Norse code

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. So goes the old rhyme. And every October, the United States holds a national holiday to celebrate the Italian who crossed the Atlantic in three ships to America.

Except he wasn't the first European in the New World. Five centuries earlier, Vikings beached their longboats on the shores of NewfoundlandThe English arrived five centuries later in 1497 and named the island "new found land"., an island off of mainland Canada.

In 1960, archaeologists found ruins of their settlement near a fishing village called L'Anse aux MeadowsThe name is a mix of English and French, meaning bay with meadows, but may have originally meant cove of jellyfish.. Now, scientists can confirm these Norse explorers arrived precisely 1,000 years ago.

How can they be so exact? It's thanks to a solar storm in 992AD.

That year, the sun threw an immense cosmic ray at the Earth. Trees absorbed the radiation, leaving a "time marker" in the tree ringsA tree grows at different speeds throughout the seasons, leaving a visible ring for each year of its life.. Researchers took timbers from the Viking site and counted the rings, from the "fellingTo cut down a tree. Three logs were examined. They were either used in building or repairing the Viking ships. year of the tree" to the date of the solar storm.

This discovery suggests the Viking sagasMedieval stories and histories composed in Iceland and Scandinavia. Vinland is mentioned in the Saga of Erik the Red, Leif's father. about Leif Erikson were true. Leif "the Lucky" was a Norseman from Iceland who sailed west to a place called VinlandProbably from the Old Norse for wine, suggesting the Vikings found a plentiful supply of grapes or berries.. But if he was the first European in America, why does Columbus get all the credit?

In the US, more than 50 cities, towns and counties bear the explorer's name. But Columbus never set foot in mainland North America. And he died believing he had discovered a new route to Asia and not an entirely different continent.

So the Vikings were "the first human society to traverse the Atlantic," says geoscientist Michael Dee. An incredible achievement in wooden boats only 20m long.

However, some think Erikson was beaten to it by a sixth-Century Irish monk. According to legend, Saint Brendan sailed past "crystal towers" and islands with "rivers of gold fireScholars have speculated that the crystal towers were icebergs and the gold fire was volcanic activity on Iceland." to the "Isle of the Blessed". In 1977, the historian Tim Severin reenacted the voyage in a leather-clad boat, proving it was possible.

Other theories involve a sea-going emperor from Mali and the 15th-Century Chinese admiral Zheng He. There's little evidence to support these, but they make good stories.

And then there's the mystery of the sweet potato.

The vegetable comes from South America, but archaeologists have found evidence PolynesiansThe inhabitants of over 1,000 islands in the central and southern Pacific Ocean. were eating it 1,000 years ago. Did they paddle across the Pacific before Erikson or Columbus?

"It would be a mind-boggling voyage," says historian Charles Mann. But not impossible.

However, the first people in the Americas arrived over 20,000 years earlier, during the last ice age. This is why Native Americans say Columbus didn't discover America, he invaded it.

This year, for the first time, the US president celebrated Indigenous Peoples' DayIn previous years, activists have staged mock trials of Columbus and torn down statues of the explorer. on October 11, the same day as Colombus Day. He recognised "the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted" on "America's first inhabitants".

Two days earlier, there were smaller celebrations for Leif Erikson Day. President Biden said this "historic journey" lives on in his country's "spirit of exploration".

Does it matter?

Yes: Countries tell powerful stories about how and why they exist. These tales need to be based on facts and not myths. The more we learn about the past, the more we discover that everyone had an ancestor who was a newcomer, a migrant, an explorer.

No: Arguing over who arrived first is dangerous because it divides people. It suggests that some have more of a right to live in a country than others. We can celebrate these historic achievements, but what really matters are the stories of people alive today.

Or: History is never black and white, and we should recognise the different perspectives and stories that have been repressed before. It might not matter who got there first, but it does matter if certain narratives are suppressed.