Re: Challenge for naysayers of the Kensington Runestone

On 19 Aug 2005 17:53:27 GMT, Philip Deitiker <Nopdeitik@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>In sci.archaeology, Eric Stevens created a message ID
>news:gm7bg1plmmrdeem10olq24s5mtbnekshss@xxxxxxx:
>
>>> I've rather lost the thread, in all the cacophony. What
>>>discussion are we talking about?
>>
>> I think that from talking about the norse getting as far
>west as
>> Minnesota he was saying )as inflamed PD) that:
>
>Wrong, the point I was 'inflamed' about, although I don't get
>inflamed about UseNet post to any degree, is the basic
>statement that the Norse were frequenting as far west in
>longditude as Minnesota, with a basis in argument of trinkets
>found amoung the Inuits and inuit sites that are interpreted
>as being of Norse origin. Nospam takes is as a truth that
>these are the result of frequent Norse trade into the central
>time zones of the arctic. My argument is that it may be true,
>but as for proof, it is not what he thinks, and secondarily to
>what end would they be doing this. Nospam has been trying to
>defend his statement by tossing out trivialities that Eric
>seems to be feeding on.

He was trying to defend his statement that the norse sailed l o n g
distances against your refutation of that claim The interesting thing
is that down below you accept that this is his argument. But in the
post just gone you flamed up about the point you have just made above
about the evidence for norse trade.
>
>> Begin quote of Message-ID:
>> <3qj9g15ecp9j5pc9g80s3h5qnmurrbs1gv@xxxxxxx>
>>
>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> My figures, based on the saga records with references to
>disko bay,
>> baffin island (helluland) and the labrador coast (markland),
>and of
>> course "L'Anse aux Meadows" and the like, are:
>>
>> Early voyages, 800 CE to 1000 CE (well, a tad earlier
>really):
>> Bergen to Shetland - 200 miles
>> Shetland to Faeroe - 200 miles
>> Faeroe to Iceland - 300 miles
>> Norway to Britain - 300 miles
>> Norway to Brest - 800 miles
>> Faroes to north of Iceland and Bergen to north of Iceland to
>> circumnavigate it
>> - 500 and 1,300 miles respectively.
>> Bergen into the Barents Sea - 1,100 miles.
>>
>> Named voyages,
>> (1) Erik the Red, 985 CE Reykjavik to the eastern settlement
>in order
>> to settle
>> it = 1,000 miles
>> - example data - (surely nobody needs proof that Erik founds
>the
>> eastern settlement?)
>> (2) Bjarni Herjolfsson, 985 CE, Iceland to the eastern coast
>of NA,
>> north up the coast of Labrador and across to the eastern
>settlement =
>> 2,400 miles - example data - http://tinyurl.com/8xpy8
>> (3) Leif Eriksson, 1000 CE, eastern settlement up the coast
>of
>> Greenland to Disko bay, across to Baffin Island, and south
>down the
>> Labrador coast and L'Anse aux Meadows = 2,200 miles
>> - example data - http://tinyurl.com/bcaer
>> (4) Thorfinn Karlsefni, 1005 CE, Iceland around Greenland
>all the way
>> to Disko Bay, and then down the east coast of NA to LAM =
>3,500 miles.
>> - example data - http://tinyurl.com/b36z4
>>
>> To forestall accusations that I'm hiding my sources and
>making claims
>> that I then fail to provide data for, check various of these
>> references and find these voyages described in various
>detail by what
>> will no doubt be good and bad websites, but my claims will,
>I think,
>> be fully substantiated by anyone who is even remotely
>unbiased about
>> this. Feel free to ask questions if you cannot understand
>what my
>> claims actually are.
>> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> End quote
>>
>> Not being able to "understand what my claims actually are"
>is one of
>> the benefits of Philip Deitiker's mode of responding to
>articles. I
>> suppose it is consistent with his mode of arguing. :-(
>
>Actually Eric I don't waste my time with you, as shown in the
>past when we get into the depths of your arguments we quickly
>find the errors and grandious misassumptions you make. It is
>such a trademark of yours that I make the grandious assumption
>that it is always true. However, if you saw fit to be more
>weighed in your interpretation of what you see as facts, I
>might actually take more time to investigate your claims. As
>it stands, I am trying to ignore you since the alternative is
>simply killfiling you as normal.
> You hold a rational line for a few post, and then you take
>that and jump off into never never land with all your kinds of
>squinkiness. You never seem to want to wait until the plum
>ripens to take a bite, you also seem to be biting at unripened
>fruit, and thus you have to suffer from opinions generated
>from your past errors.
>
> My basic argument does not deny that trips are made in
>excess of certain number of miles I was simply correcting the
>fact that they had to travel 1000s of miles when there were
>always shorter lengths that could suffice to hop...

You seem to be under the impression that the only reason the norse
made the long and circutuous journies they sometime di is that they
knew no better. You seem to going on from there to say that once they
knew their destination they could always take a short cut. You
overlook two facts when reaching this conclusion. First, their ships
were propelled by sail and could only go where the wind, tide and
currents took them. In some cases that demands a circutuous route.
Second, knowing where they had got to and working out that there was a
short cut demands a level of navigational skill which you have always
denied them.

