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.

[SunkenCiv]

I thought we'd had a topic about this.

Archaeologist Patricia Sutherland (orange jacket) excavates a potential Viking site on Baffin Island. Photograph by David Coventry, National Geographic

[SunkenCiv]

viking baffin island site:freerepublic.com

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[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
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[SunkenCiv]

• Scientists turn migration theory on its head
• Rush for iron spurred Inuit ancestors to sprint across Arctic, book contends
• Vikings visited Canadian Arctic, research suggests: Artifacts suggest Norse settlement in Nunavut
• Inukpasuit, Inuit and Viking contact in ancient times
• Kimmirut site suggests early European contact [ Vikings ]
• Mysterious Arctic skull raises questions about what animals once roamed North
• Tooth marks link Vikings, Indians
• Leif Erikson Day, October 9, 2004
• Strand of Ancient Yarn Suggests Early European Presence in Canada
• DNA Study To Settle Ancient Mystery About Mingling Of Inuit, Vikings
• "Vinland Map" Parchment Predates Columbus's Arrival In North America

[fish hawk]

Every time I see pictures of excavations like this I think there is some great treasure in those little partitions of soil they leave between the dig holes. Probably gold. LOL

[RedMDer]

Government did not build this. You did!!

Government did not build this. You did!!

---

Government did not build this.
You did!!

[mass55th]

While doing some searches on IMDb for what some of my favorite actors are working on, I discovered that the History Channel is doing a series called "The Vikings." Here's a link to an article if anyone is interested:

VIKINGS Scripted Series Coming to History Channel

I also just watched a 3-part tv series hosted by Neil Oliver, which was produced for the BBC. Oliver is Scottish born, and as a historian and archaeologist, has hosted several interesting historical documentaries. Even if the topics he covers weren't interesting, I'd enjoy just listening to his Scottish accent. It's wonderful.

[Little Bill]

When I was a kid there was a Dolmen called Table Rock on the Lynn, Peabody, MA line. I didn't realize this at the time but it matched photos I have seen from the UK and Ireland, no history I can find.

[Reily]

any cans of SPAM?

[COBOL2Java]

"Look! I found absentee ballots! They're all cast for Obama!"

[redfreedom]

I cannot authenticate what I am about to say and I blame no one if they disbelieve it. It is taken from memory.

Several years ago we clipped out of a newspaper a story where archaeological evidence was supposedly found showing the Vikings tied their ships to islands, now buttes, in the Turtle Mountains of ND and Manitoba. At that time much of ND was a lake that was supposedly connected through other waterways to the Atlantic.

[BwanaNdege]

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Captivity-Nevil-Shute/dp/0884113213

[jjotto]

Bottom of the page at

https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/ndnotes/ndn17_h.htm

[RugerMini14]

[SunkenCiv]

Interesting, that’s new to me.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, those types of structures are BC in date, and are obviously culturally linked with similar structures east of the Atlantic. Uniquely in North America they are attributed to glacial action by Denialists. :’) There used to be a huge-lettered inscription carved into some cliff by the sea somewhere in New England, reported during colonial times, but the whole face fell off before photography, only descriptions and maybe a drawing survives.

The most famous is probably Mystery Hill in New Hampshire. That one was attributed to some colonial-era family which lived on the site and built something on top the already extant megalithic structures. Remaining isolationist idiots regard such structures as “colonial root cellars”, which is obviously stupid. One of the Pennsylvania universities did archaeology at Mystery Hill back in the 1990s, and found that a hearth site located *inside* the structure RC dated to 2000 BC.

[redfreedom]

Thank you for the reference at DMR ND.

I will never forget reading about the mooring stones at the high elevations because we own property on the second highest elevation in the Turtle Mountains.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks mass55th!

[Little Bill]

I have been to Mystery Hill, most people don't realize that over half the site was hauled off to build Lowell, MA.

If you follow the Merrimack up to the area near North Salem, NH the shore line is a perfect landing place, when the river was running free unconstricted by dams.

Newburyport/Amesbury was a very good harbor. The only problem might have been rocks in Haverhill.

[Squawk 8888]

Canada Ping!