Re: Trading across medieval Europe revealed in cod bones

On Apr 15, 3:36 pm, Hayabusa <peregr...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT), Jack Linthicum

<jacklinthi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
When Jacques Cartier
"discovered" the mouth of the St. Lawrence and claimed the Gaspé
Peninsula for France, he found 1000 Basque fishing vessels already
there. But the Basques, wanting to keep a good secret, had never claimed
it for anyone."

A 1000 Basques coming over regularly should leave archeological traces
that can be dated. Is anything known about that?

Hayabusa


I would expect that the "settlements" would what was needed to dry cod
and live in the open or in tents or similar. Someday someone will kick
over a rock and find a fire circle or find a graveyard. That was one
reason I hoped this location system for cod bones would reveal cod
from the Grand Banks as part of the catch.

"Because of its location, Herjolfsnes had been the first port of call
for ships from Iceland and northern Europe. Archaeologists wondered
who might have come to Greenland after Norse traders ceased to arrive.
The most likely answer was English sea rovers or Basque whalers.
According to their own tradition, Basques founded a whaling station in
Newfoundland as early as 1372. They had only to follow Leif Eriksson's
route north to reach Greenland. The archaeologists working on the site
surmised that these Basques might well have stepped ashore sporting
the new fangled Burgundian cap, which some fashion-starved Greenlander
rushed to copy. This suggested that the islanders, no matter how cut
off they may have been from Europe, still hungered for things
European."
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/


wiki, for what it's worth

Basque mariners meanwhile began to compete vigorously with their
English rivals for the cod fishery. They began building superior ships
and sailing them even further into the North Atlantic Ocean. Because
the Basque language differs so severely from other European tongues,
their leaders never recorded journals of their exploits for posterity.
Legend, rumor, hearsay, and some archaeological and documentary
evidence, however, suggest that Basques began dominating the history
of whaling when they discovered the Grand Banks by 1372. Basque
fishing, trading, or pirate ships rediscovered and perhaps even
pillaged the desperately isolated and likely abandoned Viking Eastern
Settlement on Greenland, probably before 1450. The details of what
exactly transpired there remain lost to the shroud of time; however,
the settlement probably disappeared during the 15th century.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_European_maritime_culture
.

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: Trading across medieval Europe revealed in cod bones
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