Evidence of Viking Outpost Found in Canada

National Geographic ^ | October 19, 2012 | Heather Pringle

[SunkenCiv]

While digging in the ruins of a centuries-old building on Baffin Island (map), far above the Arctic Circle, a team led by Sutherland, adjunct professor of archaeology at Memorial University in Newfoundland and a research fellow at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, found some very intriguing whetstones. Wear grooves in the blade-sharpening tools bear traces of copper alloys such as bronze -- materials known to have been made by Viking metalsmiths but unknown among the Arctic's native inhabitants.

Taken together with her earlier discoveries, Sutherland's new findings further strengthen the case for a Viking camp on Baffin Island. "While her evidence was compelling before, I find it convincing now," said James Tuck, professor emeritus of archaeology, also at Memorial University.

Archaeologists have long known that Viking seafarers set sail for the New World around A.D. 1000. A popular Icelandic saga tells of the exploits of Leif Eriksson, a Viking chieftain from Greenland who sailed westward to seek his fortune. According to the saga, Eriksson stopped long enough on Baffin Island to walk the coast -- named Helluland, an Old Norse word meaning "stone-slab land" -- before heading south to a place he called Vinland.

In the 1960s two Norwegian researchers, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine Ingstad, discovered and excavated the Viking base camp at L'Anse aux Meadows (map) on the northern tip of Newfoundland -- the first confirmed Viking outpost in the Americas. Dated to between 989 and 1020, the camp boasted three Viking halls, as well as an assortment of huts for weaving, ironworking, and ship repair.

[Dartman]

I always thought Viking women were a little more ...ummm ...buxom? (Must be thinking of Helga from the Hagar comics).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, I’m sure I didn’t know that.

[beebuster2000]

off the coast of Maine on Monhegan Island (or rather the small island right next to it) there is a rock with supposedly Viking writing on it. Maybe if you look real close.

Monhegan is a logical place for it though, its the first place that europeans seem to have landed in the area, and it was, back in the day, overun with cod, the key reason to be there.

[beebuster2000]

link to monhegan island writing stone:

http://planetvermont.com/pvq/v9n2/megaliths.html

[Smokin' Joe]

If they had managed to sail up the Red River of the North (heading South) during a severe spring flood, it may have seemed as if the whole state was under water, however, the water would have been very shallow draft (generally under 1 fathom), and would have receded within a week.

The old glacial lakes (Souris and Agassiz) drained long before the Vikings would have come through.

[Monkey Face]

Anyone REALLY surprised? NOT!!

[EveningStar]