Vikings in America (29 page)

The genetic increase in resistance within a population can be understood by looking at the incidence of TB over several generations. Different individuals exhibit varying levels of susceptibility or resistance to TB. It is possible for a family living in overcrowded conditions to be affected so that some contract TB and die from it, while others who have been in close contact with the infection remain free of the disease. This variation in susceptibility is believed to be an inherited trait, though – as for many such traits – the gene responsible has not yet been identified. Its existence can be postulated by the clear impact it has on human populations.

In the cities of nineteenth-century Europe the genes for susceptibility or resistance played a crucial role. Genetic resistance was crucial to avoid TB. Those who had genes making them susceptible contracted TB, usually either as children or as young adults, and in most cases died from it. In general those who were susceptible to TB died before they were old enough to marry and pass on their genes to their children. Even in as short a time as the period 1830–1950, perhaps four generations, a marked increase in the genetic resistance to TB of European and North American urban populations took place.

The towns and cities of mediaeval Europe in no way compare in size with those of the nineteenth century, but they did have populations living in poverty in great overcrowding. Viking Dublin was as bad as any; the cities of Constantinople, Jerusalem and Rome, visited by many far-faring Vikings, exhibited the same problems. In these cities, as in the cities of classical Europe, TB found a ready breeding ground. Additionally, rural overcrowding occurred during the winter months when a small group of people would be for the most part confined within a small farmstead. As a consequence, within populations a genetic resistance to TB developed, with the result that all of the population has some resistance, though the level of resistance varies, leaving some more susceptible than others. The Vikings who crossed the North Atlantic on the stepping-stone route carried with them a high level of genetic resistance.

By contrast the indigenous people of the Americas had a far lower level of resistance to TB.
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On the eve of the Viking arrival in North America the Vikings had an Old World heritage of as much as 5,000 years of close-proximity living, and a high level of genetic resistance. By contrast the Native Americans had no cities, no communities with European-style close proximity. Genes giving substantial resistance to TB had not developed, though TB existed as a disease. Rather, it was contained by geographical isolation of one Native American group from the next, and by the lack of cities as a breeding ground. This lack of high-density populations was both the reason why TB did not spread so as to wipe out whole peoples, and the reason why genetic resistance to TB did not exist.

A Native American living before contact with Europeans and contracting TB had a low level of genetic immunity to it, and therefore died from it very quickly. A European of the same period contracting TB had a higher level of genetic immunity to it, and was likely to survive for some time – though the result in the days before antibiotic treatment was usually death. Bones of Europeans from antiquity through to the twentieth century frequently show distinctive lesions which have been caused by TB, and show that the body has attempted to fight the infection before the sufferer had died, either from TB or from something else. Bones of pre-settlement Native Americans never show this feature, indicating that either they had not contracted TB, or if they had that they died quickly. There is just one North American exception.

Pre-settlement remains of Narragansett Indians show bone lesions caused by the body attempting to fight a TB infection. Their bones demonstrate that they had genetic resistance to TB.

This is a startling finding which needs an explanation. It is, in theory, possible that they developed these genes independently, yet as they had no cities or comparable high-density populations, which seem to be the necessary environment for such a development, this seems most unlikely. Alternatively these genes must be of European origin, suggesting intermarriage with Europeans, of whom the Vikings are the prime candidates.

The Narragansett tribe are located in Rhode Island, around the town named after them. Around 1600 their estimated population was in the region of 10,000 individuals; today a revived Narragansett tribe has just over 2,000 members, most of mixed genetic heritage. Some of the worst examples of slaughter at the hands of the Europeans alongside disease and displacement from traditional lands saw a sharp fall in Narragansett numbers through the seventeenth century, and by the end of the nineteenth century the tribe had lost its language and culture.

