Some Scandinavian rulers had the designation “the black” after their names. It referred to a dark brown hair color.

The geneticists’ comments I found are less than 30 days old. I don’t know exactly how google cache works, but I think it just temporarily saves a bit of what someone has looked at on the web. Just in case, I tucked a copy of both threads into the January 2005 archives.

Yes, it does seem like the subject is too big for just one discipline. They need another forum with a wider expertise. Architects too.

There is a guy in Wisconsin who knows how to build a stavekirke, and probably others who could compare construction methods between the two building types and tell more about whether the similarity was really accidental or not. If you think about it, in really snowy climates, you see steep roofs, not because the cultural groups are necessarily are connected, but because it is one reaction to a common situation. Maybe the stavekirke/temple similarity has a similar underlying reason.

The conspiracy theory about the lack of knowledge in the 600-800 historical period (Queen Asa’s time) I didn’t think too much of, though. I remember reading somewhere that prior to the rise of Islam (the Islamic calendar starts in 622) the Vikings traded all over, but the instability in that region created by Arab expansion caused a disruption of trade routes and corresponding economic depression in Scandinavia that lasted centuries. The effect shows up in the distribution pattern of Scandinavian coin deposits.

http://www.stavechurch.org/