Vikings in Paraguay - The Amambay/Guaira Runes and more.

Regarding the quartz arrow head presented in the OP, the Vikings had little use for stone tools, as they were all about iron and bronze for their tools. My guess is that its of aboriginal make. Also, many of the rock carvings look native rather than Norse. I was able to make out what appeared to be a stylized millipede and a snake of some sort.

The 'rune-ish' carvings did strike me as being out of place.

reply to post by lostinspace


Great thread you got there

Thanks for let me know, I didn't read it yet. Anyway, during my research for this thread, I found similar information that confirms what you posted. I don't know why we celebrate Columbus day.

Originally posted by Monger

The 'rune-ish' carvings did strike me as being out of place.

Exactly, I believe the carvings were made for different people/cultures in different times.

Although there are lots of questions yet, I really appreciate the effort and the topic. This is the sort of article and posting that got me hooked on ATS way back... star and flag for you.

I see no reason why the Vikings, who were quite skilled sailors and navigators, could not hve made it to S America. It could also explain some of the "myths" of red headed giants, white gods, and even some of the tombs, mummies, found all over the Americas.

I also believe that the Norse ventured much farther south than is generally accepted by science. Nothing against the scientific method, but its a painstakingly slow process. Being from Newfoundland, I've visited the UNISCO heritage site at L'anse aux Meadows. Its a stunning site, and has a feeling of true history about it.

A Norse penny found at a native site in Maine, Norse-made rope and iron found at Innu sites and now the latest find of a second Norse settlement in the Canadian north. Evidence of a vast trading network between the Norse and aboriginal peoples. The notion of the Vikings at nothing more than rapists and pillagers, slavers and war-makers is fading.

While, yeah, they did do those things, but they also established the most vast trading network the world had ever seen to that point, stretching from the far east to the British Isles, to Ireland, to the Canadian north, Newfoundland and who knows how much farther south. They were settlers and farmers and merchants as well.

Interesting markings. Could be Nordic. However if they are 5000 years old this is much older than the Vikings or their writings, which began when they encountered the Romans a scant 1500 years ago. Before that the Vikings did not have a written language. 5000 years ago the two main written languages were Egyptian and Sumerian. Also the Indians of Paraguay mated with the Spanish, who were White/Caucasian at the time. As white and Caucasian ans the French and Germans...in fact many Conquistadors were Irish, German, French and Italian. Since they were mercenary knights without Lords. So there is no mystery about Paraguayan Indians having some Caucasian features. Unless they were noted to have such features BEFORE the area was settled.

Your characterizations of "Spanish Barbarians" is blatantly racist, and totally inaccurate. I can only guess that you are trying to say they are non-white. Obviously, you have never been to Spain. They are as white as any other Europeans. They are by and large whiter than people to the south, like Italy, but not quite as white as people from Norway, or say Americans. The whole idea of Spanish speaking people being dark skinned comes from the Spanish in South America mixing with a much larger population of indigenous peoples, who did have dark skin, eyes, and hair. After time, their primary language became Spanish.
It's funny that the Spanish did not worry about white purity. Sex is sex, after all. The same goes for "African Americans", almost all of whom carry white genes. Why? Because white men may have owned slaves, but they did not mind some black a$$. That is the only explanation, plain and simple. The great founding father, Thomas Jefferson has a black branch of his family, proven through genetics. Want a more modern version? How about the black woman that came out a few years ago and announced that she was Strom Thurmonds daughter? Hell, she looked like Strom with breasts and a tan. No denying who her father is.
As far as America being discovered by three rickety Spanish ships, there are a few things wrong with that. Columbus, and much of his crew, we're Italians. They were financed by Queen Isabella of Spain. Also, at that time, Spain was well on its way to being a global naval power, until the defeat of the Spanish Armada by Britain, several hundred years later.
As far as the main story is concerned, it is interesting, in the sense that it is more proof that small groups of people's visited the America's from time to time before Columbus "Discovered" it, which I am sure was news to the millions who lived here already. Let's face it, if those early visitors, discoverers, and explorers did not carry European diseases on them, they may very well have had their butts driven back into the sea.
But there is evidence that America was visited by Polinesians, Chinese, Japanese, Norse, Vikings, and probably a few other groups of lost sailors who stumbled on our shores. But they never reported it as a discovery, or even recognized it as a new place, and never managed to build permenent, long lasting settlements to substantiate any claim to fame.

Buckminster Fuller believes the Norse Vikings were none other than the Phoenicians or Canaanites. A very advanced and sophisticated waterborne world-trading people, unlike the stereotypical barbaric image. The first people to adopt the sophisticated boat building techniques originating in the area of Thailand, (pg 22, 23 - Critical Path) along with sophisticated navigational skills which utilized geometry.


