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In the last few years, genetic analysis techniques have advanced to the point that we can now sequence some pretty old human remains. (We have a thread on it:) And we know a lot about which genes influence skin colour, even if we don't know everything. And what we've found is that the phenotype...

I personally suspect that the 536 event, Fimbulwinter, had much to do with both the migration and the weakness of the Romanobritish.

I feel Iberia might be a better analogy than the British Isles. Scandinavia lacks the population and food-production center that was England in the UK. The component parts are closer to being of equal size. In between Finnish and the nine Saami languages, I don't know how many were mutually...

Where does the water go? A dam will not make the Nile stop flowing. How big a reservoir can he make? Can he redirect the river anywhere? Otherwise, it.ll just overflow the dam when the reservoir is full. Nile is quite water-heavy when it floods.

I don't really think the Vinlanders will welcome other nations fishermen into their waters. And whether they've grown numerous or not they have a massive logistics advantage. They don't have that much to trade with Europe, so by the time the cod had grown valuable enough for Europeans to cross...

Well, single men wasn't really the Norse settlement pattern. It was families and entire clans that settled. When the Norse settled Iceland they made a point of bringing women, often Irish. It is till remarked on to this day here in Norway how they picked the most beautiful women to take with...

I am a bit unsure about the women issue. The Norse who settled Iceland were known to make sure to bring enough women, many of whom were Irish. That also seems to have been thought about when settling Greenland. Its a fairly basic issue for a people who had recent colonization of empty lands in...

I'm thinking all you'd need was one determined push. Once they realize how few the natives are, and there is an established presence, the kin of those people will find immigrating much more attractive. It may not be as attractive as Ireland, the Kingdom of the Isles etc, but free good land is a...

Well, they are roughly the same size. Newfoundland appears to have much better fishing through the grand banks. Newfoundland also has bog iron and timber, allowing for better resource exploitation. Iceland appears to be over 90 % EF on the Koppen climate scale, Arctic Tundra. A small amount of...

Well, as someone whose first degree was engineering, the maths is obviously simple and um...ah... I just used this site. Its been a long time since my maths classes.

Without glancing at the paper, one of the issues the Native Americans had was being hit with a large number of diseases close together. Highland climate may have stopped or limited the spread of several plagues or reservoirs. Also lowland communities could have been far denser. Highland areas...

I think you are highballing their numbers. The difference in population between agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers are massive. 2000 is generally believed to be the number at the time of OTL European contact. That is, about 1500 AD. Around the time of Erik the Red and Leif Eriksson, 1000 AD...

Well, I think de Orelleana is most of the written sources we have directly observing Amazonian populations. Archeological remains include the Terra Preta and Terra Mulatta soils, as well as cultures such as the Marajorara, in addition to hundreds of earthwork remains some hundreds of meters...

On the issue of Norse versus natives, I think the problem was that the Norse had no idea how few the natives were, but knew well how few they themselves were. In other words, they were estimating native power based on agricultural populations like their own, or at best pastoralists like the...

There was the trade in Narwhal horn and Walrus tusks from Greenland. A surviving Vinland would probably have an easier time of it than Greenland, due to the presence of timber for ships and iron. They were high-value, low-weight and volume trade goods that did not spoil. So until the Ivory took...

I think the differences in lethality between the Norse and the more southerly lattitudes were within the range of what can be expected from different lifestyles. I.e. Scandinavian winters encouraged an architecture where people clustered together, plague-carrying rodents would be driven inside...

Well, the question is, knew what exactly about these lands? Europe knew about Vinland through the middle ages, but thought Vinland to be some islands a bit like Ireland but with hostile natives and no resources you couldn't get much easier from Russia. Narwal horn excepted, but the Norse were...

Well, there were sporadic contacts with the Norse for about 400 years after the Vinland settlement. I do seem to remember reading about some disease outbreak among the natives traceable to Norse contact, but I read that before there was an internet, and have no idea where anymore. But the thing...

In this case, Europeans =/= Norse. The Europeans in question originated from the UK, in some cases from cities with limited farming and craft skills. And managed to end up resorting to cannibalism during one of the milder winters. Also, the Spanish who arrived in a climate totally different from...

If so, the Hansa may want to do exactly what the 13th century King of Norway did. Get Vinland to join by non-military means. (I've been wanting to do a "Hansa Vinland" TL for some time) But I think by the late 1400s when fishermen were going to the grand banks regularly, military power...