Norse/Amerind tech transfer

It seems to me, all pre-Columbian north America timelines, either consist of unchanged Amerind societies gaining some crucial technology through their own, or downright Norse colonization of north America with massive consequences such as earlier European contact, Christianity/Asatru et cetera.

But what we instead imagine that the Newfoundland colony is abandoned as per OTL, and the difference only consists of one or a handful of Norse ending up living among and integrating into some local tribe of Amerindians? Perhaps a family of outcasts? Apparently, the Norse seems to have traded up and down the coast, at least down to New Brunswick, so there should be plenty of peoples to choose from.

I recognize the immense risk that the people in question simply die for one reason or another, but lets imagine they don't, and that they do manage to transfer technologies to their new kin. Perhaps the daughters in the family marry someone powerful, and the father is limp from some earlier injury, and so on. Which Norse technologies would be immediately useful to the Amerindians?

AFAIK iron ore in at least micro-localities such as bog iron should be pretty much ubiquitous. They're obviously not going to immediately send long-ships full of steel clad warriors to conquer their neighbors, but anyone reasonably intelligent should be able to see the benefit of say, iron tools, sails, wheels and food conservation.

What to you think?
 
My ideas about a successful Vinland is that the Indians will be treated badly by the Vikings since the start and the other ways around and if you add the plague that will decimated them, they will be unfriendly to the newcomers and prefered not to trade with them.

When the plague hit them, the tribes will be on decline, after one or two wars, they will prefer to go inland rather than to be again in contact with the Vinlanders.

Did you care to read the premise in the OP? This is neither about a successful Vinland colony nor tens of thousands of Amerinidans abandoning the entire north American coast due to some odd Norse-scare.
 
I think it's an underdeveloped idea because it takes real work. When I did something vaguely like it for a Norse-dominated North America, I ran into the problem how hard it is head on. There isn't that much material available on precolumbian civilisations north of the Rio Grande, especially the ones the Vikings would have encountered. In order to speculate about the results of their encounter, you have to look at similar enounters and extrapolate. You also need a good understanding of how pre-literate neolithic societies functioned. It's pretty hard. By comparison, everyone who never really studied them knows what Vikings were like, so putting a king Svein Yellowbeard on the throne of New Yorvik is easy.

I'd love to read a TL like that, but writing a credible one is well beyond my abilities.
 
I think it's an underdeveloped idea because it takes real work. When I did something vaguely like it for a Norse-dominated North America, I ran into the problem how hard it is head on. There isn't that much material available on precolumbian civilisations north of the Rio Grande, especially the ones the Vikings would have encountered. In order to speculate about the results of their encounter, you have to look at similar enounters and extrapolate. You also need a good understanding of how pre-literate neolithic societies functioned. It's pretty hard. By comparison, everyone who never really studied them knows what Vikings were like, so putting a king Svein Yellowbeard on the throne of New Yorvik is easy.

I'd love to read a TL like that, but writing a credible one is well beyond my abilities.
The Handbook of North American Indians isn't a bad source on culture.
 
The problem with technology transfer is that you not only need some people to survive, but you need the right people to survive and have the opportunity to pass on their knowledge.

For example: iron working, requires an actual smith to survive.

The Beothuk tribe (or whoever) who adopted him may see his work as a novelty. They may need him to help with their regular chores, or when there is no work to be done, join in and socialize. He may actually have little free time to pursue his craft, and therefore he can only make a few useful tools. Although the tools might be better than what his new village has, he doesn't have enough of them to go around without more time. Therefore, his work is seen as an interesting novelty only, and he finds himself having even less time to do anything. Therefore, there's no one who's even interested in learning.

Of course, the above scenario also assumes that: 1) The smith was able to keep his tools and bring them along with him 2) the adopting tribe is treating him as an equal and not as a slave and 3) that the Norse who did trade there had smiths with them.

And that's just ironworking.
 
There's actually a scene in the Saga of the Greenlanders where a Skraeling picks up a metal axe from a dead Norseman and uses it on a rock. When the axe falls apart, he decides the rock is stronger and discards the axe.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
There are also another aspect, even if the Norse tech and agricultural packet are transfered to the local Norse, it could take a millenium for it to just reach the Missisippi basin. In OTL agriculture took two millenium just to spread across Europe, Iron one millenium. So it may not have time enough to have any effect before the European discover America.
 
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