Valerie Hansen
American historian of China and world history; Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University; author of The Open Empire, The Silk Road: A New History and The Year 1000.
Valerie Hansen did not write this page.
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Our reading
No persuasive evidence supports the claim that 15th-century Chinese ships reached the Americas.
Their wordsNo persuasive evidence supports the claim about the 15th-century Chinese.
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Their wordsThe most credible claim – that the Vikings reached North America around the year 1000 – deserves more attention.
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Their wordsThat exchange marked a turning point in world history: it is the earliest documented encounter between the peoples living on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
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Their wordsBut many things we know from written documents have left no archaeological traces at all.
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Their wordsAlthough not a certainty, it is a possibility that some Vikings made it to the Yucatán Peninsula near the year 1000.
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Their wordsStill, we have to realise that Europeans didn’t invent globalisation. Existing intra-American trade pathways and relationships facilitated the European conquest of the Americas that began in 1492.
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Their wordsWe don’t have definitive evidence of Vikings in Mexico, but there are suggestive clues, and the case for trade relationships and pathways connecting the Americas is beyond dispute.