Indigenous Icelandics

[Cryptic]

To ICELAND? With Neolithic technology, I think that's a tad too ASB. Lower sea levels allowed people to get to the Shetland Islands around at least 4000 BC. Yet studies of the Faroe Islands, which are a hell of a lot closer to the Shetlands and the the rest of Europe than Iceland, has settlements going back to only 400 AD. If the Faroes were beyond the ability of Neolithic Europeans to reach, then Iceland's way out of the question.

Neolithics made it to the Addaman and Nicobar Islands. Any trip by Neolithics to Iceland could use the arctic ice sheet for shelter and make a series of staged trips.

What if a population from Europe managed to get to Iceland around the Neolithic age?

What would such a culture look like, and how would their relations with the Norse go assuming a butterfly net from then on?

Perhaps the Sa'ami of Scandanavia and Russia might be a good model.

 

[DValdron]

Neolithics made it to the Addaman and Nicobar Islands. Any trip by Neolithics to Iceland could use the arctic ice sheet for shelter and make a series of staged trips.

http://www.daftlogic.com/projects-google-maps-distance-calculator.htm

Well, using this to do some ballparking, we find that the nearest shores of Iceland are approximately 270 to 300 miles away from the Faroe Islands, going due northwest.

From the Faroes, its a 200 mile jump to either mainland Scotland or its northern or western Islands. It's almost 400 miles from the Faroes to the closest point of Norway.

Direct route, as the crow flies, its 600 miles from the closest point of Iceland to the closest point of Norway.

Now, let's take a look at what that means to Neolithic cultures.

Assuming that they're crossing over ice floes, gee whiz, how fast are they moving. Let's assume a steady march of 10 to 15 miles a day, average out to 12. That's pretty good time actually. These are people on the move - literally - say 8 hours to sleep, a 4 hours to stop and eat, go to the bathroom, look after stuff, mend your tack and harnesses, take care of the children, rest, prepare.

Assume 12 hours of marching a day, 12 miles a day, works out to 1 mile an hour, which when you're considering that they are fully loaded and have to be carrying a lot of stuff with them... that's pretty good. But suppose we doubled that up to 2 miles an hour, 24 miles a day.

From the Faroes to Iceland, assuming a direct route as the crow flies, minimum of 11 to 12 days.

From Norway to Iceland, well that's 25 days.

Of course, in winter you don't get a 12 hour day. Up around those latitudes, your winter day might be as short as 8 hours. Considering that a lot of what they're going to have to do - including food prep, takes place mostly in daylight, they've really got only 6 hours. Assuming that they keep to 12 miles a day, that's 2 miles an hour, a walking speed for unladen people, that's damned crazy good.

In which case the trip from the Faroes to Iceland is 22 to 24 days. From Norway to Iceland, that's 50 days.

This is the best case scenario.

Now, that assumes near glacial conditions, of sea ice encapsulating Iceland and extending continuously all the way down to the Faroes.

And it assumes unbroken sea ice, no open water spaces, no giant temporary mountains of piled up sea ice. No treacherous thin areas. That's not likely. Ocean currents move sea ice around, they move it back and forth. Wind piles up. It's always in motion, creaking, cracking, piling up. The further and longer you are out on sea ice, the more dangerous it is. Most likely, you're going to be taking lots and lots of detours, switchbacks and wrong turns.

That's not even considering that the winds and the currents are going in the wrong directions, all of them.

It assumes that they miraculously are carrying a couple of weeks or a couple of months worth of food, water and fuel that are going to keep them alive on the trip, because lets face it - there's not going to be any fish, game or vegetation along the trip, and you don't want to try and drink melted sea ice. It's likely that any animals brought along will die and be eaten or abandoned. That any plants or seeds will be consumed.

Most likely, they die on the ice. Maybe one chance in a million, someone makes it to Iceland, where they die. Maybe one chance in a hundred million, a few people of mixed genders make it to Iceland, in good enough condition to survive and keep reproducing - but in that case, most of their inherited culture is going to be lost or abandoned to survival - they have no domesticated animals and there are none here to domesticate, they have no domesticated plants and the wild plants aren't suited to taming.

Sea travel during the summer is a better bet. But there you'd have to pay close attention to the currents and the winds. You're still looking at a passage of several hundred miles.

And there isn't anyone in the area with all that much of a sea tradition.

