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History
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Iceland is not only one of the more geologically recent places on earth, it was also amongst the last to be colonized. European seafarers may have known that something lay out beyond Scotland as far back as 300 BC, when the historian Pytheas of Marseille wrote about "Ultima Thule" - possibly Iceland - a northern land on the edge of a frozen ocean, where it never became dark in summer.
It wasn't until considerably later, however, that Iceland was regularly visited by outsiders, let alone settled, and it's still unclear who might have been the first to try. Whoever they were, the first arrivals would have found the country much the same as it appears today, but well forested with willow and birch, and with no large animals Other useful information
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Iceland |