The status of Christopher Columbus as an innovative explorer is in question, again.
A handful of large bright blues have prompted historians and archaeologists to debate a new study that could challenge history that Columbus was the first European to colonize the New World in the late 15th century.
According to a report published in the journal American Antiquity, the azure glass ornaments excavated in Alaska may have Venetian origins and presumably traveled 10,500 miles from Italy through Eurasia and the Arctic territory of Alaska, on the other side of the Bering Strait land bridge. once North America and Siberia are connected.
Radiocarbon dating of the string found attached to the pearls, probably made of shrub willow bark, indicates that the bracelet could be traced back to the 14th or 15th centuries, potentially prior to Columbus’ 1492 voyage. suggests origins as far back as the 16th or 17th centuries.
“We were surprised because before Columbus had discovered the New World for several decades,” University of Alaska researcher Michael Kunz told Live Science.
If the researchers’ hypotheses are true, pearls would be the oldest European artifacts known in North America.
However, critics argue that the style of glass balls, called “drawn” balls, is inconsistent with the 14th to 15th century range, as all previous research has indicated that this type was not manufactured before. of the 16th century.
“These pearls can’t be pre-Columbian, because Europeans didn’t make pearls of this type so early,” said Elliot Blair, an anthropologist at the University of Alabama who did not participate in the study. He told Live Science that even without the pre-Columbian look, the results suggest a “really great story.”
“Even with this later dating, an early seventeenth-century date for these pearls still predates the first documented contact between Alaska natives and Europeans.”
Kunz acknowledged that his study “goes against the grain” by stating that stretched pearls may have arrived a few centuries earlier than we previously thought. “But we have good solid scientific evidence (radiocarbon dating, neutron activation instrumental analysis) that is behind what we say,” he said.
Regardless of the exact age of the pearls, pearl expert and historian Karlis Karklins, who also spoke with the science center, said the study’s authors can rely on their claims that these pearls are, in fact, the oldest European products ever found in Alaska.
“How they got to distant Alaska from Western Europe in the latter part of the 16th or early 17th century is quite a mystery in itself,” Karklins said. “This really invites serious investigation.”
It is well known that Leif Erikson led a crew of Norwegian Vikings in Canada and Greenland, reaching the Great White North more than 500 years before Columbus. Nevertheless, historians continue to understand that Columbus’ landing in the West Indies was the impetus for systemic colonization by several European countries, including Italy, Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands.