Long before the Norse settlers arrived in Iceland, the island was already home to a small community. Archaeological evidence suggests that Irish monks or Hiberno-Scottish missionaries may have lived there as early as the 8th century. In 2016, researchers uncovered a cabin in the Westfjords region, dated between 770 and 880 AD, indicating human habitation before the Norse settlement began in 874. This discovery challenges the traditional narrative that Iceland was uninhabited until the Viking Age.<\/p>\n
The first documented permanent resident was N\u00e1ttfari, a Norwegian-Norse explorer who stayed behind after his leader, Gar\u00f0ar Svavarsson, departed. N\u00e1ttfari settled in what is now known as N\u00e1ttfarav\u00edk with two slaves, marking the beginning of Iceland\u2019s recorded history. These early settlers, though few in number, laid the foundation for the island\u2019s future Norse colonization.<\/p>\n
The ruins of this early cabin, along with other archaeological findings, provide a glimpse into a lesser-known chapter of Iceland\u2019s past. They remind us that the island\u2019s story is far richer and more complex than the Viking saga alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ancient ruins hint at forgotten settlers before the Vikings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tringlobe.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}