Second Viking site in North America discovered?

[Norgy]

I always wondered why didn't the norse kept sailing south along the new england coast all the way to the Caribbean.

I am sure they would have an easier time dominating the local taine, siboney, arawak, and carib tribes, than dealing with the Iroquois federation.

Couldn't norse ship just keep sailing all the way south with minimal maintenance along the coast? The knarr seems like a simple enough ship to maintain.

They'd have been served for lunch and supper by the Caribs.
Also, the winds are worse around the Caribbean, and I am not entirely sure the longships could survive that. Longships, while mainly propelled by sail on high seas, were built mainly as coastal vessels still. The "knarr" which was one of the bigger longship types still relied on rowers. The word "Cox" comes from old Norse, I am told. It was the one shouting the rhythm the rowers should follow.

[The Brain]

In an era when the English were handing out silver like candy there was little reason for hundreds of vikings to sail all the way to America. They'd need critical mass to achieve local military domination, and that just wasn't forthcoming.

[Valmy]

Well and then the other reason they dominated: the unintentional devastating use of biological warfare.

[viper37]

Settlements in North America probably died out due to three possible explanations:
1) Massacres by the natives. Not unlikely, but the Norse were good at co-opting local customs. The more likely scenario is that they just became part of the native Americans after a while.
2) Trying to find fields for cows. New Foundland, while I have never been there, looks like a poor place to raise cattle. I am sure they raised pigs, but pigs, like humans eat anything. Meat was important in certain settings for the Norse.
3) Disease. It's possible they all just succumbed to scurvy or something.

I think it's a combination of the 3.  There were conflicts with the natives, that's a given.  Late Europeans entered in conflict with the natives due to their colonization effort, but they won due to superior firepower and eventually diseases that decimated the locals.  The Vikings were a little too clean, apparently , so no diseases.  While iron&steel weapons would give them a definite advantage over the stone weapons used by the indians, they had numbers, lots of people compared to a few settlers who might also not have been all fighters in their prime age.  If you have 1000 people, 800 of which are really fit for combat and the natives can eventually rally 10 000 to oppose you, even though your weapons won't break on their shields, unless you can squeeze them 300 style, you'll be overrun, it's just a matter of time.

And I suspect that's what happenned.  A few shots here and there, a few injured/dead at a time, eventually there's only an handful of settlers left and they are either killed or assimilated into the tribe as slaves.  Or they packed and left to where they came back trying their luck at something else, if that was an option.

In places like Newfoundland and Greenland, as the Earth cooled itself, these places would have become less hospitable to agriculture of any kind.  They would have to rely on a nomadic lifestyle like the Innus, hunting whales&sharks and seals close to shore, hunting cariboux where they could (Labrador) and fishing.  Staying in the same place for too long would have depleted the resources.  Traveling around, they would enter in conflict with other tribes too.

The later European colonies only survived because they received outside help.  I think one of the first virginian settlement totally disapeared due to lack of support from England, and the later ones would have starved without indian help.  The French under Cartier nearly died their first winter in Quebec, surviving only because the indian showed them a remedy to scurvy and they eventually had to abandon their first settlement because it was too cold and they did not have external support.
Champlain's first settlement attempt in Maine/New-Brunswick failed because it was too cold, he came back later to Quebec city and it worked because he was able to form an alliance with the Hurons and Montagnais against the Iroquois + he receive financial support from France.

Without any of this, it's easy to see why the first norse settlements failed.  They could not count on a friendly "norse" governement to send them supplies after a rough winter, the conditions they were used to in Europe would have been warmer than what you'd find in Greenland/Newfoundland/Labrador and without firearms, it was harder to impress/terrify indians and form local alliances.  Plus the disadvantage in numbers.

[Valmy]

Yeah it was called 'seasoning' for a reason. You had to get past your first winter. The Europeans paid a pretty stiff price in human lives for their empires.

[Norgy]

Settlements in North America probably died out due to three possible explanations:
1) Massacres by the natives. Not unlikely, but the Norse were good at co-opting local customs. The more likely scenario is that they just became part of the native Americans after a while.
2) Trying to find fields for cows. New Foundland, while I have never been there, looks like a poor place to raise cattle. I am sure they raised pigs, but pigs, like humans eat anything. Meat was important in certain settings for the Norse.
3) Disease. It's possible they all just succumbed to scurvy or something.

I think it's a combination of the 3.  There were conflicts with the natives, that's a given.  Late Europeans entered in conflict with the natives due to their colonization effort, but they won due to superior firepower and eventually diseases that decimated the locals.  The Vikings were a little too clean, apparently , so no diseases.  While iron&steel weapons would give them a definite advantage over the stone weapons used by the indians, they had numbers, lots of people compared to a few settlers who might also not have been all fighters in their prime age.  If you have 1000 people, 800 of which are really fit for combat and the natives can eventually rally 10 000 to oppose you, even though your weapons won't break on their shields, unless you can squeeze them 300 style, you'll be overrun, it's just a matter of time.

And I suspect that's what happenned.  A few shots here and there, a few injured/dead at a time, eventually there's only an handful of settlers left and they are either killed or assimilated into the tribe as slaves.  Or they packed and left to where they came back trying their luck at something else, if that was an option.

In places like Newfoundland and Greenland, as the Earth cooled itself, these places would have become less hospitable to agriculture of any kind.  They would have to rely on a nomadic lifestyle like the Innus, hunting whales&sharks and seals close to shore, hunting cariboux where they could (Labrador) and fishing.  Staying in the same place for too long would have depleted the resources.  Traveling around, they would enter in conflict with other tribes too.