 

[Cryptic]

Most likely, they die on the ice. Maybe one chance in a million, someone makes it to Iceland, where they die.

Assuming that they're crossing over ice floes, gee whiz, how fast are they moving. Let's assume a steady march of 10 to 15 miles a day, average out to 12. That's pretty good time actually. These are people on the move - literally - say 8 hours to sleep, a 4 hours to stop and eat, go to the bathroom, look after stuff, mend your tack and harnesses, take care of the children, rest, prepare.

You need to give humanity more credit. There is increasing circumstantial evidence that neolithics took a polar route to North America (Solutrian theory). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis This may have been done by skirting the ice cap in small boats in conjunction with going over the ice while dragging boats.

It assumes that they miraculously are carrying a couple of weeks or a couple of months worth of food, water and fuel that are going to keep them alive on the trip, because lets face it - there's not going to be any fish, game or vegetation along the trip, and you don't want to try and drink melted sea ice. It's likely that any animals brought along will die and be eaten or abandoned. That any plants or seeds will be consumed.

Are these people modern Europeans with alot of calorie needs and gear needs? Yes, I agree, Franklin and his men would be in grave touble - and I would certainly perish. Fortunately, the neolithic voyagers are experienced hunter gathers (emphasis on hunters in the high arctic). Though any trip would be very difficult H/Gs can survive on far less groceries and can also obtain groceries from environments that appear to be barren. Pre contact Inuit had neolithic technology, and yet were able to survive in the area. Likewise, western desert aborigines were able to survive in incredibly adverse conditions. The high arctic is essentially a cold desert.

Sea travel during the summer is a better bet. But there you'd have to pay close attention to the currents and the winds. You're still looking at a passage of several hundred miles.

And that is the same distance from the mainland to the Adamman and Nicobar islands. There were also indigenous neolithics (presumably) in the Canary islands.

 

[DValdron]

You need to give humanity more credit. There is increasing circumstantial evidence that neolithics took a polar route to North America (Solutrian theory). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solutrean_hypothesis This may have been done by skirting the ice cap in small boats in conjunction with going over the ice while dragging boats.

I'm not sure that the Solutrean hypothesis is generally accepted. In any event, I'm skeptical that it would apply to the time period noted.

Are these people modern Europeans with alot of calorie needs and gear needs? Yes, I agree, Franklin and his men would be in grave touble - and I would certainly perish. Fortunately, the neolithic voyagers are experienced hunter gathers (emphasis on hunters in the high arctic).

And what exactly would they be gathering on an ice floe?

Though any trip would be very difficult H/Gs can survive on far less groceries

Ice floe?

and can also obtain groceries from environments that appear to be barren.

Ice floe?

Pre contact Inuit had neolithic technology, and yet were able to survive in the area. Likewise, western desert aborigines were able to survive in incredibly adverse conditions. The high arctic is essentially a cold desert.

The Inuit culture, and its predecessors, including the Dorset, had extremely sophisticated technology designed specifically to survive in their environment, and quite often they didn't.

The Inuit and Dorset, had amazingly sophisticated boat technology - Kayaks and Umiaks, which are adopted recreationally today by western culture. But their culture never undertook a jump of over 100 miles of sea.

Kayak riders would occasionally get swept up in currents and dragged all the way down to Scotland, but these were unlucky outliers. The OTL Inuit made it to Greenland, crossing over from Ellesmere... but they never made it to Svalbard or Iceland.

And that is the same distance from the mainland to the Adamman and Nicobar islands. There were also indigenous neolithics (presumably) in the Canary islands.

Actually no. Today, the Andaman Islands and Nicobar Islands closest point to the mainland is a mere 96 miles in the south, and 170 miles in the North. Both of these are orders of magnitude shorter than the trip to Iceland, even by Island hopping.

Further, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands appear to have been initially colonized in the paleolithic, and remained isolated thereafter until historic times. Now, given that we're talking the paleolithic, and further given that the Andaman and Nicobar chain are part of continental mountain ranges, its possible that the paleolithics simply walked there when sea levels were much lower. Which would explain their isolation.

As for the Canary Islands, less than sixty miles separates them from the mainland. I'd note that other Island groups in Macaronesia - the Azores, the Cape Verdes, the Madeira's all went undiscovered and uninhabited.

It's not impossible, and I won't say ASB. But it's tough, tough, tough.

