![]() Though this inhospitable spit of land would eventually come to be populated by Canadians, its original inhabitants were forgotten until one day in 1960, when an explorer, an archaeologist, and a nurse were visiting the remote community of L’Anse aux Meadows. And at some point around 1000 A.D., the Norsemen landed on Newfoundland, where they set up a small village. But 500 years before Columbus ever dreamt of sailing west across the Atlantic, the Vikings were already covering thousands of miles of ocean in open ships, surviving on the fish they caught and the meager supplies they had with them. For all the controversy the holiday has generated, Columbus continues to be thought of as the de facto original American. “This is the first clear evidence of Europeans arriving in North America.The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR.įor almost eighty years, the United States has celebrated Christopher Columbus day to honor the discoverer of the New World. The use of an ancient cosmic ray event to exactly date pieces of wood is a relatively new development, and similar techniques are being used to establish firm dates at other sites, said Sturt Manning, a professor of archaeology at Cornell University, who was not involved in the new study. Since Newfoundland itself was then too cold for grapes, the name suggests the Norse also explored warmer regions further south, and pieces of exotic wood found at the site also indicate that, Kuitems said. The sagas refer to the entire region as Vinland, which means “wineland” - supposedly because it was warm enough for grapes used for wine to grow. L’Anse aux Meadows, too, was expected to be a permanent settlement, but the sagas indicate it was abandoned due to infighting and conflicts with indigenous people, whom the Norse called skræling - a word that probably means “wearers of animal skins.” The first was led by Leif Erikson, known as Leif the Lucky - a son of Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland. ![]() The Norse voyages to Newfoundland are mentioned in two Icelandic sagas, which indicate L’Anse aux Meadows was a temporary home for explorers who arrived in up to six expeditions. The researchers can’t tell if the date of 1021 was near the beginning or the end of the Norse occupation, but they expect further research on other wood from the site will expand the range of dates, Kuitems said. To their surprise, each of the three pieces of wood they tested was from a tree cut down in 1021, although they were from three different trees - two firs and probably one juniper. They then used a microscope to count the later growth rings until the bark of the wood, which gave them the exact year the tree had stopped growing - in other words, when it had been felled by the Norse. Trees “breathe” carbon dioxide as they grow, and so the researchers used that radioactive carbon signature to determine which of the annual growth rings seen in cross-sections of the wood was from 993, Kuitems said. Indigenous people occupied L’Anse aux Meadows both before and after the Norse, so the researchers made sure each piece had distinctive marks showing it was cut with metal tools - something the indigenous people did not have. ![]() The scientific key to the exact date that the Norse were there is a spike in a naturally radioactive form of carbon detected in ancient pieces of wood from the site: some cast-off sticks, part of a tree trunk and what looks to be a piece of a plank. It’s listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The archaeological remains are now protected as a historic landmark and Parks Canada has built an interpretive center nearby. This building may have been a church – many Norse were Christian at this time, but perhaps not exclusively so. The reconstructed Norse buildings at L'Anse aux Meadows are based on excavations at the archaeological site. The research suggests the Norse lived at L’Anse aux Meadows for three to 13 years before they abandoned the village and returned to Greenland.
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