PC: Basque Iceland

Just what the title says. Is it possible that Basque fishermen/whalers/whatever could have reached and settled Iceland before the Norse? I have a vague recollection that the Basques had dealings with Iceland several centuries after it was settled, and were also active in Newfoundland. But I'm interested in the period before 900 AD. I think Basque whalers were already active in those days.

And if not Iceland, what about the Faroes or the Hebrides? Basically I'm wondering if there was any place outside of the Basque country that the Basques could have plausibly settled and become the majority.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Would that be.... Icekal Herria? :cool:

(Okay, lame puns aside, I rather suspect that they'd be uninterested in settling. They were whalers, so they'd be interested in seasonal encampments, sure... but Iceland offers them little that could profit them as far as permanent settlement is concerned. In OTL, Iceland was only settled because a bunch of extremely stubborn people literally preferred setting up shop there over kneeling before the king -- hardcore of them -- but if you have another place you can live, there is little incentive to go to Iceland. Especially in the pre-modern era.)
 
Well... the Bell Beakers were a trading network that seems to have originated in Iberia. They settled the British Isles at lest to the Orkeneys, wiping out the previous inhabitants.

Who had been descended from members of the early Anatolian Farmer wave. More specifically they came from Iberia and it seems likly they spoke something related to Basque, possibly closely related to the (proto) Basque of its day. And they wiped out the previous inhabitants.

So we got pretty close to what you ask twice, although it was quite a long time ago.
 
Just what the title says. Is it possible that Basque fishermen/whalers/whatever could have reached and settled Iceland before the Norse? I have a vague recollection that the Basques had dealings with Iceland several centuries after it was settled, and were also active in Newfoundland. But I'm interested in the period before 900 AD. I think Basque whalers were already active in those days.

And if not Iceland, what about the Faroes or the Hebrides? Basically I'm wondering if there was any place outside of the Basque country that the Basques could have plausibly settled and become the majority.
Might aswell Resch Greenland and even North America aswell. A maintained Basque whaling settlement in Greenland before the Norse would be interesting.
 
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