I don't want to toot my own horn excessively, but a while back, when I was doing a timeline called 'Land of Ice and Mice' one of the things that really got argued out was an Inuit colonization of the arctic circle islands - including Svalbard, Iceland, Franz Josef, Novaya Zemyla, Svernaya Zemyla, Wrangel and the Commander Islands - most of which the Inuit never came near in our timeline. I wasn't a proponent, but eventually came round to the thought. But the discussion was productive in that it really hashed out the sort of culture and technology you would need to make these big sea jumps.

In human history, there really were only two great sea cultures that had the ability to make these big sea jumps - The Polynesians/Malay of the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and the Norse of the North Atlantic, and both were comparatively recent.

Elsewhere you found even modest jumps - like from the Aleutians to the Commander Islands, or to some of the Macaronesian Islands, were just infeasible.

 

[Umbral]

I suspect they'd go extinct. Like DValderon says, there wold be a population boom and then a crash, followed by stabilizing at a minimum level.

The problem is, it would be a level with very little ability to duck and weave. There may not be the ecological room to compensate if the climate went bad for a few years, a volcano erupted etc. And over the millennia, thats going to happen now and then.

Much like the Norse found the previously populated Greenland empty, I suspect Iceland would be the same.

What a culture would need to make it could be: A very good boating and fishing package. Including the ability to make boats from materials other than wood. Some kind of hybrid Norse/Inuit tech, or something like the Irish hide boats?

Reindeer. They thrive on Svalbard, so they should do well on Iceland. They may even have saved the Norse in Greenland if they had had them. Some kind of more sea-oriented Saami people, maybe.

The potato. Yeah, I got no idea how that would happen, but a fish potato package should generate some surplus.

 

[DValdron]

I suspect they'd go extinct. Like DValderon says, there wold be a population boom and then a crash, followed by stabilizing at a minimum level.

The problem is, it would be a level with very little ability to duck and weave. There may not be the ecological room to compensate if the climate went bad for a few years, a volcano erupted etc. And over the millennia, thats going to happen now and then.

Much like the Norse found the previously populated Greenland empty, I suspect Iceland would be the same.

What a culture would need to make it could be: A very good boating and fishing package. Including the ability to make boats from materials other than wood. Some kind of hybrid Norse/Inuit tech, or something like the Irish hide boats?

Reindeer. They thrive on Svalbard, so they should do well on Iceland. They may even have saved the Norse in Greenland if they had had them. Some kind of more sea-oriented Saami people, maybe.

The potato. Yeah, I got no idea how that would happen, but a fish potato package should generate some surplus.

I think that there are actually a few thousand reindeer in Iceland currently. They were imported in the 19th and early 20th century.

Potatoes are very tough, considering that the originate in a southern Chilean archipelago.

 

[Cryptic]

It's not impossible, and I won't say ASB. But it's tough, tough, tough.

I don't want to toot my own horn excessively, but a while back, when I was doing a timeline called 'Land of Ice and Mice' one of the things that really got argued out was an Inuit colonization of the arctic circle islands - including Svalbard, Iceland, Franz Josef, Novaya Zemyla, Svernaya Zemyla, Wrangel and the Commander Islands - most of which the Inuit never came near in our timeline. I wasn't a proponent, but eventually came round to the thought. But the discussion was productive in that it really hashed out the sort of culture and technology you would need to make these big sea jumps.

In human history, there really were only two great sea cultures that had the ability to make these big sea jumps - The Polynesians/Malay of the Pacific and Indian Ocean, and the Norse of the North Atlantic, and both were comparatively recent.

Any trip would have to be done with in the right window of opportunity -when the sea jumps were not that big. This window needs the following conditions:
- Ice cap no longer covers all of Iceland, allows neolithics to survive once they get there. The glaciers have receded from sotheren England and outer herbides, giving the Neolithics a relatively northeren starting point. The Ice cap is still far enough south to allow neolithics to skirt the ice cap travelling east when it is advantageous (and to gather fish, birds, marine mammals etc from the edge of the ice cap.)

The trip is then done in stages:

-leave southeren England, island hop to outer herbides (OTL neolithics actually made this trip). Then island hop to the more isolated islands off the outer herbides cluster (Saint Kilda?, also populated, though probably marginally, in neolithioc times).
-Isolated outer herbides (Saint Kilda?) to Faroe Islands while skirting the ice cap
-Faroe Islands to Iceland about 375 miles to Iceland while skirting the ice cap

I suspect they'd go extinct.

