I was taught that Christopher Columbus dicovered America, but a friend has told me that she recently read an article stating that it was actually discovered by a Viking named Bjarni seven centuries earlier. Is this true?

I don't think even Bjarni was the first European to set foot on North America. The Celtic peoples who were driven first North, then West out of Britain settled Iceland, then Greenland, then Labrador, pursuing their twin objectives of a safe homeland and herds of walrus, which they slaughtered for the ivory in their tusks.

The Vikings pursued, looking for loot, and because the Vikings wrote sagas which have survived, while the Celts did not, Viking self-aggrandising claims to be the first to discover 'Vinland' have come to stand.

One must also not forget the early people who are popularly supposed to have walked over the land bridge from Siberia into Alaska at the end of the last Ice Age around 10,000 BC and spread over time across all North and South America. The Vikings were far from the first humans in the continent.

There is considerable evidence of established trading between Europe and the East coast of North America before Columbus' time. It seems quite likely that Columbus knew this, but did not know of South America. He thought he could sail round the 'known' Vinland (North America) and directly to India. Thus when he found land (South America) he thought he was in India and named the inhabitants Indians.

I don't know about the date or the viking's name (or if those are even known for sure), but there is good evidence that vikings landed in Canada before Columbus landed in the Americas.

Mystery of the First Americans

Japanese, Vikings, Mongolian, Chinese and Southeast Asian are several of the known peoples who have been called “The first Americans”.

Study offers new clues about first Americans

Now there's a new book out about a Chinese emperor who sent an expedition of scholars out about 1400 A.D., and they reported finding North America.

The Aztecs had a legend about 'gods' who came by boat and left, promising they would return.

May we assume that because the Aztecs thought of them as gods, the visitors had a high technology? Possibly even art objects? There seems to be an oriental influence in Middle American art that would come (if it came at all) from a source much later than the immediately-post-ice-age migrations of Asians.

Tantalizing.

babs- I've heard of this book. I'm not saying it's wrong, because I'm definitely not an expert, but all the experts I've seen quoted (including the curator of a museum dedicated to the explorer whom the book claims made the discovery) say that the book is wrong.
The book is called "1412"

Methos
I plan to buy it. I've heard it's very speculative. Maybe that's what they mean by 'wrong' - that it claims to prove what is merely a possibility. Books of that sort can be really interesting or really annoying, depending on how they're written.

I'll wait till after I get "Madness of Adam and Eve: How Schizophrenia Shaped Humanity" by David Horrobin. It's been on order at Amazon.com for ages.

Babs

Here is a site with several copies of "Madness..." available. Just type in the title.

http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm

Thanks, minn. cheaper, too. That's the second good site you've kindly passed on.

Weren't the first 'Americans' the ones who walked across the Bering Straight?