Chapter 6: Vikings and Polynesians

-William Fitzhugh said that the historical record has badly distorted our view of early Scandinavians.
In past 20 years archaeological evidence fleshes out and in some cases contradicts the historical record.

-Vikings and Polynesians have been relegated to the role of barbarians, either as brutal despoilers in the case of the Vikings or as noble savages in the case of Polynesians.

Some Vikings did make it to America around the year 1000, nearly five centuries before Columbus's celebrated voyage of 1492.
-Viking Era- 750 to 1050
Before their great expansion, the vikings lived in southern Scandinavia.
- there language was called Norse.
- worshipped old Germanic gods like Odin, Thor, and Frey.
- lived on individual farms or in small hamlets.
- regionals lords called Jarls ruled through local landed elite.
- relied on ships for communication and trade since they lived around the North Sea.

Polynesian People of the Pacific
- Polynesia began to attract attention in 1947
- Vikings studies, sparking a new era of research based upon innovative approaches.
-Until then, little was known of the polynesian past, for the Polynesians neither possessed writing themselves nor encountered literate people who could record their history until Europeans reached the Pacific in the sixteenth century.
-Polynesians had lost the ability to conduct voyages and following long isolation on widely scattered islands, had only vague memories left of their origins.
-Lapita People were horticulturalists who set plants out in temporary clearings created by slash and burn methods.
- They already grew taro, yams, and brad fruit. Domesticated animals like pigs, chickens, and dogs.
-Brought their Lapita ancestors to Tonga and Samoa from islands further west.