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LargeMonty t1_iw202ks wrote

How long did these coins typically stay in circulation?

Is it likely this is evidence of some level of trade network that existed from northern Europe to the indigenous people in Greenland? And from there to Newfoundland?

Or is it more likely this arrived at some point after 1497?

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TonyR600 t1_iw23mus wrote

So, Vikings?

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josephwb t1_iw2plqc wrote

Replying to LargeMonty (#508,631)

That was what I was thinking, too: that it arrived at some later point. Rather then providing an estimate for the date the coin was deposited, it provides only an upper bound. For example, if I go bury a 100 year old coin in my yard, it does not mean it has been there for 100 years, but it does provide a maximum possible estimate (i.e., it could not have been deposited before it was minted!).

What is needed is the dating or other items within the same stratum. Maybe they've done this (seems like a no-brainer with something so potentially important) but the article does not mention much.

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Grant1972 t1_iw36350 wrote

Replying to LargeMonty (#508,631)

In my opinion you are on the right path.

Norse/Vikings had established colonies and trade networks from Greenland back to Europe and these same Greenland colonies traded with 3 distinct indigenous groups in Greenland and modern day Canada (specifically Newfoundland and Labrador).

It’s important to consider “Vikings” weren’t exclusively raiders. If they came upon an undefended colony they would “raid”. If it was well defended they would “trade”.

The Greenland settlements lasted until the late 15th century when a famine/mini Ice Age occurred. The Thule people displaced the Norse in Greenland and would have also traded with the Beothuk in Newfoundland.

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Dinglederple t1_iw3adbt wrote

Just ask around if anyone has an older one

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Grant1972 t1_iw3m6l1 wrote

Replying to War_Hymn (#511,387)

Yes, but from what I have read the Norse interacted and traded with the Thule. This is evidenced by Norse trinkets in Inuit areas in present day Canada far beyond known Norse trade routes.

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B33Man88 t1_iw3nark wrote

People have got to stop taking their ancient coins to Canada. They’re so easy to lose , couch cushions, diner booths, theater seats. So sad

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gitarzan t1_iw3p1u3 wrote

Replying to Carbon_60 (#509,893)

I’ve a theory on that. “Dad socks away old coins in underwear drawer. Kid finds coins a puts them back into circulation buying candy, etc.”

I used to run a store and a kid came in every few days and would spend old silver dollars and fifty cent coins. I now have them now in a jar in a closet. I suppose his Dad was really pissed when he found out.

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FLORI_DUH t1_iw3p6p0 wrote

Replying to LargeMonty (#508,631)

I'm late to the party, but I do have a partial answer for you. Here is a coin from my personal collection that was minted in 1719 in South America, and was still in circulation in the Central American Republic ~150 years later (as evidenced by the countermark in the upper left). Hell, you can still find Indian Head pennies in circulation here, and they stopped in 1909. A couple hundred years of use isn't at all out of the question

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orsimertank t1_iw3q6vj wrote

The brother of a colleague was the one to find this. They've been posting the Leo DiCaprio pointing meme all week lol

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TARANTULA_TIDDIES t1_iw3qb2x wrote

Replying to Carbon_60 (#509,893)

That is extremely uncommon in the US because coins before 1964 had silver in them and multiple generations of people have combed through lots of change to pull out the silver ones. I for example went through 500$ worth of quarters and found exactly 0 silver ones.

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piponwa t1_iw3xep9 wrote

The coin was minted between 1422 and 1427. It could have very easily been brought by John Cabot's team in 1497. It's not very impressive to have someone from that expedition lose one coin that's 70 years old. It doesn't require any earlier contact than those that were known.

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piponwa t1_iw3xvp3 wrote

Replying to FLORI_DUH (#512,034)

It doesn't even require hundreds of years of use. By the time Cabot made it to Newfoundland, the coin was only 70 years old. To them it would have been a perfectly usable coin still when they brought it.

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Tiako t1_iw42oh4 wrote

Replying to LargeMonty (#508,631)

Indeed, the problem with singular finds is that they may have singular explanations, which is why archaeology tries to build up data sets rather than just looking at individual artefacts.

This could be a sign of pre-Columbian activity (the much theorized Basque fishermen?) it could just be a keep sake someone was holding onto in 1530.

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SpecialpOps t1_iw43zm8 wrote

This coin was found in the dresser of the man who goes to Oak Island during the off-season and throws ancient coins down a giant well to throw off the Lagina brothers. Also recovered from the dresser were several old pieces of wood and a few rusted nails from the 1700s.

