Another corner of Eurasia that initiated a maritime
expansion was the
far northwest. Unlike the Eskimos and the Austronesians, the Vikings of
Scandinavia were an Iron Age people, and their expansion took place at
a time when some of their neighbors were sufficiently literate to
record their maraudings. The process began in the late eighth century
A.D. and was over by the middle of the eleventh. Apart from the British
Isles, most of the territory affected lay within the Eurasian landmass,
which the Vikings could penetrate effectively, thanks to its rivers.
Indeed, their most important historical legacy was perhaps the Russian
state. But some Vikings also sailed westward, particularly those who
wished to escape the kings who were beginning to dominate their
homeland; these colonists (with their Irish slaves) settled in Iceland
and, for a while, in Greenland. Farther west a brief Viking presence is
well established for Newfoundland in the early eleventh century, but
that is as far as it goes. Though the long ships used by the Vikings
were certainly more seaworthy than Eskimo or Austronesian canoes, this
northern Atlantic expansion left no mark on the American mainland.
