AHC: Earliest possible human settlement of Iceland

[8bitninja]

In OTL the first people to make their homes in Iceland were (according to the sagas) the Irish Papar monks followed by the Norse. My question is: What is the earliest feasible date that Iceland could have been settled by humans and who could have done it?

Is it possible for the Neolithic inhabitants of Orkney and coastal Scotland to make the journey further north? I raise this in particular because I love the idea of stone circles and cairns in the stunning Icelandic landscape!!!

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Another possibility is arctic inhabitants from the west.
The Saqqaq culture inhabited southern Greenland from 2500 BCE

Saqqaq culture - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And surely it's possible for them to have settled Iceland. Given that the east coast of Greenland is pretty inhospitable, even to Inuit, it would likely be accidental - a boat or two lost at sea.

 

[arctic warrior]

At least peoples reached the Faeroe Islands around 500AD. Some time past they travelled on to Iceland.

It really depends on their seafaring tech; it have been an old idea in Denmark that Jutland exported grain to Southern Norway to neolithic times mainly based on finds of Norwegians items in Jutland dated to Neolithic. No boats/ships have been found however.
Probably it would done by going to the Swedish coast first as crossing the Norwegian Deep in Skagerrak can by very rough - and You'd benefit from the island of Læsø some mid-way.

If you go by whats unearthed then around 500AD peoples from the Shetlands which have been inhabited since Mesolithic times (4,000+ years ago) went on to the Faeroe Is though of course You may speculate that they could have gone prior to this; even if the water level was lower during Meso/Neolithic times they still have some 80km/50mi to go though with the Fair Isle around half-way.

Dathi THorfinnsson is quite right about the Saqqaq cultur in southern Greenland.

 

[Analytical Engine]

I believe that the Greeks were at least aware of the existence of Iceland - IIRC, Thales makes reference to it (although many of his contemporaries weren't convinced).

 

[Gloss]

In OTL the first people to make their homes in Iceland were (according to the sagas) the Irish Papar monks followed by the Norse. My question is: What is the earliest feasible date that Iceland could have been settled by humans and who could have done it?

Is it possible for the Neolithic inhabitants of Orkney and coastal Scotland to make the journey further north? I raise this in particular because I love the idea of stone circles and cairns in the stunning Icelandic landscape!!!

Is the question whether you can have people reach Iceland before it happened IOTL or whether you could make them reach it within a less technologically advanced society(generally, not specifically ship-building)?

Anyway I'd say OTL Neolithic societies can hardly achieve it, they didn't even colonize the Baleares, although they did colonize Shetland. The distance between Orkney and Shetland is 80km or 2x40km if you can't the stop-over island, the distance between Shetland and the Faroes is 290km without stop-overs and the distance between the Faroes and Iceland is 430km.

I'm not an expert on ship-building technology, maybe it's completely plausible that advanced ships could exist within simple Neolithic or early metal-working societies so people with advanced ships could find the Faroes a millennium or 2 earlier and then also find Iceland and create early self-sufficient communities there.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

I believe that the Greeks were at least aware of the existence of Iceland - IIRC, Thales makes reference to it (although many of his contemporaries weren't convinced).

Thule could be just about anywhere. Imo, it's more likely to be Norway than Iceland, but Iceland and an imaginary place are certainly also possibilities.