What is an Out of Place Artifact?
One day during a routine dig at the ancient Indian burial site, an archaeologist called Goddard, discovered one of the most famous out of place artifacts currently known, "a silver Norwegian coin," dating back to the reign of Olaf Kyrre, who ruled Norway between 1067- 1093 AD.
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What is an Out of Place Artifact?[/caption]This to many people may not sound strange or improbable, but the Indian settlement was in the USA, and is the only Norse pre-Columbian artifact found in the USA. Raising more questions, than answers, especially about speculation that Norsemen traded with Indians, long before Columbus "discovered: the Americas in 1492.
Out of place artifacts also have been found in the Dead Sea. When ancient Roman trading ships were discovered on the bottom of the sea, their cargos still intact, Chinese-style vases were seen amongst the perfectly preserved cargos. Raising the question, whether ancient Rome traded with Imperial China.
Many of today's great thinkers, who are trying to bridge a link between our past, and present often search for out of place artifacts,- as a way to re-evaluate our traditional view of history.
Other less orthodox thinkers see out of place artifacts as proof that we really do not know that much about our past, and consider some OPP-Art discoveries, like the "Baghdad Battery," as proof ancient civilizations were more advanced than we thought.
The "Goddard Coin," may not be absolute proof that Norsemen discovered the Americas before Columbus, but we can only imagine what the next mystery that challenges our orthodox view of history is- once another out of place artifact is discovered.
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http://EzineArticles.com/?What-is-an-Out-of-Place-Artifact?&id=3529843
Summary : Sometimes historians and archaeologists find some strange, often unexplainable things. Many of these ancient discoveries are termed "An out of place artifact," and one OPP-Art may say Columbus was not the first European to discover the Americas.
