Historical Collections at Harvard University. The Smithsonian’s Hardcore History Posters Rule. Digital History. American Indian Sailed to Europe With Vikings? Analyzing a type of DNA passed only from mother to child, scientists found more than 80 living Icelanders with a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans. ( Get the basics on genetics. ) This signature probably entered Icelandic bloodlines around A.D. 1000, when the first Viking-American Indian child was born, the study authors theorize. (Related: "Vikings' Barbaric Bad Rap Beginning to Fade.
" ) Historical accounts and archaeological evidence show that Icelandic Vikings reached Greenland just before 1000 and quickly pushed on to what is now Canada . Icelanders even established a village in Newfoundland , though it lasted only a decade or so ( regional map ).