Did the Vikings use crystal ‘sunstones’ to discover America? | Hacker News Reader

Did the Vikings use crystal ‘sunstones’ to discover America?

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66 pointseternalban32 comments

"But without magnetic compasses, like all ancient sailors they would have struggled to find their way once the clouds came over."

"Struggled", certainly, but Polynesian sailors crossed the Pacific without a compass or sunstone. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polynesian_navigation :

> Polynesian navigators memorize important facts: the motion of specific stars, so where they would rise and set on the horizon of the ocean; weather and the seasons of travel; wildlife species (which gather at particular positions); the direction, size, and speed of ocean waves; colors of the sea and sky, especially how clouds would cluster at the locations of some islands; and angles for approaching harbours.

Quoting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Piailug concerning the master navigator Mau Piailug:

> Prudent navigation relies on no single technique, but instead synthesizes position from multiple inputs. Underway, this constant synthesis makes it easy to spot the navigator—he's the one with red eyes from sleep deprivation.

I see no reason why the Norse wouldn't have had some of the similar navigation skills.

That doesn't mean they couldn't have used a sunstone, but rather that it's not unreasonable to believe that they could have navigated with only 'landmarks, birds and whales, and little else'.

Synthesizing position from multiple inputs sounds like a process analogous to a Kalman filter.

... Or common sense. You know, don't put all your eggs in one basket, etc.

Actually I thought it might add value to the discussion by making the comparison. We're mostly computer engineers here, after all. But never mind.

It's very little if anything like a Kalman filter. Or rather, as much like a Kalman filter as it is a PID controller.

For example, Nainoa Thompson described part of learning to be a navigator from Mau Piailug. The full account is at http://pvs.kcc.hawaii.edu/ike/hookele/locating_land.html . In short:

> The diurnal flights of such birds are the most useful signs for expanding landfall, since their flights to and from an island gives a fairly specific direction to the wayfinder. As the birds leave an island in the morning, the wayfinder can sail in the direction the birds are coming from to find land; as the birds return to an island in the late afternoon, the wayfinder can follow the birds to land.

In this case:

> The night before that we saw the birds flying south so how come late in the morning with the sun very high was this bird coming out of the north? That would suggest that we passed the island during the night.

But this interpretation was wrong:

> Mau had seen in the beak of the bird a little fish and he knew that the birds were nesting. They had flown out to sea before sunrise and were taking food back at mid-morning to feed their young, before they flew out to sea again to feed themselves.

How is this meaningfully like a Kalman filter?

Right. They read the ocean swells like a map (and still do, though it is a dying bit of wisdom). I'm glad someone mentioned this.

This is great. They literally milked the environment for every bit of data that it could provide to them, and combined all the inputs. I'm sure a lot of trial and error went into figuring out which inputs were reliable in which context.

And there are still doing it: http://www.hokulea.com

Yeah, in a sense they were practicing Sensor Fusion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensor_fusion

but Polynesian sailors crossed the Pacific without a compass or sunstone.

I wonder if the types of ocean weather present in the Polynesian triangle vs the viking routes would have made it easier or harder to navigate without additional aids.

Well, weather aside, the keeled Polynesian sailboats with tringular sails are basically the modern sailboat standard with excellent into the wind performance. Longboats had no keel and were not nearly as advanced.

Viking boats had keel. Perhaps you are thinking of a specific shape or something?

There's enough of a keel to sail into the wind with some clever sailwork: we did it on our re-enactment boat years back.

That's an interesting point...

I think it's certainly worth considering that ocean weathers and, especially, temperatures factor in...

I would expect survival rates, in the event of an accident--tipping over, developing a leak, blowing off-course for a time--would be higher in a warmer climate...

Water temperatures cold enough to induce hypothermia for a man or crew overboard most likely meant death...

In other words, unfortunate Polynesian explorers and sailors were probably more likely to live to sail another day...

I've been researching Polynesian navigation recently so can clarify in summary (from memory!) with hopefully relative accuracy.

Most of our knowledge regarding pre-modern navigation in the Pacific comes from very few locations with traditions that were still survived relatively intact in the late 20th century, at the time westerners (mostly Aussies/Kiwis) took an interest. That lead to a sort of not-very-accurate lets-port-it-to-Hawaii US-funded rah-rah, but the fact is that all different island groups had their own navigation traditions. The one we know most about is from Poluwat, in the Gilbert Islands, which are part of Micronesia, east of the Philippines and some distance north of Papua New Guinea.

There the layout of the islands was mostly east-west, though some voyaging did occur north/south (eg. raiding of northeast PNG) the celestial knowledge used and preserved was heavily weighted for east-west navigation within this part of the ocean. People respected the season and did not depart without the blessing of elders - those experienced in the patterns of weather, who could best judge seasonal dangers.

A great resource for learning more about the early Pacific cultures is the Journal of the Polynesian Society, whose issues are almost all online and searchable courtesy of Auckland University @ http://jps.auckland.ac.nz/

It is incorrect to generalize about boat designs, since they were very different in different areas. For example nearby in far eastern PNG there were huge crab-claw sails (the most efficient form of sail in the world, according to the only(?) published serious physics expert that appears to have done wind tunnel tests and devoted his career to such investigations, Mr. Marchaj) on the craft known as Lakatoi. There is a fair list of pre-modern Austronesian lineage craft @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multihulls#Pre-modern_...

Most of the pre-modern navigation information we have relates directly to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_%28watercraft%29 - a recently front-page featured article mostly written by me from scratch.