The genetic evidence comes from cemetery RI 1000 where 59 skeletons have been excavated, dating from around 1660. While the date is well after Columbus, there was no European settlement there at this early date – certainly nothing of a scale that could explain the dramatic results. There is of course no DNA, for bones do not preserve DNA; what has been found are lesions on bones which have been caused by tuberculosis. In this cemetery, 17 of 59 skeletons show tuberculosis lesions, which is an unparalleled result among Native American peoples. One of the skeletons with lesions is a child of three, whose young age strengthens the idea of inherited immunity; another is a man of around 45, and therefore born
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1615, well before any post-Columban European settlement. The only credible solution that has been advanced for this immunity to TB is that there had been a substantial influx of European genes.

The hypothesis is that significant numbers of Vikings intermarried with the Narragansett, producing a gene pool which had some immunity to tuberculosis. Sometime around the mid seventeenth century an early encounter between the Narragansett and Europeans introduced tuberculosis, which as a result of their genetic protection caused a slow death for the infected Narragansett, giving time for bone lesions to form on many of the individuals.

That the Narragansett tribe was unusual is well attested. Giovanni da Verrazano in 1524 provides both the first and the clearest description of the tribe, in which he contrasts it with other Native American peoples he had encountered further south.
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He comments on their height, taller than other
peoples. This is corroborated by the cemetery, which yields one skeleton of 6 feet 2 inches, unusually tall for any Native American. He describes their skin as being light to olive, and their hair as flowing – a term he uses in contrast to the thick, straight hair of other Native American peoples he had encountered, and which may signify a thinner hair. He notes that the men had beards, while Native Americans in general do not have beards. An account of the language and culture of the Narragansett is found in Roger Williams' 1643 ‘Keys to the Indian Language', which is effectively a dictionary of Narragansett. The assertion that Norse words can be found in their language needs further work – perhaps as someone's doctoral thesis – though an initial impression is that the area is promising. Thus there is the place-name element -sett, found in many dozens of names in New England including Massachusetts, which cannot be clearly linked to any Native American language. Phonologically a link with the Germanic -sted/-stat is plausible – the meaning therefore is place, perhaps a permanently settled place rather than an aboriginal camp. The place names in -sett do seem to correspond with settlement sites. There are other features which might support the idea that the Narragansett have a Viking heritage. The organisation of their cemetery with regular rows is uncharacteristic of a Native American burial site, though standard for a Viking site; similarly, the deep level of burial is unusual for Native Americans but common for Vikings. The Narragansett had developed a sophisticated monetary system using what were, in effect, coins – called ‘wampum'. While many Native American groups adopted a comparable system as the Europeans spread across America, the Narragansett seem unique in having such a system in place before the Europeans arrived. Along with money was a fully developed counting system, with Williams reporting that their number system went at least as far as 100,000. Numbers up to this level are of little use without knowledge of arithmetic; presumably they had this, too.

The Narragansett are a North American people, but possibly a people who have had substantial genetic exposure to the Vikings. It is plausible that Leif Eiriksson's descendants live on in Rhode Island, and plausible that DNA testing on members of the tribe alive today will one day find proof of such ancestry. The case of the Narragansett gives a simple answer to the question ‘what happened to the Vikings in America?' – they are still there.

The structure known as the ‘Newport Tower' deserves far more investigation than it has so far received. At the moment it is simply another unconfirmed possible indicator of Viking presence in North America, a frustrating building without proof and with academic caution tending to dismiss all indicators that it may be Viking. Given the significance of establishing it as Viking it is unfortunate that more work has not been carried out.

Situated in Newport, Rhode Island, the tower overlooks Narragansett Bay – the area being home of the Narragansett Indians with their apparent European genetic heritage. The tower is certainly old, first mentioned in a colonial document of 1665, but it is a big leap from this date to the Viking Age.

What has been preserved is a circular tower structure some twenty-eight feet high, and supported on eight pillars. The whole is built from dry stone, with walls around three feet thick, though mortar has been added at many different dates, presumably in association with repairs. There is a covered area on the ground level, with an internal diameter around 18 feet, and there would once have been a room above of comparable size with a single, small window and a fireplace. The structure looks like nothing else in America, and lacks exact parallels in Europe.