> ..., my argument
>to nospam is quite basic, on a trip through the bowels of
>hell, whereby the bowels are clearly visible so that you know
>you've reached hell, what would motivate one to proceed even
>further along an apparently linear track of hell's bowels.
>The error of your statement is that you assume that the Sagas
>are correct in every detail. In most cases the sagas are
>lacking details, and it may be true that during non-accidental
>voyages that they held as close to land as possible.

You completely misunderstand their motives for following the routes
they did. They weren't coast-huggers. It was the winds and currents
that were the coast huggers. Read "A Viking Voyage" by W. Hodding
Carter. In his original ignorance he tried to take ashortcut from
Greenland to NA in just the fashion you advocate. He couldn't do it.
The next year he went around the long way more or less as advocated by
nospam.

>Whether
>you like it or not you cannot disprove this, there could have
>been a portuguese like strategy of exploration, go out a
>certain distance against a wind that will also return you and
>repeat the process.

Its news to me that the Portuguese employed this strategy.

>Once you contact land, you return, repeat
>the journey, travel the coast. On the next occurance you
>repeat with a more elongated and direct route. I should note
>that the Norse never settled the Azores in their journeys, as
>these were outside their range.

The fact that they never voluntarily went that way may have something
to do with it also. The norse generally stayedmuch further north with
but few notable exceptions, Consider the following extract from the
NARRATIVE OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE describing an encounter with the warm
water of the Gulf Stream.

"Biarne Grimolfson was driven with his ship into the Irish ocean, and
they came into a worm sea, (140) and soon the ship began to sink
under them. They had a boat which was smeared with sea oil, for the
worms do not attack that. They went into the boat, and then saw
that it could not hold them all. Then said Biarne: "As the boat
will not hold more than half of our men, it is my counsel that lots
should be drawn for those to go in the boat, for it shall not be
according to rank." This, they all thought so generous an offer,
that no one would oppose it. They then did so that lots were drawn,
and it fell to Biarne to go in the boat, and the half of the men
with him, for the boat had not room for more. But when they had
gotten into the boat, an Icelandic man that was in the ship, and
had come with Biarne from Iceland, said: "Dost thou mean, Biarne,
to leave me here?" Biarne said: "So it seems." Then said the other:
"Very different was the promise to my father, when I went with thee
from Iceland, than thus to leave me, for thou said that we should
both share the same fate." Biarne said, "It shall not be thus; go
down into the boat, and I will go up into the ship, since I see
that thou art so anxious to live." (141) Then Biarne went up into
the ship, and this man down into the boat, and after that they went
on their voyage, until they came to Dublin, in Ireland, and there
told these things; but it is most people's belief that Biarne and
his companions were lost in the worm sea, for nothing was heard
of them after that time."

>Once the portuguese had the
>Azores they could then sponser a journey to Newfoundland.

Except there is evidence they already knew something of what they were
looking for, including Newfoundland.

>The
>issue raised here is essentially the same issue as in the
>bible thread, historical accounts of basically oral
>traditions, carried generations before written into verse are
>often simplified in technical details and embellished for
>story telling.
> Obviously columbus thought by traveling 2000 miles west
>there was something to be gained, and obviously Scott thought
>by traveling to the South Pole there was something to be
>gained. However Columbus and Scott had a huge rather cerebral
>group of supporters in need of some excitement. The cerebral
>group of supporters are Norse living on a frozen wasteland
>called greenland, and they are traveling in the direction of
>more frozen wasteland and oceans which are widely know to
>freeze solid during winter, and stay frozen during some colder
>periods. What is to be gained by such voyages. A comparable
>situation would be nasa launching a space craft in the
>direction of the 'center' of the universe, or into a devoid
>part of space, where perspectives become increasingly distal
>to everything. Of course, if you have lots of presence in
>space, and you know alot about the material parts of space,
>then there might be something to be gained, however if you
>goal is to settle colonies, that is not a wise thing to do.
>So I asked the question, to what end would they travel further
>into a known wasteland?
> The question was not answered. Not by him and not by you.
>
>There is a basic point to be made, what intervened in Norse
>expansion to the west.
>
>1. Competition to the south.
>2. Inclimatic lands to the west.
>
>The testimony of their lack of motion is the lack of genetic
>evidence of easily identifyable norse genes in the least
>europeanized populations of native americans. Artefacts that
>do appear within the continent are spurious in nature and lack
>the desirous archaeological context or provenance. The bottom
>line in the argument is such migrations should be discounted
>unless more widely accepted archaeological evidence becomes
>available that is acceptable by critical archaeologist and not
>because a few fruitloops, like yourself, disregard pertinent
>standard scientific methodologies.
>
You've now got well off the topic of the routes followed by the norse
and I have no intention of following you in that direction for the
present.



Eric Stevens

.

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