In 1964, US president Lyndon Johnson proclaimed October 9 to be the Leif Erikson Day, in memory of this European explorer who first set foot on North America continent in the history. It's not quite clear if the area was a permanent settlement, but it is clear that the expansion-minded Norsemen were here long before Columbus. But to say he "discovered" America is a bit of a misnomer because there were plenty of people already here when he arrived. Even today, many people still believe that Christopher Columbus was the person who “discovered” America when he landed there in 1492. It is commonly said that "Columbus discovered America." And yet, many people still ask, “Did Christopher Columbus discover America?” While it appears Erikson had him beat, the Italians accomplished something the Vikings could not: They opened a pathway from the Old World to the New. However, genetic studies have shown that the first humans to cross became genetically isolated from people in Asia about 25,000 to 20,000 years ago. Yes, that's right the sweet potato. By 1502, the Florentine merchant and explorer Amerigo Vespucci had figured out that Columbus was wrong, and word of a New World had spread throughout Europe. “Leif Erikson Discovers America” by Hans Dahl (1849-1937). And people have been coming here ever since, chasing a better life, abundant food, water and opportunity. But either way, it’s clear that plenty of people got there thousands of years before Columbus. Until recently we might think that we know the answer: Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492, who sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and reached in the new land of America in 1492. They were Vikings, and evidence of their presence can be found on the Canadian island of Newfoundland at a place called l'Anse Aux Meadows. Of course, this would provide ample time for curious humans to explore. But despite its relative inhospitality, life abounded there. His father Erik the Red had founded the first European settlement on what is now called Greenland in 980 A.D. Wikimedia Commons “Leif Erikson Discovers America” by Hans Dahl (1849-1937). These groups are generally believed to have been isolated from the people of the "Old World" until the coming of Europeans in the 10th century from Iceland led by Leif Erikson and in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Before heading back to Spain, he kidnapped 10 Indigenous people so he could train them as interpreters and exhibit them at the royal court. Exploration was a … There are other theories out there. Perhaps as far back as 20,000 years or more. However, they too had to discover America at some point. There is a dialogue between Alexander the Great and someone called Diogenis of Sinope (Διογένης ο Σινωπεύς) Alexander once approached a wise man who lived inside a jar. But there's more. S.Frederick Starr | Published in History Today Volume 63 Issue 12 December 2013 The volcano buried the city and thousands of its inhabitants under a four-to-six-meter blanket of embalming ash that preserved Pompeii until its rediscovery in the late 1500s.Pompeii is now a, Battlefield Archaeologists Find Oregon Indian War Anything But Ancient History, Digital Archaeology Walks Viewers Through Pompeii, Experience Vies with Influence as US Fills Ambassador Slots, Weather Disrupts US COVID Vaccine Delivery, Garland Says Laws Must be ‘Fairly and Faithfully Enforced’, US Deports Former Nazi Concentration Camp Guard to Germany, Sheriff: 3 Dead in Gun Store Shooting in New Orleans Suburb. Nonetheless, the Americas had been home to Indigenous people for millennia before either of them had ever been born — with even other groups of Europeans preceding Columbus. According to the U.S. National Park Service, "the land bridge played a vital role in the spread of plant and animal life between the continents. His father Erik the Red had founded the first European settlement on what is now called Greenland in 980 A.D. Wikimedia Commons“Leif Erikson Discovers America” by Hans Dahl (1849-1937). Did Christopher Columbus discover America? Wikimedia CommonsErikson’s recreated colonization site at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. 1839. While these tales from the Middle Ages might appear mythical, archaeologists actually uncovered tangible evidence supporting these sagas. The question of who discovered America is a difficult one to answer. There were millions of people here already, and so their ancestors must have been the first.”. But the science on this is far from settled. But another saga holds that his discovery of the land was intentional — and that he heard about it from another Icelandic trader who spotted it but never set foot on the shores. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and consists of the remains of eight buildings that were likely wooden structures covered with grass and soil. Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer from Iceland — a Viking. Did the Vikings? At the end of the day, the question of who discovered America can’t be fully answered without also asking what it means to find a place that is already inhabited by millions of people. Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad found remains of a Viking settlement in L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland in the 1960s — right where the Norse legend claimed Erikson had set up camp. And archaeologists say that humans followed, in a never-ending hunt for food, water and shelter. We mention these two only because we have seen them pop up in newspaper articles recently. “The Return of Christopher Columbus” by Eugene Delacroix. Up until the 1970s, the first Americans were believed to be the Clovis people — who got their names from an 11,000-year-old settlement found near Clovis, New Mexico. From pre-Columbus America and Erikson’s settlement to varying other theories and modern-day debates, it’s high time to do some exploring of our own. DNA suggests they are the direct ancestors of about 80 percent of Indigenous people throughout the Americas. And yet, there have been sweet potatoes on the menu in Polynesia as far back as 1,000 years ago. But these theories about the discovery of America are far from settled. And to make things more complicated, recent discoveries are threatening to push back the arrival of humans in North America even further back in time. Today the area is barren, but a thousand years ago there were trees everywhere and the area likely was used as winter stopover point, where Vikings repaired their boats and sat out bad weather. 1919. So even though evidence suggests that they weren’t the first, some scholars still believe these people deserve credit for the discovery of America — or at least the part we now know as the United States. But there are remants of them in places as far-flung as the U.S. states of Texas and Virginia, and as far south as Peru and Chile. There were people in America before Columbus. They were eager to have a Catholic hero celebrated in regard to America’s founding. Ultimately, the most accurate answer lies with the Indigenous people — as they walked on the land thousands of years before Europeans even knew it existed. Perhaps most famously, a group of Icelandic Norse explorers led by Leif Erikson likely beat Columbus to the punch by around 500 years. This man, Diogenis, met with Alexander quite a few times. The Vikings. One of them died at sea. 3 days ago. Did Christopher Columbus discover America? But of course, the Americas would look very different after Columbus arrived. Theories About Who Really Discovered America Saint Brendan. Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, had adventuring in his blood. Though the explorer believed he’d reached the East Indies, he was actually in the modern-day Bahamas. Abu Raihan al-Biruni, an Islamic scholar from Central Asia, may have discovered the New World centuries before Columbus – without leaving his study. While founding myths suggest that the land was sparsely populated by nomadic tribes living lightly on the land, research over the past few decades has shown that many early Americans lived in complex, highly organized societies. VOA asked Michael Bawaya, the editor of the magazine American Archaeology. Learn more about who discovered America -in a nutshell. However, what is less certain is who really discovered America first? Once here, humans dispersed all across North and eventually Central and South America. Nonetheless, Columbus remains one of the most well known explorers of his time — and he’s still celebrated every year on Columbus Day. This map of the ancient Bering Land Bridge suggests otherwise. Meanwhile, archeological evidence has shown that humans reached the Yukon at least 14,000 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, there is no evidence that Columbus ever set foot on mainland North America. For a very long time, everyone assumed that Columbus had first discovered America. 1919. Wikimedia Commons“Landing of Columbus” by John Vanderlyn. Archeologists hope finds from their battlefield excavations increase interest in and support for local preservation, It is nearly impossible to imagine that day in 79 AD when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii. The arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas in 1492 has been described by many historians as the beginning of the Colonial Period. So for now, the Clovis and the Pre-Clovis peoples, long disappeared but still existent in the genetic code of nearly all native Americans, deserve the credit for discovering America. Declared in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson to fall on October 9th each year, it aims to honor the Viking explorer and the Norse roots of America’s population. Historian Charles C. Mann, author of 1491, explained it as such: “From southern Maine down to about the Carolinas, you would have seen pretty much the entire coastline lined with farms, cleared land, interior for many miles and densely populated villages generally rounded with wooden walls.”, He continued, “And then in the Southeast, you would have seen these priestly chiefdoms, which were centered on these large mounds, thousands and thousands of them, which still exist. Some people believed that he discovered North America in around 1000 AD, which was nearly 500 years earlier than Columbus. And what did America look like just before Columbus arrived? So, Who Did Discover America? One school of thought among archaeologists is that they were big-game hunters who trekked on foot across a vast land bridge that connected Siberia and Alaska during the last Ice Age and then headed farther south some 13,000 years ago. According to local legend, Saint Brendan was an Irish monk that lived sometime in the 6th century. When Europeans arrived in the New World, they almost immediately noticed other people who already made a home there. Anderson’s account detailed “the first expedition to New England” in the year 1000 and described Leif Erikson as “the first pale-faced man” and … The prehistory of the Americas (North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean) begins