I dont think so. History shows that once people get to an isolated area, they can usually adapt to survive, even if the area is harsh. For example, most of the Polynesian islanders who became stranded were able to adapt and survive (abiet sometime barely).

 

[jabberwoky]

Why do they have to be from Europe? I may be wrong, but don't Inuits inhabit Greenland? And its much shorter between Greenland and Iceland then Europe and Iceland (hell, its shorter between the american continent and Iceland then Europe and Iceland) But there is probably a good reason for this not to have been looked into.

 

[RGB]

Why do they have to be from Europe? I may be wrong, but don't Inuits inhabit Greenland?

The Inuit didn't arrive to Greenland until the 14th or 15th c.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The Inuit didn't arrive to Greenland until the 14th or 15th c.

Yes, but the Dorset culture which preceded them had inhabited Greenland before that, iirc.

Otoh, the tech advances from Dorset to Thule (modern Inuit), could probably have happened a few hundred years earlier, and these advanced Dorsets could have made it to Iceland and probably settled.

 

[DValdron]

The Inuit didn't arrive to Greenland until the 14th or 15th c.

But the Dorset culture was there earlier. And There's evidence of at least periodic occupation of Greenland going back maybe four thousand years.

I'm not sure what that means. It may mean that Greenland was continuously occupied. Or that Greenland was such a harsh land in some seasons that humanity kept going extinct there.

 

[DValdron]

Any trip would have to be done with in the right window of opportunity -when the sea jumps were not that big. This window needs the following conditions:
- Ice cap no longer covers all of Iceland, allows neolithics to survive once they get there. The glaciers have receded from sotheren England and outer herbides, giving the Neolithics a relatively northeren starting point. The Ice cap is still far enough south to allow neolithics to skirt the ice cap travelling east when it is advantageous (and to gather fish, birds, marine mammals etc from the edge of the ice cap.)

The trip is then done in stages:

-leave southeren England, island hop to outer herbides (OTL neolithics actually made this trip). Then island hop to the more isolated islands off the outer herbides cluster (Saint Kilda?, also populated, though probably marginally, in neolithioc times).
-Isolated outer herbides (Saint Kilda?) to Faroe Islands while skirting the ice cap
-Faroe Islands to Iceland about 375 miles to Iceland while skirting the ice cap

375 miles as the crow flies. But let's give you 375 miles.

Assume a travel speed of 15 miles a day, every day. 25 days to get there. During this time, we assume that they're skirting the ice sheets... which are cracking and calving icebergs regularly. Tough. Very tough.

Fishing is an uphill battle. Sea birds are low likelihood. Haul outs for seals might be feasible.

I dont think so. History shows that once people get to an isolated area, they can usually adapt to survive, even if the area is harsh. For example, most of the Polynesian islanders who became stranded were able to adapt and survive (abiet sometime barely).

Sometimes not. There were a few Pacific Islands where its now clear that occupations, or initial occupations failed.

 

[RGB]

I'm not sure what that means. It may mean that Greenland was continuously occupied. Or that Greenland was such a harsh land in some seasons that humanity kept going extinct there.

Not sure what it means either but nobody except the Norse and sundry Europeans ever made the Greenland to Iceland trip, or vice versa, before the early 11th c. I think the kayak isn't a great vehicle for negotiating that stretch of water, basically. People still don't do it today, and people do all sorts of craziness for the heck of it today.

 

[Pesterfield]

boom, devastation of the easiest or most accessible natural resources, bust,

Why does that keep happening, today it seems blindly obvious you want to keep some of whatever plant or animal it is around to replace itself.

On the other hand overharvesting still happens, even if we definitely should know better by now.

 

[DValdron]

Why does that keep happening, today it seems blindly obvious you want to keep some of whatever plant or animal it is around to replace itself.

On the other hand overharvesting still happens, even if we definitely should know better by now.

Welcome to the human condition.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Not sure what it means either but nobody except the Norse and sundry Europeans ever made the Greenland to Iceland trip, or vice versa, before the early 11th c. I think the kayak isn't a great vehicle for negotiating that stretch of water, basically. People still don't do it today, and people do all sorts of craziness for the heck of it today.

It doesnt help that the east coast of Greenland is almost uninhabitable, so the 'easy' route between the two islands isnt available.