The simplest explanation for the building is that it was constructed by some of the very first colonists of Rhode Island, and may have been associated with the colonial governor, Benedict Arnold, who owned the land on which the tower stands from 1661. It was mentioned in his will as ‘my stone-built wind mill', and a plausible assumption is that it was an early windmill for the colony. As a windmill the design is most peculiar – it may be noted that some have seen parallels with an English windmill of the seventeenth century, the Chesterton Windmill in Warwickshire, but the parallel is not close.

That Arnold used the building as a windmill is in no doubt – for that matter we know of other uses for the building at different times, including a powder store. What is in doubt is whether he or his fellow colonists built it, or whether they found the structure there and merely repaired and adapted it. As early as 1837 Danish archaeologist Carl Christian Rafn in
Antiquitates Americanae
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proposed that it was a Norse building, and a lively debate has continued since then. Those who favour a pre-colonial origin for the building suggest it was modified or repaired by Arnold and the first colonists but not built by them. Thus in 1942 Philip Meanes wrote a then-definitive study
of the tower and concluded that Arnold had not built it ‘from the ground up'. Among the critics the language used has frequently been far from scholarly. For example, one of the leading opponents of the Norse theory, William S. Godfrey, reported in his PhD thesis (Harvard, 1951) that in an excavation he had been able to find no objects earlier than the seventeenth century, and that those who suggested the building was anything other than early colonial were ‘crackpots', ‘pygmies', ‘zealots' and ‘the lunatic fringe'. The language today tends to be more measured, but the underlying views are much the same. It is the established view that the building dates from the early colonial period, and anyone who dissents from this view is treated as some modern-day heretic.

Yet there are some most serious objections to the building being from the early colonial years. The work required to move such a quantity of stone for the construction of walls three feet thick is substantial, particularly as the stone does not occur in the immediate vicinity but at the bottom of a hill at the edge of the bay. The construction is unnecessarily elaborate for a windmill, and its most unusual design lacks structural integrity – indeed, it looks as if it should fall down. Early colonists generally built windmills of wood and to a more or less standard design, and were keen to expend as little time and effort as possible in their construction. While there is no absolute reason why the first settlers of Rhode Island should not have put a very great effort into constructing this dry-stone building it does seem an odd thing to do. Add an innovative design, and then a fireplace – an unusual feature of windmills, in view of the fire risk to dry corn and flour, though admittedly not unknown – and the idea that they built such a structure is most surprising.

Suzanne Carlton, a practising architect, has brought new information to the debate. She has quantified the building materials, with the following results:

450 tons of granite, selected and prepared (available locally)

6 tons of lime (from shells, washed, burnt and mixed with clay)

46 tons of sand (from the beach)

4 trees 60 feet high and 5 feet around, plus other trees for smaller timbers.

The building team would have needed to be around 16 men, including several skilled men, and the construction would have taken around a year. This is a very major outlay of labour for a new colony with a tiny workforce, expended
for a building which is without an obvious purpose. There are no comparable stone-built constructions from seventeenth-century New England precisely because the labour outlay in making such a building is so high.

Dry-stone buildings are difficult to date anywhere in the world. The basic techniques used are to compare with similar buildings for which there is a date, or to date tools discarded around the foundations. Neither technique has helped much with the Newport Tower. There is no building generally acknowledged as directly comparable. Carbon-14 dating is not possible on the stones themselves, but it can be carried out on the mortar. Tests in 1992 found a cluster of dates, most within a range that they express as 1635 to 1698 – around the time of the ownership of Governor Benedict Arnold. However the full range of dates discovered range from 1410 to 1930. The later dates are readily explained as more recent repair work, but even one date prior to the seventeenth century is a startling find. A single undisputed date from as early as 1410 would, of course, place the tower firmly in the pre-Columban period.