RUNIC RECORDS OF 'NORSE AMERICA'

By William D. Conner

Author of the book "Iron Age America"
Book available from online book sellers

In 1974 while a reporter and science columnist for the Springfield Daily News, Springfield, Ohio, I was at my desk in the news room when two men came to visit me.  Their visit resulted in a column "Science Scene," the title of my weekly science series.  

The visitors were author O.G. Landsverk and his crypt analyst, Alf Monge,' who had come to Ohio both to confer with me and visit Ohio archaeological sites.  Landsverk gave me a copy of his book "Runic Records of the Norsemen in America," and signed it with "Best Wishes, O.G. Landsverk, 4/25/74."  

Landsverk was especially interested in hearing about my work in the field with Arlington H. Mallery, author of "Lost America," his book about evidence of European peoples living in North America before Columbus arrived in 1492.  I assisted Mallery in 1963-64 as he hoped to obtain material from one of his old dig sites so it could be used for carbon-14 dating.  We did obtain some material at his old Overly furnace site in western Ross County near Frankfort, Ohio.

However,  Mallery's was unsuccessful in having the Overly charcoal dated.  As I explain in "Iron Age America: Before Columbus," I and my fellow members of the Archaeo-Pyrogenics Society organized to find and excavate pit furnace sites in Ohio, did manage to have some carbon material tested, the date we got back was completely absurd judging from history.  The date was 1640 -- at this time, England's tiny colonies in North America occupied a small band of it's east coast. (Some of my maternal ancestors were among them.)

Despite this, Mallery found other ways to obtain dating for some aspects of his work, as I explain in "Iron Age America."  And he did find substantial evidence of Norse occupation of Newfoundland sites.  This included iron artifacts he found on the surface amid traces of what Mallery believed were Norse longhouses, as I explain in detail in "Iron Age America."  

While these iron artifacts easily could be those left by the Norse long before 1492, it is now history that buried materials found Helge Ingstad in 1963 were accepted in the very area where Mallery had found his artifacts and longhouse sites above ground sites.

Here is what I wrote in 1974 in Science Scene about Landsverk's visit:

"A link between Ohio's prehistoric Indians and the Norsemen of Vinland is discussed in 'Runic Records of the Norsemen in America'

by O.G. Landsverk."

"The link is the 'Piqua Tablets,' discovered in an Indian Mound near Piqua, Ohio around 1910 by J.H. Rayner.  The two tablets contain 21 symbols, which Mr. Landsverk has identified as "closely resembling Norse runes."  Another symbol, a pictograph of a bow and arrow, is inscribed in one of the tablets."

"Commenting on his examination of the tablets, Landsverk said in

'Runic Records' that most of the 21 symbols in the Piqua inscription are entirely acceptable as likenesses of runes."  While he noted that while the Piqua symbols are meaningless in the sense that they do not form words in the language of the medieval Norse.

"However, Landsverk said that when interpreted as runes, the symbols of the Piqua Tablet translate to "U K T A NG G," "U (?) L K J K," "L L ? (U)," "I K," "A NG F."   And, all these were used by the Norse, he said.   The question marks represent symbols somewhat questionable as runes, but could be occasionally used forms of the rune "H."

"Runic Records," Landsverk said, was his third book on Norse dated cryptography.  Each of these books, he said, offer extensive proof, and I believe convincing proof that the Norse explored North America from the Atlantic coast to at least eastern Oklahoma.