An old timer once told me that Vikings sailed up the Mississippi before Columbus reached the Americas. Is there any truth to that? | AskHistorians Archive Observer

An old timer once told me that Vikings sailed up the Mississippi before Columbus reached the Americas. Is there any truth to that?

by dBRenekton

He was the type of guy who had lots of stories and interesting facts about all sorts of various topics.

One time he told a story about Vikings sailing up the Mississippi. I thought that was interesting but couldn't find anything when I googled it. I know that others had sailed to the Americas before Columbus but I couldn't find anything about going up the Mississippi.

Is there history that supports this or was it just a cool story?

totallynotliamneeson

This has been somewhat answered by another question here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1jlsc5/why_didnt_the_vikings_travel_farther_south_than

And as far as I know as someone who has worked with materials from cultures along the Mississippi River, we have zero evidence of any Vikings sailing up the Mississippi. Obviously you can't 100% prove something didn't happen, but I can say with certainty that there is no evidence to support a theory that Vikings made there way up the Mississippi, or even past New England as the link discusses.