the first Americans may have actually been Europeans.

"At the moment it points to that as being likely. They were definitely not Mongoloid in appearance. They were from somewhere else. As to whether they were European, at this point in time we cannot say 'no'," Dr Gonzalez said.

The skull and the almost-complete skeleton of Peñon woman was actually unearthed in 1959 and was thought to be no older than about 5,000 years. It formed part of a collection of 27 early humans in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City that had not been accurately dated using the most modern techniques.

"The museum knew that the remains were of significant historical value but they hadn't been scientifically dated," Dr Gonzalez said.

[...]

Dr Gonzalez found that the two oldest skulls analysed were both dolichocephalic, meaning that they were long and narrow-headed. The younger ones were short and broad – brachycephalic – which are typical of today's native Americans and their Mongoloid ancestors from Asia.

The findings have a resonance with the skull and skeleton of Kennewick man, who was unearthed in 1996 in the Columbia River at the town of Kennewick in Washington state. The skull, estimated to be 8,400 years old, is also long and narrow and typically Caucasian.

James Chatters, one of the first anthropologists to study Kennewick man before it had been properly dated, even thought that the man may have been a European trapper who had met a sudden death sometime in the early 19th century.

Kennewick man became the most controversial figure in American anthropology when native tribes living in the region claimed that, as an ancestor, his remains should be returned to them under a 1990 law that gave special protection to the graves and remains of indigenous Americans.

The debate intensified after some anthropologists suggested that Kennewick man was Caucasian in origin and could not therefore be a direct ancestor of the native Americans living in the Kennewick area today.

[...]

Full Article

Related Articles: Pre-Columbian Europeans in North America

Welsh settlers in North America 300 years before Columbus - stone fortifications left behind - origins of "white indians"

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/251/story/558887.html

Mystery surrounds north Ga. ruinsSun, Dec. 28, 2008By WALTER PUTNAM - Associated Press Writer FORT MOUNTAIN STATE PARK, Ga. --The remains of the 855-foot stone wall that gives Fort Mountain its name wind like a snake around the northeast Georgia park, and its very presence begs a question: Who put them there?A Cherokee legend attributes the wall to a mysterious band of "moon-eyed people" led by a Welsh prince named Madoc who appeared in the area more than 300 years before Columbus sailed to America.A plaque at the wall says matter-of-factly it was built by Madoc and his Welsh followers, but most professional archeologists give no credence to the legend."There has been no archaeological evidence to back up stories that either this Welsh prince or any others came to explore the New World," said Jared Wood, the manager of the archaeology lab at the University of Georgia.As the legend goes, the group arrived at Mobile Bay around 1170, made their way up the Alabama and Coosa rivers and built stone fortifications at several spots near present-day Chattanooga, Tenn.Dana Olson, an author who has spent decades trying to prove the legend, said circumstantial evidence on both sides of the Atlantic is too compelling to ignore."I've traveled all over the country finding these forts. Some of them are pretty well known, but I'm still uncovering some of them," said Olson, the author of "The Legend of Prince Madoc and the White Indians."The stone structures have long been a topic of debate. Many scientists have come to believe that the walls at Fort Mountain and other Southeast sites were built by native Americans between 200 B.C. and A.D. 600."We're not exactly sure what purposes these enclosures served," said Wood, the UGA archaeologist. "But they were likely well-known gathering places for social events. Seasonal meetings of friends and kin, trading of goods, astronomical observance, and religious or ceremonial activities may have occurred there."Yet supporters of the Madoc legend say the wall's tear-shaped designs are similar to ruins found in Wales or elsewhere in Great Britain.And they point to an 1810 letter from John Sevier, the first governor of Tennessee, who said that in 1782 he was told by an Indian chief that the walls were built by white people called the Welsh who lived in the region before the Cherokee.They were driven out with the promise that they would never return to Cherokee lands, Sevier said in the letter, and they supposedly traveled to the Ohio valley or downstream to the Mississippi.There is also evidence of a major battle between 1450 and 1660 at the Falls of the Ohio, which Olson said was the scene of the "big battle began between the red Indians and the white Indians" - the Welsh.Supporters of the legend say Madoc made two trips to North America, with the first visit coming in 1169. While scientists say the story was widely accepted in the 17th and 18th century, it has fallen out of favor over time."For one thing, there is not a historian that goes along with the theory of pre-Columbian contacts in the United States," said Sundea Murphy, who works with Corn Island Archaeology in Louisville, Ky."A scientist needs proof. A historian needs proof," she said.Yet she sees no reason to discount the story of Madoc or any other pre-Columbian culture - from the Vikings to the Polynesians - exploring the continent."There were too many other civilizations that had the capability to make cross-ocean voyages," Murphy said.

