Timeline of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is a Timeline of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, as accepted by mainstream archaeology.
- Norse colonization of the Americas:
- c.1000: Erik the Red and Leif Ericson, Viking navigators, discovered and settled Greenland, Helluland (possibly Baffin Island), Markland (perhaps Labrador) and Vinland (probably Newfoundland). The Greenland colony lasted until the 15th century, but the settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, the only known site of a Norse village in North America outside of Greenland, is estimated to have endured less than a decade.
- c.1350: The Norse Western Settlement in Greenland was abandoned.
- 1354: King Magnus of Sweden and Norway authorised Paul Knutson to lead an expedition to Greenland—may never have taken place
- c.1450-1480s:[1] The Norse Eastern Settlement in Greenland was abandoned.
- 1492: Christopher Columbus landed somewhere in The Bahamas.
- 1497: John Cabot became the first recorded European visitor to North America since the Vikings.
- 1498: On his third expedition, Columbus reached the South American mainland.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Seaver (1995) The Frozen Echo p.205: a reference to sailors in Bergen in 1484 who had visited Greenland (Seaver speculates that they may have been English); p.229ff: archaeological evidence of contact with Europe towards the end of the 15th century
