Jammer Wrote:
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> I would like to see some evidence of the Native
> Americans experiencing diseases brought to the
> Maya by the Vikings included bubonic plague,
> chicken pox, pneumonic plague, cholera,
> diphtheria, influenza, measles, scarlet fever,
> smallpox, typhus, tuberculosis, and/or whooping
> cough.
>
> Not wide spread perhaps, but evidence in local
> populations...
>
Hi Jammer,

What you would like to see is a tall order unless you're looking for one or two disease traces since most travellers would die on a lengthy voyage before successfully transmitting a serious communicable disease (i.e. the "clean room" effect).

With regard to Vikings, smallpox did not reach Iceland until 1241AD via Denmark, ostensibly introduced there via the Mongol invasion of Europe. The plague arrived in Iceland rather late, in 1404AD (although the pneumonic version decimated Norway's population by up to 85% in 1349-50).

While at Chichen Itza I visited the ballcourt and in the temple on the end of the court there are many carved panels of Mayan figures, except one. I snapped a photo of a bearded man:
The temple was built about 1000AD and the carving appears to be the profile of a man with European feautures. Possibly Norse or some other ethnicity, certainly not Mayan. He must have been one helluva ball player!