Abstract
THE evidence in favour of a partial settlement of Massachusetts by Scandinavians is gradually accumulating, and in the current number of the American Anthropologist (New Series, vol. ii., p. 550), Mr. Gerard Fowke adduces new observations. He says, few persons living among the evidences of Norse occupancy have ever paid any particular attention to them, taking for granted that they are the work of the earlier generations of English inhabitants of the region. Those who give more than a passing thought to these objects of unknown origin can see at once that many features connected with them not only would have been unsuitable for any of the necessities of the latter people, as they were then compelled to live, but could not have been turned to any practical use when completed. Such a conclusion is followed at once by the inference that they must pertain in some way to the social customs in vogue among the American Indians; but it does not require an extended acquaintance with aboriginal remains to convince an observer of the error of this inference, the two classes of works being entirely different in many of their most distinctive characters.
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H., A. A Pre-Columbian Scandinavian Colony in Massachusetts . Nature 63, 192–193 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/063192a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/063192a0