Re: Challenge for naysayers of the Kensington Runestone

Apparently on date Mon, 22 Aug 2005 17:37:50 -0500, Tom McDonald
<tmcdonald2672@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:

>nospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>> Apparently on date Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:55:33 -0500, Tom McDonald
>> <tmcdonald2672@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> said:
>
>>> Is Phil correct to say that nospam sees all or most of the Norse
>>>artifacts in the arctic as evidence of Norse trading, as opposed
>>>to other methods of distribution? If so, then I'd like some
>> Working from the other end first, I see the Norse (or similar) transporting
>> shiploads of N.American origin trade goods over to specific ports in Europe -
>> probably the same ports time after time. These trade goods are then distributed
>> to various locations by Europeans rather than the Norse.
>
> North America? Are you still speaking of the high latitudes east
>of the entrance to Hudson Bay? Or do you mean to include interior
>mainland Canada (and/or the US of A?)

Rough continents. Europe or America, each bit of land involved has to be
considered as one or other.

A centre of trade has to exist as a circle of distribution of trade goods of a
type that might be transported to the centre of that circle (given that a
coastal centre would be a special case.)

> Do you have evidence of this, or is this your own hypothetical
>construct?

Hypothetical, I'm only using second hand evidence.

>> And the Canadian end works in a similar way, the Norse bring a shipload of
>> European origin trade goods and go to the same sort of thing, ports in east and
>> west settlement, and I'm saying also the equivalent of ports in various places
>> where trade would happen and from that point the Inuit will be moving any
>> objects about.
>
> What sort of trade goods do you suggest the Norse might have
>brought over by the boat-load? Their knarrs could hold a lot of
>metal tools, cooking pots, etc. I'm not sure what else they could
>have brought to trade that would have resulted in a profitable
>swap. Your thoughts?

Chain mail would be worthless and I think the native Americans of all
accessible regions would have known / spotted that. Therefore, chain mail might
be a worthless trade good. Knife blades of steel would be a very worthwhile
trade good but the premium might be too high.

I can't imagine trading walrus ivory, furs, etc, to Europe and bringing back
food, that seems bizarre. The distribution of iron is light, so I can't see
that as the basis of trade.

I don't know.

But the trade into Europe seems to have been significant enough to be a
temptation for various political groups. Partly why it ended up stopping, or
being limited.

My view is that trade was not necessarily characterised by all shipments being
finished goods from one continent to the other but by whatever was profitable
for an individual Norse ship from their selection of a few trading locations. I
see this will have to be seen as varyiag from one decade to another over the
centuries that are involved, and certainly when the climate changed, assuming
that it did, as that would make some fairly serious changes to viability of a
lot of medium to long range trade routes.

>> can be nothing more concrete than a beach that has become well known and the
>> trader will show up around the same sort of time each month, or year, or
>> whatever, and the Inuit will expect this, word will get around, people will
>> come and trade in both directions.
>
> Do you see such a set of concentrations of Norse objects in the
>archaeological record? Or are you suggesting a program of
>investigation? AFAIK, what is currently reliably identified as
>Norse artifacts is far too thin on the ground to support much
>planned trading.

That's not too surprising. The Greenland Norse only had a handful of people and
trading would necessarily be specific and contained. You don't drop or discard
the only steel knife you will ever own. That's a key thought about the weighing
balance found north of Eureka, it's hard to see that as an oddment.

>> As for any explicit object being owned / transported by any particular person /
>> group, I'm not really pushing the point. At this level it is just guesswork. A
>> single iron blade might be owned by either group and the locals in a given
>> region are the most likely owners. The intriguing exception to this is a
>> classic trader's item, weighing scales. There are ways this can get to its
>> terminal location, but it does, for me, strongly suggest the presence of an
>> actual trader in, or not all that far away from, that location at some point,
>> and it is a very remote location.
>
> What could the scales have weighed? Grams? A few kilograms? A
>large bundle of animal pelts? Could they have been used in the
>illicit drug trade? :-)

I've got plenty of ways to explain how they can be there. I don't propose they
were needed as such, just that the only reason they would be carried to that
area (not spot) is that they were the property of a trader. I'm not suggesting
they were to be used to weigh trade goods on any specific trip.

Although they would have come in handy were the Norse supplying crack to the
pharaohs... ;)

>> If they were sailing up there, in the high arctic, then I reckon it would,
>> relatively speaking, be a picnic to sail Hudson Bay, around to the north and
>> east coasts of Ontario. That's not to say they *were*, just that they could
>> have been without any big changes in accepted history, as far as I can see.
>
> I don't think there is any real question about the Norse's
>*ability* to get into the Bay; or even down to Minnesota. The
>question is what will the evidence support.

Ain't no evidence, as far as I know.

> I agree with you, that even if most of what the yea-sayers
>happen really did happen, history would not be much changed.

Yep.

> Now if some of the more extreme yea-sayers were to turn out to
>be right, then the situation would be more interesting. However,
>that would take the presentation of actual evidence which could
>be verified; and there seems to be very little chance of *that*
>happening. :-)

I don't see this as a big debate of two diametrically opposed groups. I realise
that it is, I'm just objecting to that viewpoint. The Norse were t/here and had
a clear influence, and capabilities. The KRS believers are spoiling any real
story. It devalues the Norse. Ditto the autorejectors.

I don't think the Norse ever visited Minnesota or Dakota and I think it is
almost impossibly unlikely*. But I can envisage scenarios. OTOH I can't see any
real issues with Norse ships travelling very long distances around the eastern
seaboard of north America (i.e. USA and Canada and Greenland).

(* - specifically because it is hard to go overland in that region and
environment.)


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