Well it seems like this is going to be my first post on the forum, so allow me to begin by saying "Hello everyone!" Having done that, allow me to lay out the topic I am curious about.
While there no doubt have been discussions about this before, and likely even timelines about this before, I would like to embark (within a month or two) on creating a timeline in which the Norse explorers manage to form a permanent settlement in Vinland that survives and continues to grow.
While a butterfly as always seems like the most eloquent way to start an alternate timeline, for all I've managed to find about the Norse settlement, no single butterfly seems capable of allowing the Vikings to survive in a believable way. The Skrälings will always take them out eventually anyway. Therefore, I have decided to make it easy for me, and simply have the point of divergence being that because of a series of bad winters, much fewer (if any) Beothuk and Innu actually settles in Newfoundland and Labrador, allowing the Vikings to find a largely desolate, yet perfectly habitable land, much like Iceland. This will allow Thorfinn to be successful in leading a community to settle in North America, and, eventually allow for migration from Iceland and Scandinavia.
Allowing for this to happen, how will it affect future European history, and how long will we have to wait before non-Norse Europe is historically affected by this change?
Additionally, seeing that the Norse were more than successful in exploring the coasts and rivers of Europe (with, as you all know, some making it as far as Africa and the Byzantine Empire) and engaging in trade, it appears to me as only natural for a settled Viking community to eventually start fostering explorers who travels south along the North American eastern coast. Would it then be possible for them to eventually reach the somewhat more developed native civilisations in Mesoamerica? Additionally, is there any possibility that from trade and exchange of knowledge with the Norse, the native population begins to use iron in their weaponry centuries before the arrival of other European explorers?
Please fill me up with some input.
While there no doubt have been discussions about this before, and likely even timelines about this before, I would like to embark (within a month or two) on creating a timeline in which the Norse explorers manage to form a permanent settlement in Vinland that survives and continues to grow.
While a butterfly as always seems like the most eloquent way to start an alternate timeline, for all I've managed to find about the Norse settlement, no single butterfly seems capable of allowing the Vikings to survive in a believable way. The Skrälings will always take them out eventually anyway. Therefore, I have decided to make it easy for me, and simply have the point of divergence being that because of a series of bad winters, much fewer (if any) Beothuk and Innu actually settles in Newfoundland and Labrador, allowing the Vikings to find a largely desolate, yet perfectly habitable land, much like Iceland. This will allow Thorfinn to be successful in leading a community to settle in North America, and, eventually allow for migration from Iceland and Scandinavia.
Allowing for this to happen, how will it affect future European history, and how long will we have to wait before non-Norse Europe is historically affected by this change?
Additionally, seeing that the Norse were more than successful in exploring the coasts and rivers of Europe (with, as you all know, some making it as far as Africa and the Byzantine Empire) and engaging in trade, it appears to me as only natural for a settled Viking community to eventually start fostering explorers who travels south along the North American eastern coast. Would it then be possible for them to eventually reach the somewhat more developed native civilisations in Mesoamerica? Additionally, is there any possibility that from trade and exchange of knowledge with the Norse, the native population begins to use iron in their weaponry centuries before the arrival of other European explorers?
Please fill me up with some input.