History questoions........

Question

Before Columbus arrived, the only Europeans to have visited North America temporarily were the Norse. True or false?

Answer 1

Difficult to answer - there are several claims by sailors that they sailed to North America.

See:

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

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

But only the Vikings left any verifiable archaeology

Answer 2

True

Answer 3

St.Brendan of Ireland, in the 6th century.  The only proof of this, however,

is that 1)a group of archeologists built boats similar to St. Brfendan, sailed them from Ireland to new world, to show it was possible, and 2)The Mandan tribe in North America spoke a language very similar to Welsh, st. Brendan's language.

Answer 4

False;

Kennewick Man is the name for the skeletal remains of a prehistoric man found on a bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington, USA on July 28, 1996. The discovery of Kennewick Man was accidental: a pair of spectators (Will Thomas and David Deacy) found his skull while attending the annual hydroplane races.[1]

The remains became embroiled in debates about the relationship between Native American religious rights, archaeology and other interested stakeholders.[2][3] Based on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), five Native American groups (the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Yakama, Wannapum, and Colville) claimed the remains as theirs, to be buried by traditional means. Only Umatillas continued further court proceeding. In February 2004, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a cultural link between the tribes and the skeleton was not met, allowing scientific study of the remains to continue.[4]

In July 2005, a team of scientists from around the United States convened in Seattle for ten days to study the remains, making many detailed measurements, and determined the cause of death.

The remains were first examined in situ by anthropologist James Chatters. After ten separate visits, Chatters was able to collect three hundred and fifty pieces of bone as well as the skull, which completed almost a full skeleton. The cranium was fully intact with all the teeth that had been present at the time of death. All of the major bones were found, except the sternum, although in several pieces.  At the University of California at Riverside, a small piece of bone was subjected to radiocarbon dating. Unexpected test results showed that the remains were approximately 9,300 years old, rather than from the nineteenth century, (1800’s) as had originally been assumed.  After collecting all the bone pieces, Chatters concluded the subject was a Caucasoid male about 68 inches (173 cm) tall who died in his mid fifties.

Chatters found the bone had partially grown around a 79 mm (3.1 in) stone projectile lodged in the illium, part of the pelvic bone. On x-ray, nothing appeared. Chatters put the bone through a CPT scan, and it was discovered that the projectile was made from a siliceous gray stone that was found to have igneous origins. Geologically, this refers to a stone that formed in a silica-rich environment during a volcanic period. The projectile was leaf-shaped, long, broad and had serrated edges, all fitting the definition of a Cascade point. This type of point is a feature of the Cascade phase, occurring in the archaeological record from roughly 5000 to 8000 years ago.

Anthropologist Joseph Powell of the University of New Mexico was finally allowed to examine the remains and his conclusions were contradictory. Kennewick Man was in fact not European but rather resembled south Asians and the Ainu people of northeast Asia

Answer 5

Norse did, but there is speculation that many on the European land mass came over.

Answer 6

Probably true.