Legend: Could the Celts Have Explored Appalachia Long Before Columbus?
By AppalachianMagazine -
December 21, 2018
In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue… and before that time, no European had ever so much as even imagined there being a world beyond the ocean, let alone stepped foot on the continent of North America. That’s what we were all taught as young and dreamy-eyed school children each October, but we’ve since learned this simply isn’t true. We now know that somewhere around 1000 AD Leif Erikson, a Norse explorer from Iceland, became the first known European to have set foot on continental North America, establishing a settlement somewhere in Canada named Vinland.
Archeological finds from the 1960s nearly remove all doubt that the Nordic people did in fact create colonies in Canada; however, it seems these colonies were short-lived and knowledge of these places were eventually reduced to nothing more than ancient and mystical tales recounted by grandparents who were only repeating what their forebears had told them.
But what if, around this same time period, more Europeans visited America and traveled even deeper into the continent? ...
There is a modern theory which states that ancient Irish missionaries appeared in the New World roughly a millennium after the earthly life Christ and can trace its unusual roots to a discovery made in the coalfields of Southern West Virginia during the early-1980s.
As the story goes, local residents in the tiny community of Dingess, West Virginia, discovered ancient markings and engravings on large boulders near a strip mine. ...
In October of 1988, representatives from the Irish Embassy, including the nation’s secretary of cultural affairs met with archaeologist Robert Pyle to examine the ancient rock carvings, referred to as petroglyphs.
Speaking to members of the media, Pyle was quoted as having said, “They’re really unique. They have Christian religious symbols that are identifiable, many of them identifiable were recorded very early… The markings appear to be from around as early as the eighth century to the 12th century A.D.†...
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