700-Year-Old Inuit Carving Shows a European

This small carving is significant because “the figurine is the earliest Indigenous representation of a European anywhere in the Western Hemisphere and probably depicts a Norseman,” a detail that is unique among other known carvings.

Why might an Inuit person have known and carved a Norseman? The article explains:

The Norse likely made multiple trips from Greenland to Canada over the centuries in order to trade metal and cloth with the Inuit’s ancestors, known as the Thule, and procure walrus ivory in return, as European-origin artifacts have been found in early Inuit houses on Baffin Island. But the Norse eventually abandoned their westward trade routes, possibly due to the resistance of the Indigenous people and the long distance.

The world has always been much more connected than we might assume.

This carving reminded me that we often underestimate how connected the world of our ancestors really was. Many people don’t often consider that, long before Columbus, people were traveling the world and trading with one another. The world has always been much more connected than we might assume. And who knows how many people groups established settlements in various places way before we ever imagined.

Our DNA actually reflects this connectedness!

Research biologist Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson starts with the history God has given us in His Word—just 6,000 years of earth’s history, two original human beings, a global Flood that reduced the population to just eight people, and the event at the Tower of Babel when people were scattered according to language. Applying that time frame and key information, Dr. Jeanson is able to look for echoes of history in our DNA, and he’s finding them!

This kind of research for recent historical events is only possible when you start with the biblical time frame. It turns our DNA into a type of “Rosetta stone” that opens up history. And what it shows is that we are much more connected than most people assume.

This research really is fascinating. I encourage you to check it out in Dr. Jeanson’s two books, Traced: Human DNA’s Big Surprise and They Had Names: Tracing the History of the North American Indigenous People. His cutting-edge research—which makes testable scientific predictions starting with the biblical model of history—is opening up a new way for creation to “win” in the public sphere. He shares this strategy in A New Way to Win: How Creation Science Is Turning the Tide in the Origins Debate, a brand-new book. I encourage you to read it and be encouraged by how God’s Word can be trusted from the very first verse.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.