The Ghost Dance is a ceremony incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. According to the teachings of the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka, proper practice of the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, end American Westward expansion, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples throughout the region.
The Norse exploration of North America began in the late 10th century, when Norsemen explored areas of the North Atlantic colonizing Greenland and creating a short term settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland. This is known now as L'Anse aux Meadows where the remains of buildings were found in 1960 dating to approximately 1,000 years ago. This discovery helped reignite archaeological exploration for the Norse in the North Atlantic. This single settlement, located on the island of Newfoundland and not on the North American mainland, was abruptly abandoned.
The Kensington Runestone is a slab of greywacke stone covered in runes that was discovered in central Minnesota, United States, in 1898. Olof Ohman, a Swedish immigrant, reported that he unearthed it from a field in the largely rural township of Solem in Douglas County. It was later named after the nearest settlement, Kensington.
A runestone is typically a raised stone with a runic inscription, but the term can also be applied to inscriptions on boulders and on bedrock. The tradition began in the 4th century and lasted into the 12th century, but most of the runestones date from the late Viking Age. Most runestones are located in Scandinavia, but there are also scattered runestones in locations that were visited by Norsemen during the Viking Age. Runestones are often memorials to dead men. Runestones were usually brightly coloured when erected, though this is no longer evident as the colour has worn off. The vast majority of runestones are found in Sweden.
A rune is a letter in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write Germanic languages before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised purposes thereafter. In addition to representing a sound value, runes can be used to represent the concepts after which they are named (ideographs). Scholars refer to instances of the latter as Begriffsrunen. The Scandinavian variants are also known as fuþark, or futhark, these names derived from the first six letters of the script, ⟨ᚠ⟩, ⟨ᚢ⟩, ⟨ᚦ⟩, ⟨ᚨ⟩/⟨ᚬ⟩, ⟨ᚱ⟩, and ⟨ᚲ⟩/⟨ᚴ⟩, corresponding to the Latin letters ⟨f⟩, ⟨u⟩, ⟨þ⟩/⟨th⟩, ⟨a⟩, ⟨r⟩, and ⟨k⟩. The Anglo-Saxon variant is futhorc, or fuþorc, due to changes in Old English of the sounds represented by the fourth letter, ⟨ᚨ⟩/⟨ᚩ⟩.
Newton Horace Winchell was an American geologist chiefly notable for his six-volume work The Geology of Minnesota: Final Report of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, which was prepared by Winchell and his assistants. A bibliography of his publications by Warren Upham in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America contains almost 300 titles.
Alice Cunningham Fletcher was an American ethnologist, anthropologist, and social scientist who studied and documented Native American culture.
The Kulisteinen, also known as the Kuli stone and listed as N 449 in the Rundata catalog, is a stone with a runic inscription that was originally located at Kuløy in Smøla municipality, Norway.
A number of runestones have been found in Oklahoma. All of them are of modern origin dating to the 19th century "Viking revival" or were produced by 19th-century Scandinavian settlers.
The Odendisa Runestone, sometimes called the Hassmyra Runestone, is a Viking Age runestone erected at Hassmyra, Västmanland, Sweden. It is exceptional in that it has a metric inscription, and in commemorating a woman.
The Saleby Runestone, designated as Vg 67 in the Rundata catalog, was originally located in Saleby, Västra Götaland County, Sweden, which is in the historic province of Västergötland, and is one of the few runestones that is raised in memory of a woman.
The Hakon Jarl runestones are Swedish runestones from the time of Canute the Great.
Sarah Milledge Nelson was an American archaeologist and Distinguished Professor Emerita from the Department of Anthropology, University of Denver, United States.
The Runestones at Aspa are a set of four runestones located at Aspa, about six kilometers north of Runtuna, Södermanland, Sweden, where a road has passed a creek since prehistoric times. One of the stones, Sö Fv1948;289, is the oldest surviving native Scandinavian source that mentions the Kingdom of Sweden beside the runestones DR 344 and DR 216. Another stone, Sö 137, was apparently raised in memory of a Viking who had spent time in the west.
Freygeirr was a Viking chieftain who probably led a leidang expedition. He is considered to have been active in the 1050s on the Baltic coast, and he has been identified on six runestones, Gs 13, DR 216, U 518, U 611, U 698 and U 1158. One of the three brothers who is mentioned on the Stenkvista runestone, which is adorned with a heathen symbol (Mjölnir), is also called Freygeirr.
The AVM Runestone, also known as the Berg-AVM Runestone, is a hoax created in 1985 by students carving runes into a boulder near Kensington, Minnesota, not far from where the Kensington Runestone was found in 1898. In 2001, a carving expert and her geologist father found the AVM Runestone, told the press that it was proof of early Viking or Norse settlement in Minnesota, and began an investigation to prove its authenticity. The creators came forward with their story that it was purely a hoax and not an artifact of Viking explorers.
Sö 328 is the Rundata catalog number for a runic inscription on a Viking Age memorial runestone which is located in Tynäs, which is about one kilometer east of Strängnäs, Södermanland County, Sweden, which is in the historic province of Södermanland.
Ruthann Knudson (1941-2018) was an American archaeologist. She is best known for her work on North American Paleoindian (Plainview) lithics. As a woman in early cultural resource management, Knudson was a strong advocate for the accurate representation of women in reservoir salvage archaeology. Additionally, she was also important in drafting and advocating for the National Historic Preservation Act Amendments of 1980.
Södermanland Runic Inscription 113 is the Rundata catalogue index for a 0.9 metres (35 in) high, 0.5 metres (20 in) wide granite runestone in Kolunda, Stenkvista Parish, Eskilstuna Municipality, Sweden, within the historic province of Södermanland. It was found in 1856 on a hill believed to have once had many other graves and monuments, and is believed to have originally stood atop a burial mound before falling over and being buried. It has since been moved, and now stands next to the runestone known as Sö 112 and a partial runestone discovered in 1997. Its inscription in the Younger Futhark alphabet when translated into English reads "They placed the stone here, the sons of Þorketill and Folka, in memory of father and mother. [They] made [it] valiantly."
