These notes are part of an essay on an alternate history in which the Norse colonisation of America was more successful.
| 750 to 800 | Collapse of Teotihuacan in Valley of Mexico. First Danish and Norwegian raids on England, notably Lindisfarne. Irish monks travel to Iceland. Maize and shell-tempered pottery in Mississippia? |
| 800 to 850 | Cahokia founded in Mississippia. Norwegians raid Ireland, Britain, France and Spain. Bow and arrow imported into Mississippia. Egbert unites England. Norse found Dublin. |
| 850 to 900 | Nahua migrate into Mexico from the north. Norse colonise Faroes. Swedes found Novgorod. Collapse of Mayan civilisation in southern Yucatan. Harald unites Norway. English under Alfred the Great eject Danes from most of England. Norse on the Scottish islands raid Norway, prompting retaliation from Harald. Norse, many fleeing Harald, colonise Iceland and Normandy. |
| 900 to 950 | Barbaric tribes, including proto-Toltecs, migrate into the valley of Mexico from the northwest. Mayan state rises in northern Yucatan (Chichen Itza). Norse conquer Normandy, which becomes a secondary source of Vikings. Anasazi dominate Utah and Colorado. Norse dominate Ireland. Althing founded in Iceland. |
| 950 to 1000 | Toltecs found Tula and become civilised. Norwegians and Icelanders under Eirik "the Red" Thorvaldsson colonise two areas in Greenland, which they find temporarily empty of Inuit due to climate fluctuations. Novgorod converts to Christianity. Bjarni Herjolfsson discovers Markland ("Forestland", Labrador?). Norse visit Hvitramannaland ("White Man's Land", a reference to white-clothed natives?). Tension between Christian and Pagan Icelanders nearly comes to civil war. |
| 1000 to 1050 | Icelandic Althing (parliament) adopts Christianity, though pagans are still a majority. Leif Eiriksson discovers Helluland ("Flat Stone land", Baffin island?) and Vinland (either "Grapeland" or "Meadowland", Newfoundland?) and briefly colonise Vinland on a one winter at a time basis. L'Anse aux Meadows (Newfoundland) probably occupied. First contact, some hostile, with Skraelings (Beothuk in Newfoundland, Dorset Eskimo? Naskapi Montagnais in Labrador). Norwegians found Dublin. Irish defeat Dubliners at Clontarf. Danes conquer England, then Norway, then lose England. |
| 1050 to 1100 | Norse Greenlanders begin trips to Markland (Labrador?) to collect timber. Rapid expansion of Thule Inuit out of northern Alaska, they replace most other arctic cultures, including the Dorset Eskimo, and migrate into Greenland. English briefly overrun Wales. Normans conquer England and Sicily. Proto-Iroquois build longhouses in New York State. |
| 1100 to 1150 | Agriculture (Squash?) reaches Ontario (Iroquois, Huron?). Anglo-Normans conquer Normandy. Greenland becomes a diocese. Anasazi in decline. Nahua are now in control of the central plateau of Mexico. Rise of centralised monarchies in England and France. Full-blown cities in Mississippia. |
| 1150 to 1200 | Cahokia fortified? Anglo-Normans conquer Wales and expand into Scotland, English king gains land in France through marriage. Development of the cog, a coastal trading ship. Chicimeca migrants destroy Tula. Anglo-Norman adventurers establish themselves in Ireland. Oxford University founded. The earth has begun cooling, after a long rise in termperature. |
| 1200 to 1250 | Beans reach Mississippia. Mayan state around Chichen Itza collapses. Toltecs establish at new capital Xicalango. Anasazi dominate the Hohokam of Arizona. Contact between Norse and Dorset Eskimo in northern Greenland and Arctic Canada, Formation of Hanseatic League. English and Holy Roman Imperial (German) monarchies weakened, power passes to barons. Christians have reconquered most of Spain. The New England soft-shelled clam has reached Denmark. Climax of "Southern Cult", a Mississippian religion from Mexico. Literate Icelanders begin to record sagas. |
| 1250 to 1300 | Political system with civic-ceremonial sites appears in Mississippia, but Cahokia depopulates. Inuit start to displace Dorset Eskimo from northern Greenland and Canada. Danes conquer Iceland, which goes into decline, and force Greenland to pay taxes. Incas settle in Cuzco. England conquers Wales. |
| 1300 to 1350 | Warfare has become more common in Mississippia. A series of epidemics devastates Iceland. Anasazi collapse, perhaps due to drought. New Maya state in Northern Yucatan, capital Mayapan. Aztecs found Tenochtitlan. Maize reaches New York Iroquois. Thule Inuit reach Western settlement of Greenland. Timber-collecting trips from Greenland to Markland cease. Greenland ecologically disrupted by overgrazing and climatic cooling. |
| 1350 to 1400 | Black death kills one third of European population. Inuit migrate into Norse areas. Trade between Norway and Greenland declines, and the western settlement of Greenland fails. Sweden, Norway and Denmark merge into the Kalmar Union. Algonkin and related tribes migrate west into St. Lawrence area? |
| 1400 to 1450 | Black death reaches Iceland. First fishing of the Grand Banks by English. English pirates from Hull pillage Iceland. Icelandic trade with Bergen is abandoned, in favour of Copenhagen. Development of the caravel. Aztecs conquer Valley of Mexico. Beginning of Inca expansion. Population decline in Mississippia. |
| 1450 to 1500 | Collapse of Mayapan in civil war. English and Flemish fishermen reach America. Extinction of the Norse colony in Greenland. Portuguese send a Danish-Norwegian expedition to Greenland. Incas conquer the Chimu. Christopher Columbus discovers West Indies, then mainland North America, for the Spanish. Advances in navigation. John Cabot discovers Newfoundland for the English, publishing the Grand Banks. |
| 1500 to 1550 | Amerind population may be fifty million. Spanish discover Isthmus of Panama and Pacific ocean. Portuguese discover Brazil. Spanish conquer Aztecs and Incas. Destruction of American cultures by European diseases, notably Aztecs, Incas and Mississippians (last by De Soto's expedition). |
| 1550 to 1600 | Potatoes appear on European tables. English colonise Virginia. Martin Frobisher visits Greenland and finds only Inuit. Peak of Basque whaling operations off Labrador. Amerind population may be three million. |
| 1600 to 1660 | Tobacco and beaver furs make make North American colonies profitable. |
| 1650 to 1700 | European population in America exceeds one million. |
| Back to the "More Successful Norse Colonisation of America" page.f | Check out the "More Successful Norse Colonisation of America" alternate history. |
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