As quickly as they came, they left. Stories of Vikings in North America tell of mysterious lands and foreign tribes known only as Skraelings. It was 1,000 AD. For nearly 12,000 years, the Americas had been cut off from Eurasia. Civilizations developed on each side without knowledge that the other existed. Nearly 500 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, the Vikings journeyed to the Americas from Greenland and Iceland, possibly multiple times. And it wasn’t very peaceful.

Today, we’re examining the Viking fingerprints in North America, their clashes with the Native Americans, and why they disappeared almost as soon as they arrived.