NORSEMEN IN NORTH AMERICA— BR0NDSTED 399 



227 et seq.3). Now, as Mr. Holand knows and admits, mooring holes 

 are made to this day by fishermen on the North American Atlantic 

 coast. But the presence of mooring stones in Minnesota is, says 

 Holand, quite another thing : in this part of the continent the boats of 

 the first white men in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were 

 small, flat-bottomed lighters, easy to pull on shore and needing no 

 mooring stones. This is not a bad argument, and maybe these Min- 

 nesota mooring stones should be taken into consideration as indi- 

 cating the presence of pre-Columbian Nordic people. When, however, 

 Holand goes further, when he sees in these stones traces— indeed, the 

 vei-y route — of the men who cut the Kensington inscription, I must 

 confess I cannot follow such an arbitrary view. 



OBJECTS 



While in the States in the autumn of 1948, 1 was shown some isolated 

 objects, mostly of iron, which with more or less certainty were declared 

 to be of medieval European origin. They were: A sword and hilt 

 (Nos. 1-2) ; halberds (Nos. 3-5) ; spearheads (Nos. 6-7) ; axes (Nos. 8- 

 17; fire steels (Nos. 18-20) ; tools (Nos. 21-22) ; twisted ring (No. 23) ; 

 stone ax (No. 24) ; slate knife (No. 25). (See list in Aarb0ger for 

 Nordisk Oldkyndiglied og Historic, 1950, p. 106 et seq., Nos. 1-25, and 

 my comments, ibid., p. Ill et seq.) 



There is reason for pausing at Nos. 1, 2, 3-5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 18, 21, and 

 24. These are the 12 specimens which, in my opinion, may possibly be 

 of medieval Scandinavian origin. But in regard to none of them 

 would I go so far as I have in the Beardmore case and accept their 

 great age unconditionally. On the other hand, there are possibilities. 

 This, however, says nothing of the eventuality that these 12 possibly 

 genuinely medieval objects may have been brought to America in 

 recent times — the same calamity that befell the Beardmore find. Only 

 5 of the 12 were found under circumstances that rule out such a possi- 

 bility : Nos. 3, 4, 10, 18, and 21. 



Accordingly, if I must characterize this material with reference to its 

 weight as evidence of the white man's colonization of North America 

 before Columbus, I am bound to say that it is weak on the whole. 

 Strictly speaking, not even the five most likely finds provide any proof, 



« In this paper Mr. Holand disputes the arguments presented In my report in the same 

 periodical for 1950. Apart from his remarks on the Minnesota mooring stones referred to 

 above, nothing in his article has changed my opinion. I bear tribute to Mr. Holand's 

 ardor and acuteness, but sometimes his heavy conclusions do not harmonize well with the 

 somewhat light premises. Let me quote from the paper cited above (p. 237) tliis sentence 

 (translated from the Norwegian — the italics are mine). : "Since in Minnesota there really 

 are found five old weapons from Scandinavian medieval times that cannot have been 

 brought in during recent times, so we have in them five proofs of the genuineness of the 

 Kensington stone or, at all events, of the presence of Nordic people in Minnesota In 

 . medieval times." 



