Christopher Columbusgets the lion ’s share of the credit for discovering America in 1492 , but the evidence weighs heavily against him being the first one to find the New World . If Columbus had actually discovered America , he ’d have found an unpeopled terrain , and of row , he did n’t . anthropologist and archaeologist count on that between 40 and 100 million Native Americans lived in the Americas when Columbus arrive , account for as much as one - one-fifth of the global population at the time [ reservoir : Mann ] . Besides , some believe theChinese beat Columbusby 80 years .
While Columbus may have been the first European to reach Central America , it is Giovanni Caboto who is the first to have arrived in North America , land in Labrador , off the east sea-coast of Canada , in 1497 . So now we recognise , then : It was Caboto who was the first European to bring down in North America , right-hand ? ill-timed again .
Caboto was beaten to North America by 500 age by the Vikings . Definitive proof of Norse inhabitancy of Newfoundland , near Labrador , can be find atL’Anse aux Meadows , a Viking settlement see to around 1000 C.E. The Vikings are the early group to leave behind tangible evidence of their comportment . So were the Vikings the first ? Not quite . Another radical may have been the first Europeans to arrive in the New World : the Irish .
In the sixth century , St. Brendan , an Irish monk who was widely think of as a skilled sea dog , is enunciate to have attempt an challenging ocean trip . Brendan , along with a crew of fellow Thelonious Monk , sailed looking for Paradise , the Land of Promise of the Saints . After seven year exploring orphic lands , he occur upon what he believe to be the legendary Eden . It was an island so huge that he and his crew fail to reach the far shoring after 40 days of walking . It bear a river that was too wide to be scotch . It was a wooded land , filled with plush fruits . He and his men filled their boats with gems they notice there and returned home to tell apart of the news .
It was n’t until the 9th century that an news report of Brendan ’s voyage come out , theNavigatio Sancti Brendani(“Travels of St. Brendan ” in Latin ) . It was an instant hit , translated into several language . The invoice talks of Brendan ’s experience , let in his being rain cats and dogs with rock from an island of fire , seeing a pillar of crystal and encountering a act island before finally descend upon the Promised Land , which came to be referred to as the Fortunate Islands .
But as time wore on , the Navigatio – along with St. Brendan himself – go past into the realm of fable . If Brendan had lived – as most scholars strike – sure as shooting he could n’t have traveled across the treacherous North Atlantic with the technology usable at the meter . Certainly , he could n’t have baffle the Viking to North America .
Ironically , it is Viking lore that lends support to the idea that Brendan was the first European in North America . show the next Sir Frederick Handley Page to find out about evidence for and against this estimate .
St. Brendan – or Somebody
One of the biggest job with the idea that St. Brendan and his crew were the first Europeans to arrive in North America is the shortage of forcible grounds to digest this claim . Unlike the Vikings , there is no colonization that proves the Irish were here prior to other Europeans . At one time , however , bait physical grounds did emerge .
Barry Fell , a Harvard marine biologist , attain somepetroglyphs– writings carved into rock candy – in West Virginia in 1983 . Fell concluded that the writing wasOgam script , an Irish alphabet used between the sixth and eighth century . Even more startlingly , Fell found that the subject matter in the rock described the Christian nativity . But shortly after Fell released his findings , many in the donnish community attack his interpretation of the petroglyph . Many scholars question his method acting and refuse to accept his findings as fact . Although the petroglyphs could be Ogam script , their true origins and meaning remain unproven [ beginning : Oppenheimer and Wirtz ] .
All that ’s bequeath , then , is the written accounts of Brendan ’s voyages . The Navigatio understand like a fantastic account , loaded with Biblical references – one transition narrate how Brendan hold Communion on the back of a whale . In the mind of most historians , this story puts the document in the realm of folklore . Even for those researcher who put stock into the Navigatio ’s underlie historical truth , many of the focusing do n’t point to North America as the destination where Brendan in the end set ashore . But there are documents that suggest an Irish comportment in North America prior to the Vikings ' , including the report of the Vikings themselves .
The Irish were know to the Norse ( Vikings ) as a sailing group that had traveled far further than the Vikings had . In theirsagas– account of their people ’s feat – the Vikings speak of get hold Irish missions when they come in Iceland in the tenth century . Another saga secernate of meet Native Americans who were already conversant with white men . These endemic masses had already encountered explorers who dress in white and came from a estate " across from their own " [ source : Lathe ] . A third saga relate that the Norse encountered a tribe of indigenous Americans who talk a nomenclature that sounded like Irish , with which the Norse were familiar .
St. Brendan was reputed as a skilled voyager , establishing missions wherever he landed . Historians generally accept that he was able to sail to Europe and island near Ireland . But , say the skeptics , this is a far cry from crossing the North Atlantic in acurragh . This modest , opened vessel , made of a wooden frame covered by ox hide and waterproof with gob , was the only water travel technology available to the Irish during Brendan ’s lifespan . It was long doubted that such a boat could make the trip from Ireland to America .
But this was proven wrong in 1976 by author and adventurer Tim Severin , who built a curragh and congeal out from Ireland – just as Brendan would have . He retrace the route that Brendan is thought to have lead , from Ireland to Iceland , Greenland and eventually Newfoundland . After a class - foresighted ocean trip , Severin made it , proving that the trip was at least possible in such a craft .
Severin himself admits that his experiment is a retentive way from definitive proof that Brendan actually made the tripper . As he wrote in " The Brendan Voyage " – his score of the experiment – " the only conclusive proof that it had been done would be if an authentic relic from an early Irish is encounter one sidereal day on North American grime " [ generator : Wiley ] .
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