Earliest Europeans In North America, Speculation

I was speculating about some of the earliest Europeans to arrive in North America. I was thinking that at first their number was very small and that their arms little better than those they found in use here.
Their bow and arrow technology was frequently no better than that which the found here. The did sometimes bring swords that were in many case superior to native spears and clubs, but the usually did not bring with them the high smithing technology need to make a new sword. And they seldom brought the needed knowledge of metal extraction.

Even in later days a Spanish colonist without horse or armor was about on par with native warriors. It was often lance against lance and bow against bow.

Earliest Europeans In North America, Speculation

How the earliest European arrivals dealt with the sophisticate peoples of the Hopewell system interest es me. How early did significant culture interaction and exchange occur between Hopewell people and perhaps even Adena people and Europeans? Certainly some arrived in the decades around the time of Columbus's explorations. Some very probably before that. Europeans were in North America before Jamestown and Plymouth and some may have looked over the area we now call Kentucky and may be the source of that name. The earliest Europeans to come into the new land did not come in overwhelming numbers or with overwhelming weapons so they would have had to deal with Native Peoples on a more nearly equal basis than the did at later times.

I've heard rumors of Welsh and Irish cultural and linguistic artifacts found among Indian peoples. Must be some interesting stories there.