On 24 Feb 2018 at 13:11, Caleuche wrote:

> Would a small Viking settlement in northern Norway at 500 BC likely be
> aware of populations living on the coast of the Mediterranean in north
> Africa? 

That's about 1000 years too early for "Vikings". But given that Norse
explorers (and occasionally raiders) made it to both Russia (that's
where the name comes from, they were "the Rus" to the locals, just
like they were "the Normans" in France) and to Byzantium (the
Varangian Guard was mostly Norse Mercenaries).

They went from the Baltic sea up various rivers to get to Russia, and
up and down other rivers to get to the Black Sea and then to the Med.

I don't really know of them exploring the Med much. Likely because
the locals had them outnumbered and to some extent outclassed as far
as ships go.

You have to realize that there were trading networks that covered
most of Eurasia in *Neolithic* times. We've found materials from
thousands of miles away in all sorts of archeological sites.

So *details* might not be known, but the fact that there are people
way off is knowable.

It's generally not single traders covering the whole area, but one
trader carries stuff to a trading center that might be hundreds of
mikles away, and others carry it from there to other trading centers.
That's how Romans got silk.

Oh yeah, that legend of the "lost legion" that some emeror sent
marching east? Genetic testing (and other clues) seem to have located
their descendants well into China!

It's *very* instructive to check into ancient trading networks to see
how far materials spread, and how far/fast news *could* travel.

Quite a few surprises for anybody contacting low TL cultures.

(I know a lot of this stuff from both curiosity about history and
from a one-time plan to set a D&D campaign at neolithic times)

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com