Pre-Columbian Visitors to North America
A miscellany of publications on Viking, Celtic, etc.; explorations, mythologies and opinions


Most all professional archaeologists and historians consider the topic of Pre-Columbian visitors to be a preposterous and, in fact, ridiculous subject of study of far less serious consideration than alchemy, Ouija boards, flying saucers and moon cheese.  It is nonetheless interesting, hilarious, fun and still a topic dear to the hearts of many amateur New England historians.

Dean Snow makes this observation on the subject: "New England has been producing both serious and silly studies of prehistory for over a century, longer than most regions of North America. ... New England's myths of prehistory come in three basic guises.  First, there are the pseudolinguistic studies. ... The second guise of New England's myths comes in the form of ethnographic comparisons. ...The third class of myths is composed of notions based mainly on archaeological evidence that is either fabricated or misinterpreted. ... It is probably true for most regions that the problem will go away if simply ignored.  However, the roots of archaeological mythology are deep in New England and the myths are numerous."  (Snow, 1980, pg. 20-23).  Given the numerous references to Vitromanoland (Celtic settlements in the St. Lawrence River area in the first millennium) in Norwegian essays, we are not ready to dismiss the possibility of earlier visitors to New England.  The topic is too interesting to be excluded from the Davistown Museum bibliographies.



Budden, Kent. (2005). Vinland discovery: The unfinished story. Vinland Publishing, P.O. Box 195, St. Anthony, NL. A0K 4T0 Canada.

Cary, A. and Wormington, H. M. (1929). Ancient explorers. Allen and Unwin, London.

Ceram, C.W. (1971). The first American: A story of North American archaeology. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., NY, NY. IS.

Currelly, C.T. (March 1939). Viking weapons found near Beardmore, Ontario. The Canadian Historical Review. 20 (1). pg. 4.

DeCosta, B.F. (1890). Ancient Norumbega, or the voyages of Simon Ferdinando and John Walker to the Penobscot River, 1579-1580. Joel Munsell's Sons, Albany, NY.

de Jonge, Reinoud M. and Wakefield, Jay Stuart. (2002). How the Sun God reached America c. 2500 BCE: A guide to megalithic sites. MCS, Inc., Kirkland, WA. IS. Fitzhugh, William W and Ward, Elisabeth I., Eds. (2000). Vikings: The north Atlantic saga. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC.

Fell, Barry. (1978). America B. C.: Ancient settlers in the New World. Wallaby Pocket Books, NY, NY. IS.

Goodwin, W.B. (1946). The ruins of Great Ireland in New England. Meador, Boston, MA. Hall, J. and Woodman, E. (1973). Beehive-shaped stone structures: Ancient or recent origin. Man in the Northeast. 5. pg. 60-62. IS.

Haugen, Einar. (1942). Voyages to Vinland. Knopf, NY, NY.

Haugen, Einar. (1972). The rune stones of Spirit Pond, Maine. Man in the Northeast. 4. pg. 62-79.

Haugen, Einar. (1973). Comment on O.G. Landsverk's "The spirit pond cryptography". Man in the Northeast. 6. pg. 75-76.

Hencken, H.O. (1939). The "Irish Monastery" at North Salem, New Hampshire. The New England Quarterly. 12. pg. 429-442.

Hencken, H.O. (1940). What are Patee's Caves? Scientific American. 165(5). pg. 258-259.

Horsford, Eben Norton. (1891). The defences of Norumbega and a review of the reconnaissances of Col. T. W. Higginson, Professor Henry W. Haynes, Dr. Justin Winsor, Dr. Francis Parkman, and Rev. Dr. Edmund F. Slafter. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, Boston and New York and Riverside Press, Cambridge. IS.

Ingstad, A. S. (1977). The discovery of a Norse settlement in America. Columbia University Press, New York, NY.

Jameson, J. Franklin. (1905). The Northmen, Columbus, and Cabot. Original Narratives of American History Series, American Historical Society, NY, NY.

Jones, Gwyn. (1964). The Norse Atlantic saga. NY, NY.

Kohl, J.G. (1869).  Vol 1.  History of the discovery of Maine.  In: Collections of the Maine Historical Society:  Second Series:  History of the state of Maine.  Willis, William, Ed.  Bailey and Noyes, Portland, ME. IS.

Landsverk, O.G. (1973). The Spirit Pond cryptography. Man in the Northeast. 6. pg. 67-75.

Lenik, Edward J. (1975). Excavations at Spirit Pond. Man in the Northeast. 9. pg. 54-60. FCW

Lenik, Edward J. (1977). The Spirit Pond shellheap. Archaeology of Eastern North America. 5. pg. 94-107. IS.

Lenik, Edward J. (2002). Picture rocks: American Indian rock art in the northeast woodlands. University Press of New England, Lebanon, NH. IS - Uncorrected proof.

Mallery, Arlington and Harrison, Mary Roberts. (1951). The rediscovery of lost America: The story of the Pre-Columbian iron age in America. E. P. Dutton, NY, NY. IS. Massachusetts Archaeological Society. (1957). Ipswich B.C. Bulletin. 18(3). pg. 49-55.

McGhee, Robert. (1984).  Contact between native North Americans and the medieval Norse: a review of the evidence. American Antiquity 49(1). pg. 4-26.

McGovern, Thomas H. (1981). The Vinland adventure: a north Atlantic perspective.  North American Archaeologist 2:4. pg. 285-308.

Meggers, Betty J. (1972). Prehistoric America. Aldine Atherton Inc., Chicago, IL. IS.

Mowat, Farley. (1965). Westviking, the ancient Norse in Greenland and North America. Boston, MA.

Olson, Julius E. and Edward G. Bourne, Eds. (1906). The Vinland history of the Flat Island book. IN: The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503: The Voyages of the Northmen; The Voyages of Columbus and of John Cabot. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, NY. Xerox of pages 45-66.

Proper, Ida Sedgwick. (1930). Monhegan, the cradle of New England. The Southworth Press, Portland, ME. IS. Reade, John. (1889). The Basques in North America. Proceedings and Transcripts of the Royal Society of Canada for the year 1888. 4. pg. 21-39.

Robinson, Brian S. (1996). A regional analysis of the Moorehead burial tradition: 8500-3700 b.p. Archaeology of Eastern North America 24. pg. 95-148.

Robinson, Brian S. (1997). Archaic period burial patterning in north-eastern North America. The Review of Archaeology 17(1). pg. 33-44.

Seaby, P. (December 1978). The first datable Norse find from North America? Seaby Coin and Medal Bulletin.

Seaby, Peter. (1979). The first datable Norse find from North America? Maine Archaeological Society Bulletin 19(1). pg. 6-9.

Severin, T. (1977). The voyage of "Brendan". National Geographic. 152(6). pg. 770-797.

Shepard, Elizabeth G. (1893). A guide book to Norumbega and Vineland. Boston, MA.

Skelton, R.A., Marston, Thomas and Painter, George. (1965). The Vinland map and the Tartar relation. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. IS. Smith, Joshua Toulmin. (1839). The Northmen in New England, or, America in the tenth century. Hilliard, Gray & Co., Boston, MA.

Strandwold, Olaf. (1939). Runic rock inscriptions along the American Atlantic seaboard. Published by the author, Prosser, WA.

Vescelius, G.S. (no date). The antiquity of Pattee's caves. Unpublished report in the files of the Early Sites Foundation, Hanover, NH.

Williams, Stephen. (1991). Fantastic archaeology: The wild side of archaeology, North American prehistory. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, PA.