Northeastern North America (964 – 1107 CE): Norse Vinland, Cahokia’s Rise, and Algonquian Networks

Geographic and Environmental Context

Northeastern North America includes: the Atlantic coast from Jacksonville, Florida to St. John’s, Newfoundland; Greenland; the Canadian Arctic; all Canadian provinces east to the Saskatchewan–Alberta border; and within the U.S., the Old South (Virginia, Carolinas, most of Georgia, northeast Alabama, Tennessee except its southwest), the Appalachian Plateau, the Midwest Lowlands, the Driftless Area, the Tallgrass Prairie, the Big Woods, the Drift Prairie, and the Aspen Parkland.

• Anchors: the Greenland colonies, Vinland outposts (Newfoundland), St. Lawrence–Great Lakes corridor, Old South mound centers, the Appalachians, the Tallgrass Prairie, and the Canadian Arctic coast.

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• Warm conditions favored maize intensification at Cahokia (St. Louis region) and along the Ohio–Mississippi valleys.

• Navigable seas enabled Norse voyages across Davis Strait to Vinland.

Societies and Political Developments

• Norse Greenland: farms, churches, and walrus-hunting economies stabilized.

• Vinland (Newfoundland): Norse attempted small colonies; conflict with indigenous Skrælings (Beothuk ancestors).

• Mississippian cultures: Cahokia emerged (~1050) as a mound-metropolis with stratified elites.

• Old South/Appalachians: platform mounds and chiefdoms developed.

• Iroquoian and Algonquian villages grew denser in Great Lakes and St. Lawrence regions.

• Prairies: transitional societies blended farming and bison hunting.

• Arctic: Thule Inuit began migrating eastward, displacing Dorset cultures.

Economy and Trade

• Cahokia redistributed maize, copper, shells, and chert.

• Greenland Norse exported walrus ivory to Europe.

• Atlantic and Great Lakes fisheries sustained coastal peoples.

• Prairie societies exchanged hides and crops with Woodland neighbors.

Belief and Symbolism

• Cahokia’s woodhenges and mounds structured ritual calendars.

• Longhouse rituals in Iroquoian areas tied kin and cosmos.

• Norse Greenlanders built early churches (Brattahlid).

Long-Term Significance

By 1107, Northeastern North America was marked by Cahokia’s urban ascendance, Greenland’s Norse colonies, and Vinland’s brief contact, while Algonquian and Iroquoian networks deepened across woodlands and rivers.