-------------------------------------------------------------------Related:Link between the Vikings and the early cultures of the Yucatan and Central America? - Legends of White "gods" who sailed to central AmericaAncient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary blonde-haired "white warrior cloud people" of Peru

Ancient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary blonde-haired "white warrior cloud people" of Peru

Above: An ancient Chachapoyas village located close to the area where the lost city was foundThe Daily Mail

Ancient city discovered deep in Amazonian rainforest linked to the legendary white-skinned Cloud People of Peru By Daily Mail Reporter04th December 2008A lost city discovered deep in the Amazon rainforest could unlock the secrets of a legendary tribe. Little is known about the Cloud People of Peru, an ancient, white-skinned civilisation wiped out by disease and war in the 16th century. But now archaeologists have uncovered a fortified citadel in a remote mountainous area of Peru known for its isolated natural beauty.It is thought this settlement may finally help historians unlock the secrets of the 'white warriors of the clouds'. The tribe had white skin and blonde hair - features which intrigue historians, as there is no known European ancestry in the region, where most inhabitants are darker skinned. The citadel is tucked away in one of the most far-flung areas of the Amazon. It sits at the edge of a chasm which the tribe may have used as a lookout to spy on enemies.The main encampment is made up of circular stone houses overgrown by jungle over 12 acres, according to archaeologist Benedict Goicochea Perez.Rock paintings cover some of the fortifications and next to the dwellings are platforms believed to have been used to grind seeds and plants for food and medicine. The Cloud People once commanded a vast kingdom stretching across the Andes to the fringes of Peru's northern Amazon jungle, before it was conquered by the Incas. Named because they lived in rainforests filled with cloud-like mist, the tribe later sided with the Spanish-colonialists to defeat the Incas.But they were killed by epidemics of European diseases, such as measles and smallpox. Much of their way of life, dating back to the ninth century, was also destroyed by pillaging, leaving little for archaeologists to examine. Remains have been found before but scientists have high hopes of the latest find, made by an expedition to the Jamalca district in Peru's Utcubamba province, about 500 miles north-east of the capital, Lima.Until recently, much of what was known about the lost civilisation was from Inca legends. Even the name they called themselves is unknown. The term Chachapoyas, or 'Cloud People', was given to them by the Incas. Their culture is best known for the Kuellap fortress on the top of a mountain in Utcubamba, which can only be compared in scale to the Incas' Machu Picchu retreat, built hundreds of years later. Two years ago, archaeologists found an underground burial vault inside a cave with five mummies, two intact with skin and hair. Chachapoyas chronicler Pedro Cieza de Leon wrote of the tribe: 'They are the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas' wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple. 'The women and their husbands always dressed in woollen clothes and in their heads they wear their llautos [a woollen turban], which are a sign they wear to be known everywhere.' The Chachapoyas' territory was located in the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru. It encompassed the triangular region formed by the confluence of the Maranon and Utcubamba rivers, in the zone of Bagua, up to the basin of the Abiseo river. The Maranon's size and the mountainous terrain meant the region was relatively isolated.

A warrior people with blonde hair? Their history dates back to the 9th century A.D., and we know that the Vikings made voyages to the Americas around this time. On a related note, there is strong evidence that the "white gods" of Aztec and Mayan tradition were based on visits from Vikings who sailed to central America.-------------------------------------------------------Related Article:Link between the Vikings and the early cultures of the Yucatan and Central America? - Legends of White "gods" who sailed to central America

Link between the Vikings and the early cultures of the Yucatan and Central America? - Legends of White "gods" who sailed to central America

ABOVE: A "raft of serpents"?http://archaeology.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_vikingmaya_connection

The Viking-Maya ConnectionDid The Vikings Ever Sail to Latin America? © Vickie BrittonMay 9, 2007The Legend of QuetazlcoatlThe Quetzalcoatl legend is known throughout Mesoamerica . Some legends refer to Quetzalcoatl as a god, others a stranger from a distant land who sailed to their shores upon a “magic raft of serpents."The feathered serpent god is commonly referred to as Quetzalcoatl. The name Quetzalcoatl has Toltec/Aztec origins. A series of invasions by the Toltecs, which led to a blending of cultures, introduced the feathered serpent god to the Mayas, where he was later referred to as Kukulcan.Two male heroes similar to the god Quetzalcoatl appear in Mayan lore. Itzamna and Kukulcan were both portrayed as bearded men who led their ancestors into the Yucatan. Itazmna was known as a guide who helped build up the great cities and who invented the letters that make up the Mayan language. Kukulcan, was referred to as a great architect, a builder of pyramids.Could all of these legends be based on one real person? And could that person have been a Norseman?The MuralsA red-bearded man’s likeness appears on many stone carvings in the Mayan ruins of Chiche in Itza in the Yucatan, Copan, Honduras, and other places in Latin America. There are also murals depicting bearded warriors dressed in armor and helmets which could be relating an account of a foreign invasion by some ancient people.Early Viking VoyagesIt has been established that both Eric the Red and Leif Erickson reached the New World 500 years before Columbus. To date, the only truly authenticated Viking site is L’Anse aux Meadows, at the northern tip of Newfoundland, where the remains of Norse-style dwellings and artifacts have been found.The Lost Viking ShipAround 967 AD, it was recorded that a Viking ship led by Ullmann on the way to Iceland was driven by strong ocean currents and blown off course. Could this ship have ended up in Central America?Was such a Voyage Possible?The likelihood that Vikings may have touched upon Caribbean shores was not given much credibility because it was believed such a voyage would not have possible. Then, in 1947, Thor Heyerdahl tested the possibility by recreating a reed boat using materials such as the Vikings, Phoenicians and other cultures would have used at that time. The Kon Tiki’s voyage of over 4,300 miles proved that ancient navigators could have sailed much farther than originally believed.A link between the Vikings and the early cultures of the Yucatan and Central America has never been proven. If Viking artifacts ever existed, they have been lost with the passage of time. If the Vikings ever did visit Central America, the only traces left are the curious images of a red-bearded man caved in stone.