The later European colonies only survived because they received outside help.  I think one of the first virginian settlement totally disapeared due to lack of support from England, and the later ones would have starved without indian help.  The French under Cartier nearly died their first winter in Quebec, surviving only because the indian showed them a remedy to scurvy and they eventually had to abandon their first settlement because it was too cold and they did not have external support.
Champlain's first settlement attempt in Maine/New-Brunswick failed because it was too cold, he came back later to Quebec city and it worked because he was able to form an alliance with the Hurons and Montagnais against the Iroquois + he receive financial support from France.

Without any of this, it's easy to see why the first norse settlements failed.  They could not count on a friendly "norse" governement to send them supplies after a rough winter, the conditions they were used to in Europe would have been warmer than what you'd find in Greenland/Newfoundland/Labrador and without firearms, it was harder to impress/terrify indians and form local alliances.  Plus the disadvantage in numbers.

All good points.
But you forget one thing - Norse pride. While assimilating easily elsewhere, the Greenlanders built the biggest fucking cathedral outside of mainland Norway in the Norwegian kingdom. And they imported stone to do it.

I began writing a novel about Greenlanders going south, and while researching it, I found lots of interesting stuff about Greenland, like that there were little to no woods, so if they were to sail further south, they'd have to import wood to build them themselves. Or buy ships. While walrus teeth for chess pieces and various small sculptures of saints were in high demand, I'd say Greenland was rather a poor base for further exploration. And at it's height, Norse settlements around Eriksfjord numbered maybe 5 000 at best.

[Josquius]

If they had pigs there with them, then how come none ever went feral? That seems peculiar

[Malthus]

The hilarious thing about the Norsemen colonizing the new world was that, as absurdly marginal and small-scale as that attempt was, they still managed to end up massacring ... each other. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freyd%C3%ADs_Eir%C3%ADksd%C3%B3ttir

Freydís is described as Leif Erikson's full sister. This was the first saga written in the late twelfth century and is a crude version of the accounts that happened in Vinland. Freydís is mentioned only once in this saga. This is the most famous account we have of Freydís.

After expeditions to Vinland led by Leif Erikson, Þorvaldr Eiríksson and Þorfinnr Karlsefni met with some success, Freydís wants the prestige and wealth associated with a Vinland journey. She makes a deal with two Icelandic men, Helgi and Finnbogi, that they should go together to Vinland and share all profits half-and-half. Freydis asks her brother Leifr Eiríksson to use the homes and stables that he has built in Vinland. He agrees that they all can use the houses. Helgi and Finnbogi agree that they will bring the same number of men and supplies, but Freydis ends up leaving after the brothers because she had smuggled more men into her ship. Helgi and Finnbogi, arriving early, take refuge in the houses until Freydís appears and orders the brothers to move, as the houses were her brothers and meant for her. This is one of the many disagreements that would happen in the time they are there.

In Vinland, there was tension between the two groups. Helgi and Finnbogi set up a settlement separate from Freydis and her crew. Freydis eventually went to the brothers' hut and asked how they were faring. "Well," responded the brothers, "but we do not like this ill-feeling that has sprung up between us." The two sides made peace.

Freydis, once outside, beat herself so that it would appear as if she had been ill-treated. When she returned to her husband, he asked who had beaten her. Freydis claimed Helgi and Finnbogi were the culprits, and, calling him a coward, demanded that he exact revenge on her behalf, or else she would divorce him. He gathered his men and killed Helgi and Finnbogi as well as the men in their camp when they were sleeping. When he refused to kill the women, Freydis herself picked up an axe and massacred them.

Freydís wanted to conceal her treachery and threatened death to anyone who would tell of the killings. She went back to Greenland after a year's stay and told her brother Leif Eiriksson that Helgi and Finnbogi had decided to stay in Vinland. However, word of the killings eventually reached the ears of Leif. He had three men from Freydís's expedition tortured until they confessed the whole occurrence. Thinking ill of the deeds, Leif still did not want "to do that to Freydís, my sister, which she has deserved".

[Caliga]

I liked the story about Freydis pulling her tits out and scaring the skraelings with them.

[Malthus]

I liked the story about Freydis pulling her tits out and scaring the skraelings with them.

No surprise there. 

[viper37]

If they had pigs there with them, then how come none ever went feral? That seems peculiar

If they had pigs in Greenland and the temperature dropped after a while, it's likely the pigs did not survived.  They might have been eaten by polar bears and/or froze to death later on.  They can resist winter, but maybe not Greenland winter since the summers were probably too short for them to accumulate the necessary grease to survive the cold.

[jimmy olsen]

The Spanish didn't really use their guns to dominate much early on. 15th and 16th century guns were not all that. Their armor and steel weapons and horses though...

And small pox and measles.

[Valmy]

The Spanish didn't really use their guns to dominate much early on. 15th and 16th century guns were not all that. Their armor and steel weapons and horses though...

And small pox and measles.

Yes I mentioned that a few posts later. But I was talking only about their military advantages here.

[Caliga]

I began writing a novel about Greenlanders going south, and while researching it, I found lots of interesting stuff about Greenland, like that there were little to no woods, so if they were to sail further south, they'd have to import wood to build them themselves.

You probably know this since you're obviously very interested in the subject, but for those that are less so, the Greenlanders are known to have sailed to Markland to harvest timber.  Markland was probably Labrador or possibly Eastern Quebec.