with people migrating to these areas from Asia during the height of an Ice Age. Yet another controversial claim has sixth-century Irish monk St. Brendan finding the land around 500 A.D. The history of Leif Erikson’s discovery of America. Generally, when the topic of discovery comes up or if we talk about who discovered America first, the first name that comes in everyone’s mind, undoubtedly is Christopher Columbus.While there is no doubt about Columbus paving the way for the discovery of America, it is quite a misnomer to label him as the “first discoverer.” And to add one fascinating wrinkle to the story of America's discover, consider the Sweet Potato. The only Norse site outside of Greenland yet discovered in North America is at L'Anse aux Mea… America is a continent. The most serious is the idea that the Americas were in any sense undiscovered when they were, in fact, already occupied. Erikson’s recreated colonization site at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. And neither was the first known European. So when was America discovered — and who actually found it first? There was limited contact between North American people and the outside world before 1492. There’s even a popular legend about a band of Irish monks who made it to America in the sixth century. This ancient American culture has been labeled the first civilization of the western hemisphere, as they surpassed their neighbors in an attempt to settle certain problems of living together — of government, defense, religion, family, … And what is clear is that America was a melting pot hundreds of years before the Statue of Liberty began urging the world, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.". It was here that King Olaf I Tryggvason converted him to Christianity, and inspired him to spread the faith to Greenland’s pagan settlers. Martin Waldseemuller was the first to name this huge land mass as America. Ancient documents dictate that the Vikings, more specifically a Viking called Lief Erikson, actually discovered America first. Known as the Bering Land Bridge, it’s now submerged underwater but it lasted from about 30,000 years ago to 16,000 years ago. It appears to stake China's claim to have "discovered" America first. “The Landings of Vikings on America” by Arthur C. Michael. Historian Gavin Menzies has claimed that a Chinese fleet helmed by Admiral Zheng He reached the Americas in 1421, using a Chinese map allegedly from 1418 as his evidence. So who were the brave explorers who first discovered America, and how did they get here? Erik the Red founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. Sebastian Munster's map, published in 1540, the first to show America as a continent. There are varying historical accounts of his discovery of America. While many schoolchildren are taught that Christopher Columbus was responsible for the discovery of America in 1492, the true history of the land’s exploration stretches back long before Columbus was even born. For a long time, most people believed that Christopher Columbus was the first explorer to "discover" America—the first to make a successful round-trip voyage across the Atlantic. On top of that, the settlers often forced the islanders into labor in the fields, and if they resisted they would either be killed or sent to Spain as slaves. Intent on going there, Erikson raised a crew of 35 men and set sail. America was first discovered by the Ancient Hellenes (Greeks)! As the amount of Spanish colonists increased, the Indigenous populations across the islands decreased. Not only were the remains clearly of Norse origin, they were also dated back to Erikson’s lifetime thanks to radiocarbon analysis. This humble pinkish-red tuber is native to South America. It's an annual holiday that commemorates the day on October 12, 1492, when the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus officially set foot in the Americas, and claimed the land for Spain. In fact, the entirety of North and South America are a polyglot of cultures stretching back before recorded history. When Columbus returned from the Antilles in 1493, he was not the first European to have stepped in the New World. [b]Documents in Cairo, Egypt, as well as Mandingo oral tradition reflect the sea voyages of the great Mali Empire from a later period. The Landing of Columbus, October 11, 1492, painting by Currier & Ives, 1846. They're thoroughly discredited, so we'll leave it at that. Half a millennium before Columbus “discovered” America, those Viking feet may have been the first European ones to ever have touched North American soil. Ruth GotthardtArchaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars at the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon in the 1970s. A retired British Naval officer named Gavin Menzies has been pushing the idea that the Chinese colonized South America in 1421. The first civilization of the Americas is called the Olmec. After all, in the tale itself, St. Barinthus had first set foot in the distant land. Ask the average person who was the first person to discover America and most would say Christopher Columbus. Either way, it suggests that about the same time Nordic sailors were cutting trees in Canada, someone in Polynesia was trying sweet potatoes from South America for the first time. The first African clay masks, pyramids, mummies, trepannated skulls, stelae and hieroglyphs found in America were also from this era. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Erikson was the first explorer who discovered America. Erik's son Leif Eriksson is believed to have reached the Island of Newfoundland circa 1000, naming the discovery Vinland. Yet in recent years, the very term "discovery" has come under fire. It was not Leif Eriksson, whose fame was largely secured by his expeditions to the continent, nor was it Erik the Red (who indeed never went there). Americans get a day off work on October 12 to celebrate Columbus Day. Columbus returned to Spain where he was greeted as a hero. Columbus dubbed the island San Salvador and its Taíno natives “Indians.” (The now-extinct natives called their island Guanahani.). And DNA suggests they are the direct ancestors of nearly 80 percent of all indigenous people in the Americas. But as Russell Freedom, author of Who Was First? It was discovered by John Cabot, an explorer and Italian navigator of 15th century. It is believed that Christopher Columbus discovered America on 3 August 1492. Later on in 1497, Amerigo Vespucci, another Italian explorer claimed to have discovered America. Modern research has suggested that wasn’t even the case. It was Vespucci who put forth the then-radical idea that Columbus landed on a different continent that was completely separate from Asia. Learn more about who discovered America -in a nutshell. Leif Erikson: The Viking Who Found America. The entry of American DNA into the genetics of the Rapa Nui natives suggests that the two peoples were living together around 1280 AD. With the national holiday gaining traction in the decades since then, Leif Erikson Day arguably never had a chance to compete. However, one cannot say for sure that Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci were the first to discover this huge continent. Throughout the years, scholars have theorized that people from Asia, Africa, and even Ice Age Europe may have reached American shores before him. It's also safe to say that he paved the way for the massive influx of western Europeans that would ultimately form several new nations including the United States, Canada and Mexico. Aside from Erikson reaching the continent before Columbus, there are additional theories regarding other groups who did as well. Then, learn about another study claiming humans lived in North America 115,000 years earlier than we thought. As for Columbus, he was plagued with ship trouble during his final trip back to Spain and was marooned in Jamaica for a year before he was rescued in 1504. The Chinese claim that they discovered America long before the voyages … The area would have looked much like the land on Alaska's Seward Peninsula does today: treeless, arid tundra. While modern-day criticism of Columbus Day is largely rooted in the man’s horrendous treatment of the Indigenous populations he encountered, it has also served as a conversation starter for people unaware of America’s history. 1847. Perhaps this is why America itself wasn’t named after Columbus and instead a Florentine explorer named Amerigo Vespucci. Indigenous peoples with fishing spears greeted the men stepping off the ships. They get their name from an ancient settlement discovered near Clovis, New Mexico, dated to over 11,000 years ago. Known for establishing churches in Britain and Ireland, he purportedly set out on a journey in a primitive ship to North America — with only a Latin book from the ninth century supporting the claim. One saga claims that Erikson sailed off course while he was returning to Greenland and happened upon North America by accident. Erik the Red founded a colony on Greenland in 985 CE. Discovering the Americas, put it: “[Columbus] wasn’t the first and neither were the Vikings — that is a very Euro-centric view. The Olmec were an early people of Mesoamerica who settled the Mexican Gulf Coast. Who Discovered America First. There is proof that Europeans visited what is now Canada about 500 years before Columbus set sail. But those people arrived on the western coast. Throughout these expeditions, European settlers stole from the Indigenous people, abducted their wives, and seized them as captives to be taken to Spain. However, carbon dating in Yukon’s Bluefish Caves has suggested that humans could have even been living there 24,000 years ago. More importantly, there are ancient texts that refer to various explorers who reached America from Europe (and possibly China) before Columbus. Countless Native people died from European diseases such as smallpox and measles, to which they had no immunity. And then as you went further down, you would have come across what is often called the Aztec empire… which was a very aggressive, expansionistic empire that had one of the world’s largest cities as its capital, Tenutchtitlan, which is now Mexico City.”. Birds, fish, and marine mammals established migration patterns that continue to this day.". This map of the ancient Bering Land Bridge suggests otherwise. So who were the people who really deserve to be called the first Americans? Another theory from a retired chemist named John Ruskamp suggests that pictographs discovered in Arizona are nearly identical to Chinese characters. Speaking of genetics, a 2014 study of the DNA of natives on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, found a fair amount of Native American genes in the mix. He told VOA that they came here from Asia probably "no later than about 15,000 years ago." After learning the true history of who discovered America, read about the study suggesting humans arrived in North America 16,000 years ago. However, this theory remains controversial. Archaeologists Just Unearthed The 8,400-Year-Old Remains Of A Man And His Dog, Inside The Erfurt Latrine Disaster Of 1184, When 60 Nobles Drowned In Excrement, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. “Landing of Columbus” by John Vanderlyn. Was Columbus the first European to glimpse the untamed, verdant paradise that America must have been centuries ago? John Vanderlyn 1847, public domain. The landing of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Up until the 1970s, these first Americans had a name: the Clovis peoples. The news came during a hopeful time on the largest … Are you sure you know the answer to this question? In the year 1497, he reached Newfoundland. He discovered the North America. So some states have opted to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead, urging us to reassess the very idea of the “discovery” of America. who discovered America. When exactly these people crossed over remains unknown. Well, here at VOA, we are trying to tell the story of America. Who Discovered the America First? Who discovered America? Conquest and colonization were quick to follow the 1492 discovery of America, with life on both sides of the Atlantic changed forever. Most may not ask who discovered America since it has been drilled to us since preschool but it is still to important to learn more about the man who discovered America, as he not only discovered America, he discovered a New World and with it, opened new possibilities that had tremendous impact on the course of human history. From a civil liberties point of view, the claim that Christopher Columbus discovered America contains several problematic implications. Columbus then set sail for several other islands, including Cuba and Hispaniola, which today is known as Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Christopher Columbus and Leif Eriksson are the most credible candidates to have been the first people to sail and land in the Americas, there are other myths that pose contenders to that title. Wikimedia CommonsDid Christopher Columbus discover America? The name of the first European to sight North America has been largely forgotten. The Real History Of Who ‘Discovered’ America That Goes Much Deeper Than Christopher Columbus. Historian Kenneth C. Davis on replacing Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day. Wikimedia Commons“The Return of Christopher Columbus” by Eugene Delacroix. In 1937, an influential Catholic group known as the Knights of Columbus successfully lobbied both Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt to honor Christopher Columbus with a national holiday. Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, had adventuring in his blood. We call them, for lack of a better name, the Pre-Clovis people. It was rather 1839. Still confident he had discovered islands in Asia, Columbus built a small fort on Hispaniola and left 39 men behind to collect gold samples and await the next Spanish expedition. Wikimedia Commons“The Landings of Vikings on America” by Arthur C. Michael. Later, some Italian-Americans began celebrating the … They walked across the Bering land bridge that back in the day connected what is now the U.S. state of Alaska and Siberia. Science has shown that during the last ice age, people journeyed across an ancient land bridge connecting modern-day Russia to modern-day Alaska. Archaeologist Jacques Cinq-Mars at the Bluefish Caves in the Yukon in the 1970s. What about arrivals from the east? Marco Margaritoff is a Staff Writer at All That's Interesting. He died just two years later — still incorrectly believing that he’d found a new way to Asia. America comprises of the two continents of the western hemisphere, namely North America and South America. But did Christopher Columbus discover America before other Europeans? But recent Discoveries suggests that Viking may be the first to discover the great lands of America. As such, it isn’t just the man’s character being reassessed, but also his actual accomplishments — or lack thereof. He puts the Chinese in the U.S. state of Arizona sometime around 1300 BC. Several theoretical contacts have been proposed, but the earliest physical evidence comes from the Norse or Vikings. The first reported celebration of Christopher Columbus’s arrival took place in the United States in 1792. It has been a national holiday in the United States since 1937. By comparing the DNA of Polynesian and South American sweet potatoes, scientists think it's clear that someone either brought them back to Polynesia after visiting South America, or islanders brought them from South America when they were exploring the Pacific Ocean. Nor would discovery of such artifacts prove that St. Brendan was the first Irishman in North America. Today, it's widely believed that before the Clovis people, there were others, and as Bawaya says, "they haven't really been identified." Born in Iceland around 970 A.D., Erikson likely grew up in Greenland before sailing east to Norway when he was around 30 years old. But shortly thereafter, Erikson instead arrived in America around 1000 A.D. Neither. Image credit: Everett Collection/Shutterstock.com. However, this holiday has become increasingly scrutinized in recent years — especially due to Columbus’ cruelty toward Indigenous people he encountered in the Americas. Fifteen-thousand years ago, ocean levels were much lower and the land between the continents was hundreds of kilometers wide. Christopher is credited with discovering the Americas in 1492 Americans get a day off work on October 12 to celebrate Columbus Day.
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