The Farfarers: Before the Norse
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The Farfarers: Before the Norse (2000) is a book by Farley Mowat that sets out a theory about pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. Mowat's thesis is that even before the Vikings, North America was discovered and settled by Europeans originating from Orkney who reached Canada after a generation-spanning migration that used Iceland and Greenland as 'stepping stones'. Mowat's ideas are controversial and have been accused of being over-speculative. The book has been published in the USA as The Alban Quest.
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[edit] The 'Albans'
Mowat's premise is that North America was first discovered by a pre-Celtic race. In the 7th century BC, Europe was settled by the highly successful Celtic peoples, who displaced earlier races about whom little is known. Mowat calls these people the 'Albans' and includes among them such mysterious peoples as the Picts, Armoricans, and the 'broch-builders' of Scotland. He argues that these peoples were slowly pushed to the fringes of north-western Europe, and ultimately survived only in Orkney, off northern Scotland. There, he theorizes, they developed a seagoing culture that used sophisticated long-distance fishing craft which had hulls made of hide. These boats, which Mowat calls 'farfarers', would enable them to discover and settle the North Atlantic islands.
[edit] Iceland
Mowat points out that an island, Ultima Thule, which seems similar to Iceland, appears in the Atlantic in early maps even before Iceland was settled by the Vikings. He argues that Iceland was already known because it had been discovered and settled by 'Albans', who survived by trading walrus ivory. In support of this he cites the Viking Sagas, which state that the Viking discoverers of Iceland found it to be already inhabited, a fact that modern scholarship has always found puzzling. Mowat argues that the Vikings overran the Albans, who survived only because they had already discovered and settled Greenland.
[edit] Greenland
Mowat theorizes a similar story for the Albans in Greenland: they discovered and settled the habitable southern end of the island (which was then uninhabited by any natives). Afterward, their trail was followed by the Vikings, who again displaced them.
[edit] Canada
It is now an established archaeological fact that the Vikings sailed from Greenland to Canada (which they called 'Vinland'). Mowat theorizes that the Albans did this first. He claims to have found low stone walls shaped to provide a foundation for upturned boats (used as dwellings) on pebble beaches in Ungava (northern Quebec) and Labrador. He further argues that the Albans settled Newfoundland.
Finally, Mowat suggests that the Albans were gradually driven into hiding as the Vikings, and later the Basques and English, settled Newfoundland. Although he considers it likely that their ethnic distinctiveness disappeared in intermarriage, he suggests that a group of relatively dark-skinned Newfoundlanders known as the Jakatars (Also known as Jack-a-tars or Jackatars, whose ethnic origins are unknown to outsiders, but are most often thought of as a mix of M'ikmaq and Acadian peoples), might conceivably be the last surviving descendants of the Albans.
[edit] Reactions
Mowat's ideas are avowedly speculative and often stretch the evidence farther than might be permissible. In addition, his book incorporates passages of overt fiction, in which Mowat describes the lifestyles of the Albans in novelistic detail. Because of this, scholarly reaction has been muted and dismissive. Nonetheless, it should be noted that Mowat was among the first writers to make a concerted argument for the Norse discovery of the Americas, an argument that was subsequently supported with archaeological evidence. He hopes that further study might find more evidence for his new theory.