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300450500350400550 t1_iw45upz wrote

John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) did indeed lead the first documented expedition to North America, however it has long been speculated that sailors already knew something was out there.

It is theorised that sailors from Bristol knew about the new world earlier in the 15th century, although there isn't any concrete evidence (to be fair, it's difficult to find sources about sailor gossip in the 1400s).
Sailors and fishermen were already travelling far into the Atlantic at this time, it doesn't seem too outlandish that some were swept far off-course and washed up in Newfoundland or similar...

Perhaps someone washed up there in the 1430s, which would explain this coin. Maybe they even made it back, but I suspect they didn't if they parted with such a valuable item.

We only know about Cabot because he was high profile enough to secure warrants from the King for his expeditions as well as funding from wealthy merchants. For my two cents, he wouldn't have been granted these without some level of proof that the new world was there.
To be fair, Columbus's expeditions had returned recently so central America and the Carribbean were known about. Maybe someone wondered how far north the New World went, but also maybe someone started taking those drunk Bristolian sailors a bit more seriously.

There are some reputable historians looking at this (see The Cabot Project), and there might even be evidence to support it. (Unfortunately an important and well regarded historian claimed to have evidence and was writing a book about it when she passed. In her will she said to destroy all her unpublished work, so the book and her claims never saw the light of day).
However, as a Bristolian myself, I like to think that we discovered the Americas ages before Columbus or Cabot and that they just stole the limelight.

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FloraFauna2263 t1_iw46ugl wrote

Could be even older viking coins found there

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henchman171 t1_iw4cvqv wrote

Replying to FloraFauna2263 (#512,873)

A lot of people are forgetting that the black plague wiped out a lot of people.

However the Irish might escaped the worse and could have fished in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia

Which means they could have been travelling to Newfoundland on dry in the mid 1400s. They had plenty contact with the English and Vikings and trading with them and would have had knowledge of Viking exploits a few centuries earlier

The reason I mention the plague. There were continual outbreaks in the near east and Central Asia and Europeans might have just stayed away and the Silk Road closes when the ottomans take over Constantinople meaning Europeans turn to explore the western ocean

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Kjartanski t1_iw4i4zy wrote

Replying to piponwa (#512,425)

There were Norse in Greenland until at least 1408, and the most recent carbon date is in the 1430s. That is, fram the late 900s to at least 1430 there were Norse in the Americas, and in Newfoundland there is a Norse Settlement dated to 1021

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Kjartanski t1_iw4iy9e wrote

Replying to 300450500350400550 (#512,817)

My brother in christ have you heard of the Greenland Norse? And the L’anse aux meadows settlement in Newfoundland? There were Norse settlers for absolute sure, in Canada, in the year 1021, and the Greenland settlement lasted for over 400 years, with the last absolute carbon date in the 1430s. The norse were in Greenland BEFORE the Inuit

This is Norse erasure and i won’t stand for it.

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psibomber t1_iw4k3cz wrote

Replying to LargeMonty (#508,631)

I was watching a Max Miller youtube video about pemmican and how early explorers and traders had to pretty much bury their return provisions in the ground to ensure their survival for the return trip (as early north america wouldn't have the infrastructure available where you could just buy provisions/order them to be made).

So I'm thinking if it wasn't something that arrived after, then an early explorer who got there but never successfully returned?

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ConcentricGroove t1_iw4mjto wrote

How long would a gold coin like that be in circulation? Seems to be it could have been around for a while before it was lost.

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Devil-sAdvocate t1_iw4nazf wrote

Replying to Dinglederple (#511,284)

Not Canada, but the Maine penny, also referred to as the Goddard coin, is a Norwegian silver coin dating to the reign of Olaf Kyrre King of Norway (1067–1093 AD).

This was found by an amateur archeologist in the 1950's at an extensive archeological site at an old Native American settlement at Naskeag Point on Penobscot Bay in Brooklin, Maine. That location is about 500 miles south of Newfoundland.

The Goddard site has been dated to 1180–1235. Much of the circumstances of the finding of the coin were not well preserved in the record (as was the case with the majority of the other 30,000 finds, none of which included anything else Viking related).

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henchman171 t1_iw4qnxi wrote

Replying to Kjartanski (#513,785)

But the coin was in Newfoundland.

So how does it get to Newfoundland before Cabot.

Did it go via Greenland? Did the English trade or share voyages to Greenland in the 1400s The Irish or Scots would have? Did the Greenland colonies trade with Newfoundland before 1497?

