Christopher Columbus’ status as a groundbreaking explorer is in question – once again.
A handful of bright blue beads led historians and archaeologists into a debate over a new study that could challenge the story that Columbus was the first European to colonize the New World in the late 15th century.
According to a report in the journal American Antiquity, the azure Christmas balls excavated in Alaska may have Venetian origins and may have traveled 10,500 kilometers from Italy via Eurasia and to the Arctic Alaska area, just across the Bering Street agricultural bridge. which once connected North America and Siberia.
Radiocarbon dating of the rope tied to the beads, probably made of shrub bark, indicates that the bracelet may date back to the 14th or 15th century, which may have been the voyage of Columbus in 1492. However, the possibility margin also indicates origins as late as the 16th or 17th century.
“We were surprised because that was before Columbus discovered the New World in a few decades,” University of Alaska researcher Michael Kunz told WordsSideKick.
If the researchers’ hypotheses are true, the beads are the oldest known European artifacts that migrated to North America.
Critics argue, however, that the style of glass bead, called ‘drawn’ beads, does not correspond to the range 14 to 15 in the century, as all previous research has indicated that this type was not manufactured before the 16th century.
“These beads cannot be pre-Columbiaians because Europeans did not make beads of this kind so early,” said Elliot Blair, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama who was not involved in the study. He told WordsSideKick that the results, even without the pre-Columbia aspect, are a “very cool story”.
“Even with this later dating, an early 17th-century date for these beads is still much earlier than the first documentation between Alaska natives and Europeans.”
Kunz acknowledges that his study “goes against the grain” by claiming that drawn beads may have come centuries earlier than we previously thought. “But we have good scientific evidence – radiocarbon dating, instrumental neutron activation analysis – behind what we say,” he said.
Regardless of the beads’ exact age, bead expert and historian Karlis Karklins, who also spoke to the science shop, said the study’s authors can be confident in their claims that these beads are indeed the oldest European products ever. was found in Alaska.
“How they came from Western Europe in the far part of the 16th or early 17th century in Western Alaska is a mystery in itself,” Karklins said. “It really calls for a serious investigation.”
It is known that Leif Erikson led a crew of Norwegian Vikings to Canada and Greenland, who arrived in the Great White North more than 500 years before Columbus. Nevertheless, historians still believe that Columbus’ landing in the West Indies was the impetus for systemic colonization by a number of European countries, including Italy, Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands.