No, this is not evidence Romans visited North America.
***
So, even though the tiniest bit of googling reveals the story to be wrong, it keeps popping up in my feed. “New Report on Oak Island Could ‘Rewrite History’ of North America.” It’s always accompanied by this picture of a sword found off Oak Island, which is (at the very least) heavily implied to be a Roman sword. It’s not, though. As redditors have already pointed out, the sword is an obvious modern fake, and it’s even available on ebay for 70 euros. It’s just another bunch of “history” from the “History” channel, promoting its new season of a “reality” show called “The Curse of Oak Island,” which, honestly, I’m refusing to link to.
Did vikings reach North America? Yes. Very much so. Did Romans? As far as I know, nobody credible believes so. I’ll let you know if that ever changes.
Happy Monday, everyone.
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Richard Ford Burley is a writer and doctoral candidate at Boston College, as well as an editor at Ledger, the first academic journal devoted to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. In his spare time he writes about science, skepticism, feminism, and futurism here at This Week In Tomorrow.