"The unearthing of a stone used in iron working on Newfoundland, hundreds of miles south from the only known Viking site in North America, suggests the Vikings may have traveled much further into the continent than previously thought."
Newfoundland is an island! I understand that there may be an implicit assumption that they most likely had to touch the continent before getting there but this isn't neither a fact (only a speculation) nor "much further into the continent".
> From the perspective of geology or physical geography, continent may be extended beyond the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent area (the continental shelf)[6] and the islands on the shelf (continental islands), as they are structurally part of the continent
and:
> As a cultural construct, the concept of a continent may go beyond the continental shelf to include oceanic islands and continental fragments. In this way, Iceland is considered part of Europe and Madagascar part of Africa.
"continent may be extended beyond the confines of continuous dry land to include the shallow, submerged adjacent area (the continental shelf)"
Well then, Vikings definitely discovered America because they continuously inhabited Iceland, which sits on both North American and Eurasian continental tectonic plates.
If you're so interested in details like that, then you surely know that humans were on North America thousands of years before the Norse, so the Norse didn't "discover" America any more than John Cabot or Christopher Columbus did.
(Of course, you are using a different definition of discover; more like how I discovered a great hamburger restaurant in town, even though many others knew of it. I am highlighting how one must be aware of multiple shades of meaning, and not assume there is only one.)
In any case, I gave two additional definitions, to show that yours was not the only, nor even the most common, definition. Your response now concerns only the geological one. However, that is not the definition in use here. The third, cultural definition places Iceland as part of Europe. This article appears to concern that modern, cultural definition, not a geographical or geological one.
For similar cultural reasons we say that people from Hawaii are Americans despite Hawaii not being on a continental plate, or that Los Angeles and Catalina Island are part of North America. We also say that Columbus came to America in 1492 even though he didn't get to a continental mainland until his third voyage in 1498, when he reached what is now Venezuela.
As you are someone who cares about correct names, may I suggest you use the terms "North American Plate" and "Eurasian Plate" for the two plates which meet at Iceland, not "American" and "European"?
I think discovery always has to relate to its impact with respect to a society. E.g. when a biologist discovers a plant, it is about categorizing it, describing it and publishing his/her findings. That people in the area already know and use the plant isn't really relevant in this context.
Likewise from a European perspective or from the perspective of everybody else not living in north and south America Columbus made a real discovery. To take an extreme example, if a single person goes to an unknown island and stays there, that isn't a discovery, since nobody else gets to learn about it. To be a discovery you have to come back and spread the knowledge.
We all carry DNA inside us but but somebody had to discover it, in the sense of documenting and explaining it to everybody else.
I frankly find this frequent criticism of euro centric world view a bit pedantic. Modern history is naturally euro centric because the present day all across the planet has been strongly shaped by events that happened in Europe. One of those watershed events was Columbus discovery of America. The effects of that had major implication all the way to China, India and Africa.
Should China come to dominate the world in the future, Chinese history would naturally become more significant in world history than today. Understanding the processes that lead to modern day China would be important if modern day China strongly affected all countries around the globe.
To some extent that is already the case, which is why Chinese history is more important than say Olmec or Inca history.
I read this as a criticism of something I didn't actually write or intend.
I said there are often multiple meanings, and correct understanding requires knowing that there are multiple valid meanings, and knowing the context enough to select the intended one. Remember, restalis started by complaining that "continent" should not include islands. I pointed out that there are multiple definitions for continent, including widely used ones which include islands.
restalis then argued that the Norse discovered America by reaching western Iceland, which is on the North American plate. Now, I happen to believe that many people discovered America, for different definitions of "discover" and "America". Some definitions are more useful and appropriate than others.
My response was meant to highlight that it's unwise to insist on one of several correct definitions of "continent" then turn around and use a non-standard definition of "discovered America" which is more like "first European to set foot on land on the North American plate." Nor do I think it's a useful definition.
You want to use the more standard definition, which is Euro centric for the reasons you described. I'm also fine with that definition. My point has always been that there are multiple definitions with different cultural contexts. I don't think it makes sense to complain about one usage by pulling it out of a valid context and insisting it must fit into another context.
You seem to have interpreted my counter-example as an insistence that it is the only possible counter-example. I mentioned it because restalis' definition used "North American Plate". I needed something which pre-dated the Norse settlement of Iceland. I realize now that I could have pointed to the the pre-Norse Celtic monks on Iceland, though that just shows that there are multiple objections to restalis' new definition, not that mine is fundamentally wrong.
I think you will have no problems in saying that Leif Erikson and his extended family discovered Newfoundland? Vinland and Markland did affect Norse society on Greenland, and the Norse spread knowledge of it, which we still know about through the sagas and in the Descriptio insularum Aquilonis. By your own definition, the Norse discovered America, yes?
If the Norse did not discover America, when do you think Columbus did? 1492, when he and his crew found some islands and returned to Europe to report? Or the third voyage, when Columbus was at the mouth of the Orinoco and surmised there was a large land mass to be discovered? Or when Amerigo Vespucci demonstrated that it was a new continent, and not part of Asia? I think all three can be applicable moments of discovery.
Even in the scientific literature, discoveries are made multiple times. The Cooley–Tukey algorithm for FFT, for example, was described by Gauss, though his posthumous publication was not influential. In my own field, we use the "Tanimoto similarity" based indirectly on work Tanimoto did in the 1950s, even though "Jaccard index" is the more widely used term and Jaccard published in the 1910s.
> Newfoundland is an island! I understand that there may be an implicit assumption that they most likely had to touch the continent before getting there but this isn't neither a fact (only a speculation) nor "much further into the continent".
Then look to the Icelanders that made repeated trips over hundreds of years to the east coast of Canada (Labrador coast) for timber & trade with the locals. Newfoundland is interesting because it was a permanent settlement, however brief.
But by that logic I suppose we should stop considering British history to be part of the European tradition.
Newfoundland is an island! I understand that there may be an implicit assumption that they most likely had to touch the continent before getting there but this isn't neither a fact (only a speculation) nor "much further into the continent".