There were however two main waves of peopling in this region, the first with the Aboriginal Australians some 60,000-40,000 years ago (recently affirmed by more genetic studies: nearly the whole world received peoples at this stage) and a later re-hash with a new genetic population perhaps 10-15,000 years ago. Following that, a sort of hybrid neo-culture called Lapita took pottery, obsidian and other technology and pushed the peopling out to further islands, ultimately resulting in the Polynesian world, which is very young (many islands peopled less than 1000 years ago). Survivors of the very first wave are known under various names across Asia but are typically darker/more negroid looking and there are pockets in northern Malaysia, lots of islands, coastal Vietnam, eastern India and Burma, southwest China, etc. Some became sea-dwelling peoples ("sea gypsies") in the Philippines and southern Burma, so their connection with voyaging cannot be denied.

The key innovation was the invention of the multihull, which is undoubtedly Austronesian (a branch of the earlier migration, who moved to Taiwan, then came south down through the Philippines, spreading west as far as Madagascar again, and east as far as South America according to recently published genetic evidence, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_co...). Various studies place the biggest variety (3-hull trimaran type, 2-hull type, sail types) and temporal location of the initial development circa the Philippines, though there has been some suggestion that coastal Vietnam (probably around the northern portion, near Haiphong on the Red River delta and Halong Bay) may be the true home. In any case, we have solid documentation of multihull voyaging in stone images on Sumatran temples by ca. 1000 years ago.

One of the best places in the world to see some of these original full scale watercraft preserved is the ethnological museum in Berlin... don't miss it if you visit.

Amazing world out here :)

Thank you, so much, for taking the time to post this reply...

I read the Wikipedia article you linked... very nice work...and congratulations on choosing to so freely share the knowledge you earned...I look forward to learning more...

Well done, my friend..!

I just find it interesting ... I got on this research bent because I have been sailing two carbon fiber New Zealand designed Weta trimarans on the huge sub-Himalayan lakes here in Yunnan, southwest China at about 1800m (5900ft) altitude: great stuff! Latest word is that the local Chinese navy research institute wants to buy them from me, hah! One day I was out sailing and their huge (20m+ long) research submarine surfaced right next to us, that was bloody amazing! For those of you in California, get in to Weta sailing, there's a big scene there: http://www.wetanorthamerica.com/

The vikings only did these voyages in the summer. And followed currents and things.

I was reading a new book recently, "Den långa medeltiden" http://www.historia.su.se/publikationer/nya-publikationer/de... ("The long middle-ages"). ADDED: English summary http://bolin.su.se/index.php/news/372-new-popular-science-bo...

As a viking navigator, I'd want a sunstone. It would be one of many inputs I would integrate. However, as an armchair expert, I'd be surprised if I required it. :)

I recently started designing and making jewelry. I'm particularly fascinated by Iolite. [Iolite]("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordierite") is commonly referred to as "water sapphire" or "viking's compass". This is because it changes in tone depending on it's angle to the sun. Historically it would have been useful because the effect works regardless of cloud cover and even when the sun is below the horizon. I'm not sure if the nickname is a historic remainder or attached during modernity (the jewelry industry is both ancient and opaque) but the effect is real, and could potentially be of concrete utility during navigation.

This article says that the three likely possibilities for 'sunstone' (if it really was used for navigation) are calcite, tourmaline, and cordierite.

It was Thorkild Ramskou who made this hypothesis in the 1960s. I strongly suspect it didn't gain the poetic moniker 'Viking's compass" until afterwards.

Moreover, if it were used in the jewelry industry before the 1960s then it would be strong supporting evidence for the hypothesis.

"... it changes in tone depending on it's angle to the sun ... the effect works ... even when the sun is below the horizon."

This sounds like magic. Have you observed this effect yourself and do you have an explanation for it or a reference to one?

I'll have to check it out, next chance I get, with a polarizer. One thing that could be exploited is that the sunlight scattered by the ionosphere (why the sky is blue) is polarized, so the polarization axis could be the clue.

According to your link, that's the case. It only works when the sun is just below the horizon so there is still scattered light in the sky.

- Icelandic rocks could have steered Vikings (2011) [0] - 'Viking sunstone' found in shipwreck (2013) [1] - Crystals 'helped Viking sailors' (2007)

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15523520 [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21693140 [2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6338535.stm

They were described reasonably well in multiple sagas, listed on inventory sheets, and they actually found one in a shipwreck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunstone_(medieval)

IMHO, I think is sufficient evidence to say that it is reasonably likely they were using these.

I'm sure people have found all kinds of stuff described reasonable well in myths. Isn't there books written about UFO sightings in the bible?

Churches and monasteries had them in their inventories, but how does that prove they were used for navigation? It would be like churches keeping sextants under the altar. It doesn't make sense.

The shipwreck that contained the calcite was found far away in the Channel and dated 500 years after the vikings. And there's no record of it in any navigation books of the time.

It's myths and internet memes, being propagated over and over again. I don't doubt it'll be on HN again 3 months hence.

I think there's a different level of skepticism needed for ufos and fairly simple piece of technology.

While I don't think the case has been proved its certainly one of those things where there's a reasonable chance of it being true.

Nah, it doesn't pass the sniff test once you start looking at the details. I don't have time now, but you could look in the archives of NavList at fer3.com for more info.

The wreck was a 16th-century warship, not a Norse ship from the Viking era.

I know tv is not a source of truth, but an interesting side note, in the Netflix series, Vikings, they used a sunstone.

Getting slightly off topic, but Vikings is a History channel production, not a Netflix show.

Url changed from http://www.universal-sci.com/headlines/2016/2/9/did-the-viki..., which points to this.

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