R. Buckminster Fuller’s story of the Veekings/Vikings:

"The pair of joined bull’s horns symbolized that the particular ship carried real-wealth items. The Norsemen with their paired-horn headdress were the Phoenician, Veenetian, Veeking (spelled Viking but pronounced Veeking by the Vikings). Veenetians, Phoenicians. (Punitians, Puntits, Pundits. Punic Wars. Punt = boat = the boat people. Pun in some African Colored languages means red, as in Red Sea.) The Veekings were simply the northernmost European traders. The Veekings, Veeitians, Feenicians, Friesians—i.e., Phoenicians, Portuguese—were cross-breeding water-world people. Graduating from carrying cattle along for trading in 1500 B.C. the Phoenicians invented metal money, which they first formed into iron half-rings that looked like a pair of bull’s horns. (Many today mistake them for bracelets.) Soon the traders found that those in previously unvisited foreign countries had no memory of the cattle-on-board trading days and didn’t recognized the miniature iron bull horn. If metal was being used for trading, then there were other kinds of metal they preferred trading with people—silver, copper, and gold were easy to judge by hefting and were more aesthetically pleasing than the forged iron bull horn symbols."

---

From Wikipedia:

Etymology

The English term Canaan (pronounced /'keɪnən/ since c. 1500, thanks to the Great Vowel Shift) comes from the Hebrew כנען (knʿn), via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and Latin Canaan. It appears as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters (second half of the 2nd millennium BCE), and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. The Bible derives the name from an alleged eponymous ancestor, Canaan son of Ham. Scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kana'an, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region.

The etymology is uncertain. One explanation is that it has an original meaning of "lowlands", from a Semitic root knʿ "to be low, humble, depressed", in contrast with Aram, "highlands".[9] An alternative suggestion derives the term from Hurrian Kinahhu, purportedly referring to the colour purple, ***so that Canaan and Phoenicia would be synonyms*** ("Land of Purple"), but it is just as common to assume that Kinahhu was simply the Hurrian rendition of the Semitic knʿn.

---

These people, in more recent times, conquered England and assimilated with their people.

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

en.wikipedia.org...

Here is a photo that intrigues me somehow, wonder why they used quartz. It’s beautiful…isn’t it?

I was in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto once and they had a small case hanging on the wall with several arrowheads in it. All but one of the arrowheads was made of flint or obsidian or chipped stone of some kind, but one of the arrowheads was made of a clear chipped crystal that looked like glass.

In the museum they did not differentiate between that arrowhead and the others, as if quartz of that quality was routinely used for arrowheads, but I think that tip was from a special arrow used for special purposes in a ritual manner.

The aboriginals of the Americas are not the only people in the world to have arrows with a secret meaning attached. The ancient Greeks also had them and Asian cultures too.

Here's a clue:

reply to post by ipsedixit


I was thinking the same about it. Must be a symbol of distinction or used for ceremonial activities. Otherwise, they would find many more like that one.

The perfect cuts on this one in particular calls my attention. Unusual.

reply to post by Trueman

It's certainly a very interesting piece. In this region the native people created very strange small stone sculptures with amazing "modern" abstract shapes. I've seen some at the ROM. I don't think academics really know what these things were used for or represent.

So much knowledge has been lost or sequestered around the world.

Originally posted by Trueman
reply to post by ipsedixit

 

I was thinking the same about it. Must be a symbol of distinction or used for ceremonial activities. Otherwise, they would find many more like that one.

The perfect cuts on this one in particular calls my attention. Unusual.

I would suspect that what we are looking at is a coloured quartz tip that has been placed on a mocked-up point to give it context. Quartz is not particularly workable as a toolstone because it doesn't tend to fracture in a conchoidal manner like flint and chert, even obsidian. You just don't get the kind of cleavage that you see on the bottom of that representation. I have excavated small quartz points that looked like failed attempts as the stone just won't cooperate. On the other hand, I have an atlatl point of fine-grained quartzite...it doesn't have the edge but sure looks pretty.

Found some interesting info about the Guayaki people in wiki :

The Aché are also known as the Axe people.[1] In the past they have been called the Guaiaqui

Genetic analyses suggest that the Aché are a group of mixed biological origin containing about 60-65% Tupí-Guaraní genes and 35-40% of their genes with affinities to the Macro-Ge (also known as Jé) language family.[4] The Aché are also culturally and biologically distinct from the neighboring Guarani. Early descriptions of the Aché emphasized their white skin, light eye and hair color, beards

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by TuMadreTambien


Your opinions about world history are interesting. They would carry more weight if you would check your facts before posting. Columbus sailed west in1492. Philip of Spain sailed north against Queen Elizabeth of England with the great Spanish Armada in 1585. that is less than one century not several centuries as you stated.