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Br4veSirRobin t1_iw4qov3 wrote

Vikings (Europeans) were in Newfoundland (l'anse aux meadow) in 1000ce so probably Viking trading

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pjgf t1_iw4rztj wrote

Replying to dizzytinfoil (#508,778)

> 600 years ago was well past the Viking and Vinland times.

I mean, yes past the Viking villages in Canada but not past the Vikings in North America. Those went into the 1400s.

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Devil-sAdvocate t1_iw4ut1o wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#511,886)

Vikings where certainly not the first ones there and they may even not have been alone. The prehistory of Greenland is a story of repeated waves of Palaeo-Eskimo immigration from the islands north of the North American mainland. Other cultures who inhabited the Island before the Vikings include, The Saqqaq culture: 2500–800 BC (southern Greenland). The Independence I culture: 2400–1300 BC (northern Greenland). The Independence II culture: 800–1 BC (far northern Greenland). The Early Dorset or Dorset I culture: 700 BC–AD 200 (southern Greenland).

There is general consensus that, after the collapse of the Early Dorset culture, the island remained unpopulated for several centuries but the Norse may not have been alone on the island when they arrived; a new influx of Arctic people from the west, the Late Dorset culture, may predate them. However, this culture was limited to the extreme northwest of Greenland, far (~1500 miles) from the Vikings who lived around the southern coasts. Some archaeological evidence may point to this culture slightly predating the Icelandic settlement.

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warhead71 t1_iw4v8he wrote

Replying to LargeMonty (#514,146)

? - they are no more. Current Greenland natives are from a migration wave going through northern Canada. We all come from Africa (at least that’s the consensus)

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300450500350400550 t1_iw4vwqt wrote

Replying to Kjartanski (#513,534)

Of course Norseman were the first Europeans to discover and colonise the Americas. However, the later rediscovery of the Americas in the late 15th century has had a much larger impact on global history than these early expeditions.

While Inuits weren't in Greenland yet (as they didn't exist as a culture at the time), there were definitely humans living in Greenland when the Vikings arrived. The Norse and natives (called SkrĂŚlings by the Norse) developed a relationship of sorts - sometimes they traded, sometimes they fought. They mostly fought.

Part of the reason why the Norsemen were unable to expand in North America, and at least a contributing factor of why they abandoned their colonies in Greenland, is because there were natives there. It was difficult to expand into Vinland and other parts of modern day Canada when the natives didn't want you there and were prepared and equipped to fight you off. Similarly in Greenland, the locals (named SkrĂŚlings by the Norse) were always in conflict with the Norse. Iceland didn't have a native population (maybe just some Irish monks), so exiled Norsemen could relatively easily settle there. It was difficult to be profitable and stable in places like Greenland when you're trying to get walrus ivory and farm all the while trying to fight off angry, well prepared, well adapted locals.

Edit: And maybe someone started taking the Norse legends a lot more seriously after Columbus's discovery - it's certainly possible. Or maybe someone asked an Icelander and they said "oh sure that place from the saga, it's just over there, can't miss it"

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EMT2000 t1_iw51foi wrote

Replying to KeberUggles (#512,361)

The Canadian dollar bill was only phased out around 1990; it wasnt that long ago. Reddit teens can go ask their parents about it, they don’t need to call grandma for this one.

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Drs83 t1_iw53rtg wrote

I don't understand why it's so hard to fathom how the coin ended up in Canada. Just because it was struck on a certain date, doesn't mean it had to travel to Canada during that time period. It could easily have been brought over later on.

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viper7747 t1_iw595nz wrote

John Cabot was probably so excited to have sighted land, that he buried this gold coin in tribute. And then they proceeded to kill off the indigenous population with germ warfare. (small pox, swine flu, and viral hepatitis.)

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ZCoupon t1_iw5auo6 wrote

People have supposedly been fishing in that area (Newfoundland) before 1492. Basques?

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mariam67 t1_iw5bviw wrote

They don’t know how a 1427 coin ended up in a country that wasn’t visited by Europeans until 1497? It hasn’t occurred to them that a European dropped an old coin?

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President_Calhoun t1_iw5csj9 wrote

Replying to Drs83 (#514,638)

For sure. I live in a small town in northern Michigan, and a few years ago a guy was metal detecting at a local beach and found a Roman coin dated to the 3rd century CE. It was assumed that it had simply been lost there by a careless modern-day coin collector.

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warhead71 t1_ixu520i wrote

Replying to Devil-sAdvocate (#514,170)

No existing culture are the “first” anywhere - as it is. Besides maybe some very remote islands. The question is more what a native population is.

Other people in the thread talks about trade between Viking and tribes - there are little evidence of that - and they were heavily dependent on cows and European style living in general.

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